A flip-flop on docks?

Published 9:00 am Saturday, December 23, 2006

Neighbors now suing the city once opposed new docks nearby.

Calling Blakely Harbor “pristine” is nothing new.

Neither is the claim that new docks on the south-end harbor would harm marine habitat, put fish populations at risk, mar picturesque views or impede boats.

But hearing this perspective from litigants currently suing the city to allow new private docks may come as a surprise. Yet there it is, in black and white.

“The simple fact is that this is not a place which is appropriate or suitable for docks,” wrote harbor resident Thomas Morgan in a letter to the city dated June 25, 2001. “By allowing a new development feature…a fundamental and pronounced impact on the entire aesthetic and environmental beauty of an area has been forever and irrevocably altered.”

Despite his apparent concerns five years ago about proposed docks nearby, Morgan is today suing the city over its current limitation on private docks.

Other litigants named in the suit, including Chuck Kuhn and Marc LaRoche, also filed formal complaints against neighbors’ proposals for family-use docks.

“It was my assumption that there would be no additional docks built on this serene harbor,” Kuhn wrote to the city on Nov. 6, 2000. “It will affect all the other beaches on the harbor with the erosion that will take place with the natural tidal flow… It may also affect the baby herring hatches that feed at the head of the harbor each spring.”

Kuhn now hopes to strike down an ordinance that permits just two neighbhood docks and one public-use dock on Blakely Harbor. He hopes to build a “modest dock” of his own for fishing, boat maintenance and wake boarding.

But in 2001, Kuhn asserted that a proposed dock would be an “eyesore” and an “intrusion to the harbor” that puts one resident’s desire for convenience over the harbor’s health.

“(W)ith all the runaway growth that is happening here on Bainbridge it is clear that more is not better,” he wrote. “Gradually we’re chipping away at the natural resources that make this such a special place to live. Sometimes a little inconvenience is worth the trouble to help our environment remain as natural as possible.”

The letters were unearthed from the public record by Island Keepers, a group that opposes more private docks on the harbor. They were written as the city considered dock applications by the Hacker family on the south shore – it was denied – and on the north shore by the Bottles family, whose dock was eventually approved and built.

“I find it extraordinary that the individuals who are willing to put our Blakely Harbor ecosystem at risk were so intent on defending that ecosystem in 2001 and 2002, when two individuals wanted to build two docks,” Island Keepers member Sally Adams said.

But Kuhn says Blakely Harbor is “no more special” than any other Puget Sound harbor and that current environmental concerns about new docks are largely overblown.

“(The Bottles) dock turned out fine and I changed my mind,” Kuhn said. “I didn’t see future problems after the dock was built.”

Kuhn said dredging up his and other litigants’ letters opposing docks five years ago is a calculated move to undermine a legal settlement with the city. “It’s nasty,” he said. “They’re throwing stuff around about people.”

LaRoche said activists are “whipping up a PR campaign to make well-intentioned people upset.”

The north shore resident said the letter that he signed opposing docks in 2000 contained assertions he did not support at the time, and does not support now.

The letter he signed with two other Blakely families states: “We hope to preserve the character of this harbor – the most nearly pristine for miles around – for years and generations to come; the granting of this (dock) permit would threaten this fragile environment.”

In addition, the letter asserts a “cumulative negative impact on fish and other water life when more docks are installed, especially in (a) sensitive salmon rearing area such as this, even when each individual dock is designed in an environmentally careful way.”

LaRoche now says he opposed his neighbor’s proposed dock in 2000 on a design basis.

“It was a floating dock that rested on the beach at low tide,” he said. “It rests on the beach and scrubs the beach. The reason I opposed the dock didn’t have to do with preserving Blakely Harbor as some ‘pristine’ place – which it’s not – but, by a case-by-case basis, there are docks that I’d oppose. It had more to do with that specific proposal for that dock. My feeling was it wasn’t the right type.”

LaRoche now believes a single dock – floating or pile-mounted – would likely pose little problem for the environment.

“I don’t think that one floating dock has an impact on the harbor or Puget Sound,” he said. “It’s a huge leap to link six- or eight-foot wide docks with somehow having an impact.”

LaRoche said he joined the lawsuit to bring property rights into balance with environmental concerns. He also said that federal and state regulations would prevent a proliferation of poorly designed docks.

“Some are trying to say we’re hypocrites,” he said. “We’re not hypocrites. (The dock issue) needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. You can’t paint people with a broad brush.”