Many Shaw residents support Public Works Shaw facility | Column

Published 1:30 am Friday, June 5, 2026

By Brad Jones

Shaw Island

The Journal’s May 19 article, “Hearing Examiner rules that no EIS is needed for Shaw Public Works” describes the County’s effort to use a 16-acre parcel of County-owned land on Shaw Island to greatly improve the County’s ability to provide essential public services to the island. After the Council approved the project, a small group of Shaw residents, acting as the Shaw Island Alliance, appealed the County’s decision, suggesting that it would lead to industrial development on the island and cause significant environmental damage. Because of the appeal, the County could not use its parcel, and dozens of tons of soil generated by the County’s spring road maintenance and ditch clearing had to be dumped next to the Shaw Island Community Center building on another County-owned parcel. Large piles of dirt now cover much of the Community Center parking area used by residents, creating an eyesore and logistical challenges for Shaw Island’s annual Fourth of July parade and celebration. Realizing their appeal has caused considerable anger, the Alliance now proposes that the County quickly scoop up all the dirt and dump it on the County-owned Shaw Island Park before the 4th of July.

I fear that the Shaw Island Alliance is giving the impression that most Shaw residents oppose the County’s project. From the many people I have talked to, the truth is the exact opposite. The County is trying to improve the quality and timeliness of important public services to Shaw Island. The project also provides Shaw property owners with a great return for the taxes they pay to the County. Shaw provides less than 1% of the County’s tax revenue but will receive 100% of the project’s benefits. The Alliance members, most of whom live near the project site, have adopted the “not in my back yard” (NIMBY) approach and are seeking to deny the rest of the Shaw’s property owners and residents the quality of services the County is offering. But those same people would likely be the first to complain if, e.g., snow or flooding severely impacted Shaw and it took extra days for County assistance because it doesn’t have the equipment or facilities available on the island.

The Alliance is appealing the Council’s rezoning of the project parcel to Rural Industrial, arguing it will “open the door to permitting concrete batch plants, bulk fuel storage, commercial composting, garbage transfer, wrecking and salvage yards, and treatment of sewage and sludge.” In Latin, this is called a “reductio ad absurdum” (extreme case fallacy). It is also a hypothetical absurdity. While the County Code may allow such activities on Rural Industrial zoned property, none of those would ever occur on Shaw Island. Aside from the universal opposition they would engender, who would ever seek to construct and operate one of those facilities on an island of 250 people where everything must come or go by ferry or barge?

The Alliance also argues that allowing the County to stage equipment, material and people at the project site could result in soil and groundwater pollution. I have practiced environmental law for almost 40 years. I’m intimately familiar with state and federal laws, regulations and permits concerning stormwater and contaminated soil and groundwater. I have represented the Washington Department of Natural Resources, King County, the cities of Seattle and Tacoma, Fortune 500 companies and approximately 20,000 citizens in half a dozen class action lawsuits against polluters. I feel qualified to express informed opinions about the County’s project and the arguments against it.

The potential for the County’s project to cause contamination of soils or groundwater is negligible. None has occurred from decades of County road maintenance on Shaw. The soils that are removed from ditch digging or scraping road shoulders do not come from commercial or industrial properties that generate hazardous wastes or from dense residential areas with high traffic volumes. The only likely contaminant would be drips and drabs of petroleum products leaking from the few cars and trucks that drive on our roads in amounts that would be difficult to even measure. And petroleum is less hazardous than nearly every other chemical or contaminant. The soil cleanup standard for petroleum is 2,000 parts per million as compared to the PCB standard of 1 part per million. I’ve reviewed soil sample results from many unpaved industrial trucking sites that have operated for decades, and nearly every petroleum result is below 2,000 parts per million.

The Alliance’s true colors are evident in their “solution.” Recognizing their appeal has resulted in tons of soils being dumped at the Community Building, threatening our Fourth of July celebration, it proposes that the County quickly haul the soils to the Shaw County Park, where the County will have to strip trees and vegetation to dump the same soils the Alliance is worried are contaminated. But so long as their fear of environmental impacts is moved out of their neighborhood, they are apparently fine. The Alliance’s “concerns” are not about Shaw Island; they are only about their own neighborhood. I’ve seldom seen a better example of NIMBY attitudes.