For many years, Midland has struggled to get help with environmental problems, whether it was for filling wetlands, or dumping load after load of fill, disturbing waterways, clear cutting trees, causing flooding, all those destructive things.  Then we started to hear that people from all over this county have struggled with this same issue.  Most of these people thought all they had to do was phone their county and this would be stopped and corrected.  They then found this was not the case.  Why?  Pierce County has no way to enforce the environmental laws so no-one can stop the violators.    No fines, no tickets, no restoration, no cancellation of the applications, nothing can be ordered.  Many gave up in helpless frustration, believing that nothing can be done, "you can't fight city hall"  We wanted to know why.  Why can't we do anything about this?  Why do the violators get to lie, misrepresent the scope of the critical areas on the land they want to build on, or just go ahead and clear the land regardless, and no-one seems to ever stop them, they then just get their permits and build?
After exhaustive research and comparison of all these laws versus which of these laws are enforceable in this county, we found none of these laws are on the books because  Pierce County has never added the enacted environmental laws into our comprehensive plan, so they are not made into regulations and codified, therefore cannot be enforced by anyone in this county.  Without the codes, code enforcement cannot act.  And, the State does not have the authority to come into this home rule county and force enforcement.

I have taken this issue to both the Governor's office and the Attorney General's office.  They advise us that since Pierce County is a home rule government, the people must tell their government to take care of  this.   The first recommendation is by advisory petition.  The second is by suing - not a good idea since the county would defend itself with our taxpayer money.  Since it is estimated that Pierce County has already spent between 50 million and 100 million of our tax dollars to fix environmental damage created by development where the violator was never made to pay nor to fix the damage, losing yet more of our money through lawsuits is not really the answer.  So we have started the petition.

I urge all of you, please sign this petition.  We could do so much more for our county with that money.  It is far beyond time that the violators be held responsible to abide by the laws.  The people of Pierce County must instruct our local government to see to this oversight and correct it immediately.

Take a petition around your neighborhood.  Go online to  www.wethepeopleofpiercecounty.org  for more information, or directly to  http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/tell-pierce-county-to-enforce-environmental-laws  to sign on-line.

And, please, tell a friend, forward this information to everyone you know, let's get this done!

Thank you,

Cindy Beckett

President, Midland Residents Association

Midland, Washington