SOLOMON/SIMPSON MOVING FULL STEAM AHEAD
Submitted to Shelton Blog by Duff Badgley
Mason County Progressive
The City of Shelton has confirmed there are only 21 days from today (March 31, 2011) to file an appeal of the Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance SEPA finding for the proposed Solomon/Simpson biomass project--or be forever barred from appealing the MDNS. If we are barred, any appeal of the air permit issued later by ORCAA would be stripped of including the underlying MDNS, which would greatly reduce our chances of success.
I asked Jason Dose, Senior Planner for the City of Shelton, if the publication in today's Shelton-Mason County Journal of a "Notice of Action" for the Solomon/Simpson MDNS means we have just 21 days to appeal the MDNS in the courts, or be barred from further appeals of the MDNS. He said, "That's my understanding."
However, Dose also confirmed in an email to me today that the city has issued no permits for the Solomon/Simpson biomass proposal, nor has it scheduled any public hearings required by those permit applications.
Dose was unable to reconcile this lack of permits from the city for the Solomon/Simpson biomass proposal with language in RCW 43.21C.075. This statute requires a permit to be issued as "specific governmental action" before the 21 day appeal period for the MDNS can start. RCW 43.21C.075 appears to exclude SEPA findings (the Solomon/Simpson MDNS) as a "specific governmental action".
Regardless of this contradiction, we need an attorney now--or be barred from appealing this egregious MDNS.
Duff Badgley
No Biomass Burn
SHELTON BLOG NOTE:
Link to Simpson/Solomon NOA:
http://myweb.hcc.net/pkands/docs/Simpson_NOA.pdf
NOA also available in blog Reference Documents
It is frightening that it was the City of Shelton who published this NOA, and that they published it for the first time last Thursday, March 24th.
ReplyDeleteThat means that on Monday last week some city minion delivered that legal notice to the Journal to be published on Thursday, the same day we got an email providing the link to the MDNS...
Fully four days before we the pesky citizens got a heads up, the City (NOT SIMPSON) set in motion the accelerated process designed to prevent citizens from affecting the decisions of city's and industry.
My anger has reached new levels.
I hope that the air-breathing community show up in numbers heretofore unseen in the City of Shelton on Monday, April 4, at 6:00 p.m., to take advantage of our three minutes of comment time, to comment on how betrayed we feel.
From the local level to the federal level it is becoming clear that none of our government agencies are working for the citizen.