Your article on the Shoreline Master Plan and Dept. of Ecology required changes was disappointing in what it left out.

It is true that the SMP went from the Citizen Advisory Committee to the Planning Commission and on to the City Council. It is also true that DOE was involved to some extent all along the way. What was left out was that most of the objections DOE has to the plan were to arbitrary changes made by the council against the recommendations of the Citizen Advisory Council and the Planning Commission. These were changes pushed by well-organized special interest groups of homeowners.

Public access to Lake Burien is one example. The Lake Burien Shore Club has strongly opposed any type of access for the public to use the public lake. They hired two "experts" who did studies and stated the expected conclusion that public access should not be allowed.

However, they had no scientific evidence in their studies to back up the conclusions. One based her conclusion on a resident's statement that residents do not use their boats on other bodies of water.

Therefore, only craft from a public access could bring in invasive species. Not only was the statement that no residents use their craft elsewhere unscientific, it was unverifiable and is, in fact, false.

Of course, she also offered no evidence that a hand-launched craft has ever introduced an invasive species. Her study did list numerous species of plants and animals that the residents did deliberately and illegally introduce into the lake. It also mentioned that in the residential shorelines almost all of the native vegetation had been removed. Somehow these last points did not make it into the summary.

The other study concluded that there are several reasons to ban public access and hand launched craft. It actually only listed two. One is the blue green algae risk, which is a reason to ban swimming by anyone, but has nothing to do with public access. The other reason is the risk of introducing an invasive species, but the only evidence was a study of a boat ramp in Michigan.

In an email response to me, the author admitted that he knew of no study that showed that hand-launched craft had introduced invasive species anywhere. Contrary to the endless repetition of testifying LBSC members and at least one council member, no studies submitted have shown that hand-launched craft at a public access is a significant risk to the lake. The only reason to ban hand-launched craft is to maintain the public lake for the exclusive use of the well-connected shoreline owners.

DOE is charged with enforcing the provisions of the Shoreline Management act and other environmental laws. The requirements were clear throughout the process. The council's changes on behalf of the pressure groups were what caused most of the conflict. The change letter from DOE clearly documents the changes needed and the reasons. If Councilman Block calls DOE "too arbitrary" and Councilman Shaw says DOE "...went into a back room and made their own decision" they are either being disingenuous or confusing the action of DOE with the action of the City Council.

Lee Moyer
Burien