Given the Department of Ecology backing of net pens against all opposition from elected local officials, scientists, and the population, perhaps it could be argued that they need to have their budgets cut. The question would be, from which department? Apparnently when one local elected official called on the new head of DOE, Maia Bellon, not long after she took office, she told him that her department couldn’t allow a ban on net pens in the counties Shoreline Master Program, that the issue had to be taken to the legislature. No one has ever said that before. Given that her department is one of the departments that approves in water aquaculture in the State, it was an odd statement. And she is getting paid how much to manage this organization? Given that even a nuclear power plant, a water dependent business, would have to be sited up off the waters edge, you would think that closed containment aquaculture could be also.
One potentially divisive piece of the Washington Senate-House budget talks is whether the Washington Department of Ecology faces significant cuts, including the potential closure of its Bellingham office. As with much of the rest of the state’s operating budget, the Republican-oriented Senate wants to trim part of Ecology’s budget for 2013-2015. The Senate’s Majority Coalition Caucus — an alliance of 23 Republicans and two Democrats — believes the ecology department has become too fat and should be trimmed to become more cost-effective. The ecology department disagrees. The Bellingham office plays a variety of roles, ranging from helping out in the response to the recent I-5 bridge collapse to working on the review of a proposed coal port north of the city.
John Stang reports.
http://crosscut.com/2013/05/30/olympia-2013/114703/ecology-budget-squeeze/
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: budget, department of ecology, goverment, olympia, Puget Sound |
