We The People of Pierce County . org

OUR PIERCE COUNTY CHARTER BEGINS WITH THIS.....

ARTICLE 1 -- POWERS OF THE COUNTY The provisions of this Article allow the County the power to take any action not expressly forbidden by State Law, thus providing "home rule."

INSTRUCT PIERCE COUNTY GOVERNMENT TO IMPLEMENT AND
ENFORCE ALL WASHINGTON STATE ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS

Every day more wetlands are being illegally destroyed. You can help stop it by joining others in sending an unambiguous message to the Pierce County Council - that the citizenry of Pierce County expects our elected officials to add the state environmental laws into the Pierce County Comprehensive Plan, so they may be made into regulations, and codified to allow enforcement.

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This flooding was caused recently by improper development practices that break Washington State Law by clearing and filling in natural wetlands. The flooding you see in the picture is water that belongs in a stream or river, helping to support salmon habitat and wetland eco-systems - instead, it's stuck in this ditch, polluted and useless.

The Attorney General has con-firmed that all enacted laws are enforceable; however, few if any of the enacted environmental laws are enforced in Pierce County. These laws still have not been added into the Pierce County Comprehensive Plan, so have not been made into regulations and codified to allow enforcement, including writing tickets, imposing fines, ordering restoration, or rescinding permits.

This has resulted in great loss of our natural water resources, deprived our Salmon bearing creeks of much needed water supply, loss of wetlands and ground water resources, toxic algae blooms and warm water in our lakes, endangered our watersheds and aquifers, caused property damage to others by displacing wetland and flood plain waters, and allowed inappropriate development to occur in environmentally sensitive areas.

Authorized enforcement and penalties assigned to these laws could have prevented much of this damage and saved valuable taxpayer dollars used to correct this damage after the fact of development. It is estimated to be between $50 and $100 million dollars have already been used to fix illegal damage while the violator cannot be made to pay anything. This is wrong!

We could do so much more for our County with that money if the violators were held liable for their damage.

Sign the petition today!