PORT ANGELES — Touting his legislative record days after filing for re-election to a third term, Democratic state Rep. Kevin Van De Wege of Sequim said Tuesday he felt the pain of those upset with the policies of the state Department of Ecology.
Van De Wege, also a Clallam Fire District 3 firefighter/paramedic, joined others in the audience of about 30 at the Port Angeles Business Association weekly breakfast meeting who roundly criticized Ecology.
The agency was accused of stalling plans to develop the Rayonier pulp mill site two miles east of downtown Port Angeles into something economically beneficial and for pushing unfair water-use limitations for new homes under the Water Resource Inventory Area process.
“I agree, in our minds, DOE is not working the way it’s supposed to,” Van De Wege, 35, said, suggesting that constant litigation by groups such as Futurewise often stands in the way and that the ballot box may be the only recourse.
He was responding to comments from PABA member Kaj Ahlburg, a former lawyer and current member of the Harbor-Works Development Authority board.
Rayonier site
Harbor-Works was created to acquire the Rayonier site, direct its redevelopment and help clean it up.
After the mill, which operated for 68 years, closed in 1997, pockets of PCBs, dioxin, arsenic and other toxins were found on the site, which is at the end of Ennis Street.
“DOE bureaucrats are career folks,” Ahlburg said.
The Rayonier cleanup, put under state purview in 2000, is being conducted by DOE under state law and a partnership with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
More than 10 years later after cleanup began, an agreement between Rayonier and Ecology about what areas near the mill site must be cleaned up has not been reached. The deadline for plans is 2013.
Ahlburg also claimed Ecology went beyond its “statutory authority” in severely limiting draw-downs from new wells under the WRIA planning.
“What is our recourse?” Ahlburg asked, wondering what citizens can do “when an agency like DOE is not working.”
Not ecology critic
But Van De Wege also said not everyone is an Ecology critic.
“A lot of people in the state feel that Ecology is doing exactly what it needs to be doing, some of whom live out here,” he said.
But Harbor-Works Executive Director Jeff Lincoln did not mince words.
“It appears nobody is accountable for what happens to DOE,” he said, adding they can go on and on with a project “that takes years and years and years,” an unacceptable process if the public agency were a private business.
Review of session
The meeting was billed as a review of the concluded 2010 legislative session.
“This wasn’t a campaign thing,” Van De Wege said afterward.
But during his talk he took credit for sponsoring 20 bills and for helping Peninsula Plywood get started in Port Angeles.
He helped the company secure a $1 million low-interest loan and $250,000 for capital improvements.
In addition, as a champion of biomass energy, he helped pass a bill that allows the state Department of Natural Resources to enter into harvester contracts of longer than the standard two years if biomass such as stumps and other slash are collected and used for industrial fuel, he said.
He also said he successfully fought efforts to impose a statewide sales tax increase.
But to plug an $11.8 billion budget shortfall, additional taxes were levied on candy, soda and beer that expire in three years, while tax increases on beer and cigarettes will stay put.
Van De Wege also supported scaling back five state environmental boards to two, cutting state jobs and making the process more efficient.
“Doing careful cuts and scaling back government at the same time, making sure we serve the public the best we can, is something I’ve done,” Van De Wege said.
“How much we come out of the recession will dictate what our next session will look like,” he said.
“We might have to make more cuts and more efficiencies and hopefully we can continue to do those without having too much effect in the role that the state plays in people’s lives.”
Though one of Van De Wege’s opponents in the primary — Republican Port Angeles real estate broker Dan Gase — was in the audience, he didn’t speak up during the 75-minute meeting.
“I look forward to doing candidate forums with my opponent,” Gase said later.
“Since this was billed as an annual report from the Legislature, I owed him that respect to let him do his thing. I will certainly have plenty of opportunity to get my message across.”
Gase, Van De Wege and Republican Craig Durgan of Port Ludlow, a business owner, are in the Aug. 17 primary.
The top two vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, will square off in the Nov. 2 general election.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.