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Page A-8 Shelton-Mason County Journal — Thursday, Jan. 13, ,
BOUNTY
County responds
to tribe’s letter
on water rights
Mason County commissioners ap-
proved a letter in response to the
Squaxin Island Tribe’s letter about a
Memorandum of Agreement on water
rights between the county and tribe
signed in February 2019. r
The Squaxin Island Tribe wrote a
letter to the commissioners Dec. 8 ad~
dressing the MOA. The tribe summa-
rizes its letter by saying “the county
has failed to complete many tasks
under the MOA in a timely manner
and appears likely to miss upcom-
ing deadlines. Please understand
that the tribe may need to invoke
the MOA’s mediation provision.” The
tribe states its hope and goal is to
work with the county to avoid judi-
ciaI action to enforce the MOA.
Mason County’s letter in response
states’the MOA only applies to Water
Resource Inventory Area 14 and the
county says they are committed to
looking into projects such as beaver
dam analogs, managed aquifer re-
charge areas and water right acqui—
sitions where it benefits both public
and private partners.
“Given the restrictions placed
upon the county by the governor and
secretary of Health and upholding its
primary responsibility to the health
and safety of its residents during this
ongoing COVID crisis, the county has
made great progress towards meeting
' the obligations of the MOA,” the let-
ter states. “Several elements pulled
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from the WRIA 14 Draft Plan which
address remaining tasks are included
as attachments. If the ultimate goal
is to improve water quantity and
quality, the county believes enough
data has been collected during the
WRIA process. The county is ready to
move forward with our partners and
begin work on projects that will make
a difference to aquifer recharge.”
During the Jan. 10 meeting, Sha-
ron Haensly from the Squaxin Island
Tribe’s Natural Resources depart-
ment provided testimony on the ac-
tion item and had it removed for a
separate vote. Haensly said the tribe
commended the county on completing
a number of the tasks in the MOA,
.but the tribe respectfully disagrees
with the county’s response.
“There are a number of partially
completed tasks or not completed
tasks and we respectfully take issue
with the county’s response on many
of those,” Haensly said during her
testimony. “We’re going to give them
a very hard look. It may be that we ‘
agree on some but I can say that on
' a number of them, including some
important ones to the tribe, I think
there’s a disagreement.”
Haensly said the completing of
the tasks is important to the tribe for
the long-term viability and exercise
of its treaty fishing rights. She re-
minded the commissioners that the
tribe dismissed its lawsuit against
the county over the county’s update
to its comprehensive plan and devel-
opment regulations because it didn’t
do enough to protect streamflow and
fisheries. In return, the county would
live up to the tasks in the MOA.
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“The next step that’s envisioned
under the MOU is to go to media—
tion. We jointly choose a mediator
and maybe, hopefully, we can try to
resolve through mediation, many,
if not all of the issues, so that we
don’t need to go seek enforcement in
court,” Haensly said. “I think what
you should expect to see from the
tribe is a detailed response on what
the disputed issues are so that it
makes mediation that much more
effective and we can talk about who
to choose and how to choose the
mediator.”
Sewer public hearing
moved to Jan. 31
The public hearing for the Belfair
Sewer extension has been pushed to A
6 pm. on Jan. 31 over Zoom.
The hearing is to present informa-
tion on the proposed Belfair Sewer
extension and staff will present in-
formation describing the proposed
project, project funding options and
the history of the Belfair sewer/water
reclamation facility.
The'URL to join the meeting will
be posted on masoncountywagov.
Questions and comments can be
emailed ahead of time to msmith@ma-
soncountywagov or it can be called in
at 360-427-9670 ext. 230.
Shutty selected
as board chair
Commissioner Kevin Shutty was
selected as the Board of County
Commissioners chairperson at the
Jan. 10 meeting.
Commissioner Randy Neatherlin
nominated Shutty for the chair posi-
tion and he was selected with a unani-
mous vote. Shutty nominated commis- ‘
sioner Sharon Trask to be vice chair, ,
which was unanimously approved.
Plastic film recycling
pilot plan approved
County commissioners approved
an agreement with SC Johnson for a
pilot program for curbside plastic film
recycling. .
According to the. information pack-.
et, SC Johnson, the city of Shelton ’
and Mason County have agreed to the
program. The pilot program is for six
months, beginning Feb. 16. Materi-
als collected through the program in—
clude, but are not limited to, dry plas-
tic grocery bags, Ziploc brand food
storage bags, dry cleaning bags and
other flexible plastic wrap. The City
of Shelton is working with its hauler
and SC Johnson to purchase, dis-
tribute and collect up' to 90 21-gallon
containers to collect the recyclables
associated with this program.
Mason County will purchase stor-
age containers at its transfer facility
to store the plastic film collected from
the curbside and will transport the
material up to two times. to the Laut-V
enbach facility in Mount Vernon. SC
Johnson will reimburse the c0unty up
to $2,000 for costs during storage and
transportation.
I Compiled by reporter Matt Baide
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