The Wildcat Aquifer [A] is located in the northeastern-most corner of Grays Harbor County. It is the sole source of drinking water for the three municipal wells of the City of McCleary and the unincorporated portion of Grays Harbor County surrounding the northeast, north and west sides of McCleary. The aquifer protection area extends North from the McCleary city limits to the Mason County line. And the aquifer's wellfield recharge area [B] is in the middle of the aquifer protection area. The bulk of both the aquifer protection and recharge areas are almost wholly within Grays Harbor County's purview.
In 1989, the income of 22.5% of McCleary residents was at or below the poverty level, compared to 16.5% for Grays Harbor County. Between 1990 and 2000, the population dropped 1%, compared to an increase of 5% for Grays Harbor County. Ninety-four percent are white, the median age is 38.2. In 1999, the Median Household Income was $30,769, and the Median Family Income was $36,534. Median House Value in 2000 was $88,400. Of the 600 citizens over the age of 16 who are in the work force, 51 are unemployed - about 8.5%. [Grays Harbor Council of Governments 2005] In 2000 only 4.1% of the population aged 25 or older had a bachelor's degree, and 2.2% had Master's or doctorate degrees, compared with 18.5% and 9.3% respectively for the State of Washington. [ePodunk 2005]
Statistically, McCleary has been a low-income, under-educated community, labeled a "mill town", where kids graduate from the high school in Elma and leave the town for better prospects. Many townspeople come together for the sake of the kids (e.g., the annual carnival at McCleary School has a high attendance), and whenever there's food on the agenda.
The town has a Mayor and five Council members, a City Administrator, a City Clerk, a part-time Judge, and a handful of police officers. A full-time Building Inspector and an on-call Hearings Examiner, along with the contract services of a King County engineering firm and a volunteer Planning Commission, are the extent of McCleary's ability to address building issues in town. When I read about the "Iron Law of Oligarchy", I thought of McCleary. The Mayor is paid $200 a month, the Council members are paid $50 a month. It wouldn't be surprising to discover that, while the town is supposed to be governed by the elected officials, the City Administrator really runs the show.
An "Aquifer Study" [C] was prepared for the City of McCleary in 1994. At the time of the study, the land North of the city limits was zoned mostly forest. But since then, and particularly in recent months, numerous developments have sprouted up, numerous zoning changes have been made to favor development, and small sections of land have been annexed to the City of McCleary.
Basically, developments within the city limits must be on the city's water and sewer system. However, the homes, businesses and farms are all getting their water from wells, and are "dumping" their sewage into septic tanks - which means the sewage is filtering through the recharge area, and ultimately into the whole area's drinking water.
The engineering firm which prepared the aquifer study made numerous recommendations in their 1994 report, and in a follow-up letter sent to the City of McCleary in 2003. Among the recommendations were:
The city has performed some of the actions recommended in the aquifer study, but not all - significantly it has not petitioned for sole source designation, despite the City Administrator's comment in an email to me: " . . . if there was a contamination event or natural disaster that resulted in a permanent or temporary loss of our drinking water . . . We would need to find an alternate water source or drill a well upstream of the contamination in the same aquifer and bring in water from other jurisdictions via truck. We are not close enough to any other water systems to intertie our water systems." [emphasis added] [Shay 2005]
There are several conflicting perspectives surrounding the Wildcat Aquifer issue.
Developers see McCleary as a bedroom community, and fertile ground for building new houses. Many McCleary residents work outside McCleary - from Olympia to Aberdeen and beyond.
A major employer in the community is Simpson Mastermark Door plant. In recent years the Door Plant has been exploring different locations, one in Centralia / Chehalis and one at the Satsop Development Park (the former WPPSS nuclear plant). For more than a decade, the City has attempted to attract new industries into the area, to increase the economic base and secure more jobs in case the Door Plant moves out of McCleary altogether.
Additionally, as noted in the aquifer study recommendations, petitioning the EPA for sole source aquifer designation: "No commitment for federal financial assistance (through grant, contract, loan guarantee, or otherwise) may be entered into for any project which the Administrator determines may contaminate such an aquifer. . ." If the City Council is pro-development, they might consider sole source designation as potentially limiting to development.
During my interview with the Director of Grays Harbor County Public Services, I was told that cities need to grow to increase their tax base. This sounds pretty straightforward until you think about it a little. So . . . the city annexes more property to get more taxes. Then they have to increase their services for the larger population. So they spend more money to provide the infrastructure for those services. So they need to increase their tax base (again!). Etc., etc., ad infinitum?
A member of the McCleary Planning Commission has attended an annual program called "Leadership Grays Harbor". It's a demanding year-long program which costs more than $1,000, and attendance is required at the weekend sessions which are held approximately every six weeks. She informed me that much of the focus of the meetings drills the importance of economic development into the minds of the participants, with particularly negative comments about environmentalists. [Thornton 2005]
At the present time there is no formal agreement between the City of McCleary and Grays Harbor County to control development over the Wildcat Creek Aquifer, and the aquifer recharge area is under the control of the county. The City of McCleary has a Comprehensive Land Use Plan, which was completed after numerous public meetings. Grays Harbor County is not under the Growth Management Act, and has an outdated Comprehensive Land Use Plan which is being revised.
This poses an interesting challenge, because, while the aquifer study recommendations include educating area residents about the problems with contaminants, no such recommendations were made to Grays Harbor County. While the City of McCleary is required by the federal Clean Water Act to publish an annual "Consumer Confidence Report" about the quality of the drinking water supplied by the city's water system, Grays Harbor County has no such mandate for the water they "provide" through the aquifer's "water system".
In a letter from the Director of Grays Harbor's Planning and Building Division, the writer alludes to a "delicate balance between property rights and the responsibilities of the individual property owner to the community". [E] While researching this subject, I spoke with several County employees, each of whom said zoning change requests are considered on a case by case basis. [F] This is somewhat alarming, because absent a county comprehensive plan which incorporates some cooperation with the cities surrounded by county-regulated land, it's conceivable the county could, case by case, "decrease" zoning to the point where the sum total of the land is zoned residential.
While the city has "educated" the community about the vulnerability of the aquifer and the dangers of contaminants, the education comes in the form of a few paragraphs in the one-page Consumer Confidence Report which is printed and distributed annually to the city electric customers (which includes residents north of the city limits). What about the other 11 months of the year when people are moving in to the community? And while there are laws about handling and disposing of contaminants, such as fertilizers, pesticides, and the like, enforcement is another issue. Since environmental statistics state that something like 80% of the pollution from pesticides and fertilizers comes from private residences (!!), it is largely a matter of cooperation on the part of the people who live and work (and dispose of their waste and drink the water) in the realm of the Wildcat Aquifer.
In the late 1990s there were several public hearings about annexing property to the City of McCleary. At that time, I regularly attended City Council meetings, and was amazed at the turnout for these hearings. Nearly 100% of the public comments were in opposition to annexation, with the exception of the developer [G], who wanted to build low-cost modular homes. At that year's election, the mayor and every council member up for re-election were ousted.
In recent months, the City has been annexing land here and there - both North and South of the existing city limits. Legal notices are published in the county's newspapers and on the City Council meeting agendas (which few people read), and legal written notices are only sent to landowners in a regulated vicinity of land proposed to be annexed. According to the City Administrator, "more than 300 acres of land have been purchased by developers, both in and out of the city limits". [Shay 2005]
One of the larger developments under construction has a homeowner association. After public hearings about this development, the Hearings Examiner made recommendations for the homeowner association to include instructions about protecting the aquifer in the CC&Rs. [H] Other recommendations were made, as well. When it was discovered that the City granted final plat approval without a homeowner association (and the warnings and educational materials which were to be included), and that other recommendations were not followed, a local activist filed a petition with the Superior Court of Grays Harbor County against the City of McCleary and the developers. The case was settled out of court, with the City and developer agreeing to "toe the line".
It's difficult to predict whether the Wildcat Aquifer will remain healthy and continue to provide drinking water for its residents. Limited resources and staff have evidently precluded the City of McCleary from a conducting a comprehensive, ongoing education program, let alone pursuing the recommendation to petition the EPA for sole source designation. And even less effort has been expended by the County to educate its residents who, because of their septic tanks, actually constitute a greater threat to the aquifer.
The mindset that a community must grow to increase its tax base is not sustainable. A new model is needed - if a municipality cannot serve the populace with the existing tax base, services should be adjusted or taxes should be adjusted.
And, finally, the local governmental agencies who share the responsibility to protect the Wildcat Aquifer need to adjust their political will to work together, not just because of mandates from state and federal laws, but for the common good of the community.