Hoping the third time is the charm, more than five years after beginning the process, Des Moines officials are resubmitting their Shoreline Master Program (SMP) for approval by the state Department of Ecology.

Des Moines was one of the early adopters when the state began asking all the cities and counties to update their Shoreline Master Program. Councilmember Dan Sherman described Des Moines as an experiment-- an experiment that went horribly wrong.

The Des Moines SMP was originally adopted in 1988 and has not been revised since then. The 1988 SMP is still in effect and remains the legal document governing the shorelines in Des Moines until the DOE accepts a new one.

Des Moines formally began updating their SMP in 2004. It was approved by the city council to be sent to the DOE in February 2006. The process went downhill from there.

The SMP was supposed to be completed by June 30, 2006. DOE gave the SMP back to Des Moines, with comments that needed to be addressed, in the first week of July. That left the city with no time to address the comments made by DOE.

The DOE granted an extension to Dec. 30. However, after the city was given the extension they discovered the grant funding for the SMP had expired. The DOE grant goes through the fiscal year, which ends June 30, and does not roll over into the next year automatically.

With no funds to work on the SMP, Des Moines staffers told the DOE the December deadline was meaningless unless funds were made available. After acknowledging the problem, the city heard nothing from the DOE until four months later in November.

The DOE met with the city, telling them state legislators were aware of the financial problem with enacting the SMP, and funding would likely be restored in 2007.

The DOE also informed Des Moines staffers that their comments were incomplete, giving the city another 53 comments from the Attorney General's Office. These additional comments, dated July 8, were given to the city on Nov. 7.

Funding was restored in December, and the city's deadline to complete the SMP was extended to June 30 2007. The revised SMP went back to the city council for approval in April and was submitted to the DOE in May 2007.

The city heard nothing from DOE until nearly nine months later. The DOE identified 117 deficiencies. The city's grant money at this point had been completely spent.

With no money left to address the issues, the SMP sat idle for over a year. Last September Des Moines received an additional grant to work on the SMP.

Staff said the process has been a frustrating experience for all involved.

The city was recently assigned a new DOE project manager, Barbara Nightingale. Council members and staff thanked Nightingale for helping them make sense out of what, Des Moines officials said, were often vague and confusing comments from the DOE.