This site promotes forest restoration in Southworth, WA and protests the 2019 forest destruction at 11090 SE Southworth Dr., Port Orchard, WA, in violation of Kitsap County code. Read background information, learn about the related legal case, send Kitsap County your opinion of the deforestation, and donate to support nearby restoration and legal efforts.

At the Southworth Forest near the ferry terminal in Port Orchard, the goal for each planting season is to install at least 75 new trees of two to three feet in height in areas where noxious and invasive species had previously taken over. Each tree is then carefully protected from deer damage. From October 2024 to March 2025, a total of 76 trees was planted and even more nearby area was prepared for restoration the next season. Routine trail maintenance is included in this work.

Another grove of 19 coast redwood trees was added just outside of the western wetland basin in the forest, alongside the original 20 coast redwoods introduced to the area the year before. Imported from a supplier in Oregon, these trees have proven to have a very high survival rate when planted at the two to three-foot size with their roots in plugs when shipped. Even when their tops die back in the first summer season while establishing, they vigorously return from either their base or partway up their original stem. They will need manually watered through the first several summers in the ground.

The southeastern side of the forest continues to suffer from the impacts of the neighboring deforestation at 11090 SE Southworth Dr., which remains in the code compliance process for its violation. Fortunately, clear-cutters Meghan and Clint Edwards abandoned their plan to remove up to 70 trees from a disputed easement along that boundary, so an additional 50 trees were planted along and within that area to help combat the long-term effects of the clear-cut. The forest at that edge has suffered from an influx of noxious weeds, deer damage, tree dieback, and windsnap of taller trees due to fierce winds now coming unhindered from the cleared parcel.

After the southeastern section was cleaned of invasive species and potential fire hazards in the understory, the trees planted there included the usual mix of Douglas fir, giant sequoia, and Sitka spruce in the sunnier portions while Western hemlock, Western red cedar, and grand fir were placed in the shadier ones. These were the first sequoia added to the forest in several years. The soil in this area is highly inconsistent, as some of it was pushed into the forest by the clear-cutters as part of their 2019 timber trespass. Some amendments were needed to address the fact that clay was pushed over the prior topsoil layer.

Read more about the 2024-2025 planting season at the forest.

The after-the-fact permit to address the illegal 2019 deforestation of 11090 SE Southworth Dr. in Port Orchard has been paused since Kitsap County's decision about the mitigation requirements of violators Meghan and Clint Edwards in October 2024. Neighbors appealed that County decision, and permit staff has attempted to work with both parties to resolve the environmental impacts upon neighbors and clarify requirements.

During this time, negotiations between Edwards and the appellants were cited as a reason for pausing the appeal process. Hopes for a resolution appear to have suddenly ended on January 8, 2025, when Edwards announced to the County that they had no intent to continue negotiating with the appellants. The appellants responded that they were "blindsided" by this news and had never received any formal counteroffer from Edwards during the negotiation.

Records recently provided by the County also reveal that Clint Edwards, a mortgage lender in Port Orchard who was also cited in recent years for an unpermitted ADU on this same property, has continued attempts to evade responsibility for his code-violating actions. He especially protests that requirements such as restored screening buffers might be documented against his property in a way that limits future uses, reducing its resale value: "We just don't want these buffers in a covenant restricting our property land use for future owners of our property which may decrease our saleability some day in the distant future."

This self-entitlement, which Edwards and his wife have expressed throughout the permit process, may explain the apparent failure of the negotiations. They still insist that their deforestation of acres, including old growth within a wetlands buffer, has no lasting impact on the neighboring area. In fact, they argue that since the violation occurred so long ago, they should not be made responsible for mitigating impacts already addressed by neighbors since:

Read more about the violators' self-serving complaints and dishonest statements.

The last three months of 2024 have brought extensive wind damage to the trees of the Southworth Forest. A series of unusually powerful storms, including "bomb cyclones," struck the Puget Sound region with near hurricane-force winds, causing windsnap and windthrow at high rates even though the deciduous trees are defoliated during this time of the year.

Trees that suffer windthrow will pull up their root system when they fall over whole. Windsnap, on the other hand, occurs when trees break off partway up their trunk. While trees, and particularly Western Red Cedars in the Pacific Northwest, will continue growing upwards into new tops from several branches after falling completely on their side from windthrow, windsnap is often fatal, with the exception of Western Hemlocks.

In the Southworth Forest, the native deciduous trees at maturity are suffering the most. At about 60 to 70 years of age, the area's big leaf maples have reached their maximum height. Although they can live for a few hundred years, the ones growing in clumps will often experience rot down their centers and eventually break in the wind partway up their trunks. The red alders often interspersed with them experience windsnap at about the same age.

Several mature big leaf maples and red alders have been snapped in late 2024, but the damage extends to the conifers as well. The wind coming from the southeast into the forest from the neighboring deforestation at 11090 SE Southworth Dr. has been so fierce that Doug fir trees near the cleared area have been lost to windsnap and grand fir branches on younger trees have been whipped so hard westward by the winds that they have broken mid-branch.

Read more about these worsening wind impacts in the forest.

The understaffed and error-prone Kitsap County Department of Community Development (DCD) has issued its administrative decision on the after-the-fact permit for the illegal 2019 forest destruction at 11090 SE Southworth Dr. in Port Orchard. The decision is based upon an ineffective and incomplete review by a Kitsap DCD staff that has proven itself unable to obtain and consider clarifying project information from the violators.

The community already appealed Kitsap's environmental determination for this project in regards to the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) in April, 2024. Per the requirements of Kitsap's code, the final administrative decision must be appealed as well for the SEPA appeal to survive. The same community members filed the second appeal on October 10, 2024, detailing the DCD's continued mishandling of the permit and refusal to understand the violators' actual intentions with the permit.

The DCD's handling of this permit violates countless sections of Title 21 of Kitsap County Code ("Land Use and Development Procedure"), the law that governs how permits are handled by the department. The SEPA appeal previously revealed violations of Title 21 by environmental reviewers Scott Diener and Steve Heacock. The final administrative decision exposes additional violations of Title 21 by project lead and stormwater supervisor Cecilia Olsen, along with careless review mistakes that defy Title 12 (Stormwater Drainage).

Complicating this situation is the news revealed in the appeal that the violators are proposing significant changes to their intended land use only after the permit's approval. The DCD had been attempting since late 2023 to receive revised site plans from the violators, but to no avail. Now that the permit approval and appeal has occurred, the appellants are forced to ask for a delay (legally termed a "stay") in the appeal process so that the violators' scaled back intentions for their parcel can be considered by the DCD instead.

Read more about the appeal of this administrative decision.

Residents of the Pacific Northwest's temperate rainforest areas have felt the effects of hotter summers and particularly the occasional "heat dome" that brings periods of temperatures over 100 degrees. This consequence of climate change has stressed the native mature forest stands, particular conifers like the Western Red Cedar and Western Hemlock, two stalwarts of the region.

Younger trees of ten feet in height can expend 25 gallons of water per day, and mature ones can process over 100 gallons. It's tough to underestimate just how much water can be stored in the mostly sandy loams of this region and extracted by large trees. But even these reserves can be insufficient for mature trees that established themselves decades ago, prior to these hotter conditions.

At the Southworth Forest restoration project in Port Orchard, the summers of 2020 to 2022 exposed significant dieback of needles and whole branches on mature conifers starting as early as July. It's normal for such dieback to occur in the fall, but the cedars, hemlocks, and Grand firs were losing two to four years of needles in the matter of one summer season. This process suggests that the trees are so stressed that photosynthesis has shut down.

The spread of the tree stress has been most concentrated in the Southworth Forest areas exposed to the illegal 2019 forest destruction at the neighboring 11090 SE Southworth Dr. Mature trees in the southeast quadrant of the forest especially feel the impacts of increased heat and wind from the environmental violation. Trees in the path of these warmer winds across multiple acres have been impacted, causing significant summer dieback, particularly on the cedars. During the worst years, nearly an entire mature cedar can turn orange.

Read more about watering mature conifers in summer.

Through a public record request, the Southworth Forest community group learned that former Kitsap County Department of Community Development (DCD) Director Jeff Rimack drafted an email to County Commissioner Charlotte Garrido in early 2024 regarding a controversial 2019 deforestation violation and corrective permit in Southworth. That email from Rimack grossly mischaracterizes the factual issues related to the permit, diminishes his department's own failures in processing it, and badly misstates the community's concerns.

Leadership at the DCD either does not understand the basic issues contested in this permit or is attempting to create an alternate narrative. Missing from that email to the Commissioner is the full extent of the DCD's admitted mishandling of the permit, including "lost" community comments, ignored evidence of ongoing environmental impacts, inconsistent and erroneous statements to the community, a withdrawal of approval due to DCD carelessness, and decision-making without obtaining requested, basic information from applicants Meghan and Clint Edwards for review.

The information presented by Rimack about the Edwards deforestation permit is woefully inaccurate. It makes the community sound uninformed, petty, and unreasonable, painting a picture of what the DCD may want seen by the Commissioner rather than the truth. Rimack seems to suggest that there is no factual basis to these SouthworthForest.org articles, and yet the permit appeal filed to the Hearing Examiner assembles hundreds of exhibits of SEPA-oriented facts and will expose repeated disconnects with Kitsap County Code by DCD staff. Despite Rimack's misrepresentations, the proposed solutions from the community in that appeal are reasonable and supported by fact and law.

For instance, Rimack states up front in the email that the community pushback relates solely to the construction of a home and overburdening of a neighbor's easement. In reality, the community is primarily concerned with the County's poor handling of the illegal deforestation of the parcel and related environmental impacts. Additionally, Rimack falsely indicates that neighbors "do not want the Edwards to have livestock" in new agricultural operations when those concerns instead involve animal waste management, slaughter, and the lack of any indication on animal types and quantities. The community seeks buffering with conifer trees and for animals to be kept inside those buffers, which is supported by law.

Read more about Kitsap County's misrepresentation of community concerns.

As part of the Southworth Forest restoration project near the ferry terminal in Southworth, Washington, the dying canopy of big leaf maples and alders is yielding openings that are being filled by noxious, invasive species like Scotch broom and Himalayan blackberry. In addition to clearing these troublesome species, the restoration has included the reintroduction of a variety of conifers to the forest to establish a healthy blend of trees for tomorrow's canopy.

Survival rates amongst the conifer trees planted in the forest is highly variable despite each tree receiving the same compost and mulch treatments, deer protections, and periodic watering throughout the Pacific Northwest's recent dry and hot summers during their first three years in the ground. Trees in areas with more exposed, thinner top soils are receiving a 4-3-4 powder mix of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium under the surface once or twice per year as well.

Of all the species of conifers planted throughout the Southworth Forest, the most reliable has been the Sitka spruce, which thus far has a survival rate greater than that of any other species, including the slower but resilient giant sequoias. The Sitka spruce are a distinguished native of the coastal Cascadia region, especially prevalent in the lower elevations of Western Washington and British Columbia. While they prefer full sun and moist soils, the Sitka spruce in this project have thrived even when placed in partial to fuller shade and in drier soils.

One notable aspect of the Sitka spruce has been its tolerance for bareroot transplanting. When purchasing large quantities of tree stock, it's not unusual to receive bareroot trees. Some species, like the Western Red Cedar, have a relatively poor survival rate when planted from bare root stock into larger pots or directly into the ground. The Sitka spruce, though, while often losing some of its trunk needles and looking relatively unhealthy the first year after bareroot transplanting, stands a much better chance of survival.

Read more about the survival of Sitka spruce in the forest.

As part of its review of the illegal 2019 forest destruction at 11090 SE Southworth Dr. in Port Orchard, Kitsap County permit reviewers are tasked with deciding the impacts and appropriate remedies to be made by the violators. This requirement is partly guided by the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). The County had already erroneously issued one faulty SEPA decision for this deforestation's corrective permit in 2023 before withdrawing it because it failed to follow proper notification processes.

On March 29, 2024, Kitsap County issued another SEPA decision after attempting but not succeeding in learning more information about the violators' intentions. This Determination of Non-Significance (DNS) once again diminishes the importance of the forest destruction, suggesting that no significant environmental impacts have resulted (or will result) from this climate-changing action. We know from studying the surrounding environment, including deterioration within the neighboring Southworth Forest, that this is not the case. An appeal has been filed.

As part of this SEPA decision, Kitsap County is requiring violators Meghan and Clint Edwards to replant only minimal areas near wetlands and their intended agricultural operations while also permitting them to remove 100 additional trees or more from forest buffers that survived the 2019 clear-cut. The proposal is by no means carbon neutral, and the County has neglected to apply its own Land Use Policies or lessons from its Climate Change Resiliency Assessment to protect the area from the significant impacts of the deforestation.

"We have endless photos and videos of the negative effects of Edwards' actions on our forestlands over five years," said Christian Clemmensen, who leads the neighboring Southworth Forest restoration project and is one of the appellants of the permit decision. "We have sent evidence of these negative impacts of the Edwards deforestation to the County since 2022, but they have declined to address it or truly engage with us. By appealing their SEPA determination, we aim for the County to find meaningful solutions to protect neighbors and our habitats."

Read more about the appeal of this Kitsap SEPA decision.

Directors at Kitsap County's Department of Community Development (DCD) exercise wide discretion to waive fees for code violators, re-open decades-old permits for revised purposes, change conditions on permits after their closure, and disregard penalties for those who break the law in building or land use cases. Recent interactions with the DCD leadership and permit staff have revealed how the agency has bent over backwards to accommodate and therefore encourage code violations.

Statements from DCD directors Jeff Rimack and David Kinley in 2024 expose a focus on departmental efficiency over deterrence of violations, reducing the costs for both the County and code violators but also indirectly encouraging violations and potential safety hazards. As Kinley remarked, "Code enforcement is not for punishing or penalizing people, it is to gain code compliance." This policy is why Kitsap residents and businesses are comfortable violating their neighbors, the community, and County code without fear of significant penalty.

Rimack and Kinley were responding to the case of 11090 SE Southworth Dr. in Port Orchard, on which owners Meghan and Clint Edwards had two active code compliance cases: an illegal deforestation impacting the environment and an unpermitted garage and accessory dwelling unit (ADU). The DCD has waived thousands of dollars in fees over four years for the corrective deforestation permit, including all extension fees for Edwards' slow responses. For its own convenience, the County also minimized the fees required for the ADU by re-purposing a disapproved permit closed in 2012 despite Edwards knowing for years that the ADU was illegal but not correcting it.

"I set policy related to reactivations and extensions of permits and am able to approve exceptions as well," Kinley explained after unilaterally changing the conditions of the ADU structure's 2003 permit for unheated storage space to allow a guest house where one was not originally permitted. "It was far more expeditious to do the review and inspection of the modifications under the initial permit rather than requiring another permit. Requiring an additional permit would have added workload and expense to the department while not changing the outcome."

Read more about Kitsap County's unequal permit handling.

As climate change increasingly threatens Western Washington trees with drought and disease, coast redwoods, the famed icons of magnificence from the Northern Californian coastline, are a promising replacement for species in decline, like Western red cedar and Western hemlock. They have already been migrating north over the last century, and their ability to remove immense amounts of carbon from the atmosphere may prove vital for Washington's forests.

Coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens, which keenly translates to "always living") are incredibly hearty and resist rot, fire, and insects. They are actually challenging to kill, sprouting up from the base for decades even after its parent stump is cut. These trees have been planted in the Pacific Northwest for over a hundred years, including prominent placement in Seattle itself. They have been the subject of industrial tree planting in the region as well.

Evidence so far shows that coast redwoods have been complimentary neighbors to more native species like Douglas fir and the cedars, providing a similar habitat for animal species and resisting the increasingly warm summers caused by climate change. As almost 90% of these redwoods have been eliminated by drought, fire, and cutting further south, their migration north represents a fantastic opportunity to continue allowing these trees to thrive.

The Southworth Forest near the ferry terminal in Port Orchard, Washington has decided to dedicate some of its acreage to the planting of coast redwoods where English holly, dying alders, and invasive blackberries had existed over a sword fern base for the last two decades. The first fifteen redwoods are being planted in the northwest quadrant of the forest, and they were sourced from Scenic Hill Farm Nursery in Albany, Oregon. An additional one-hundred coast redwood trees are planned for installation in the next few years.

Read more about coast redwoods at the Southworth Forest.

A busy year at the Southworth Forest has been capped off by extensive restoration work to remove invasive plant species, tackle increasing deer damage, protect native understory, and plant new native trees. The deforestation case involving the adjacent conversion to agriculture remains on pause with Kitsap County permitting and the courts while additional information is sought from the clear-cutters seeking to legalize their violations.

The primary project at the forest in late 2023 has been the removal of extensive groves of English Holly from a wide swath of the acreage. This evergreen bush, which can grow to the size of small tree clumps and live for hundreds of years, crowds out native trees and understory, creating dead spaces underneath them if allowed to grow large enough. Closer to wetlands, this Holly is solely mechanically removed, which is challenging given its rhizomatous, sometimes deep root systems. Elsewhere, herbicides can be applied to freshly cut stumps with drill holes for added permeation.

Deer damage in the forest has increased exponentially in 2023, with numerous young Giant Sequoia, Western Hemlock, and fir trees damaged significantly during the deer rutting season between October and December. All of these trees had been protected by individual fencing, but the deer tear it away from posts with their antlers and proceed to mangle the trees. Neighbor refusal to allow seven-foot fencing around the perimeter of the forest, including a legal claim by the adjacent clear-cutters to stop such fencing, have limited the effectiveness of the deer management.

About 50 new trees have been planted in the forest this fall, mostly Western Red Cedar and Sitka Spruce, though sunny positions are being prepared for native oak trees as well. The removal of the English Holly is pivotal to opening space for additional tree planting. The extensive windstorms of this season have blown over several massive snags (dead trees) in the forest, and a surprisingly unlucky number of young trees planted in 2020 and 2021 were entirely crushed as a result. The fallen snags are being left in place and replacement trees planted around them. Extreme rain in December has hindered these efforts.

Read more about recent activity at the Southworth Forest.

Kitsap County's comment period for the after-the-fact permit (20-04869) to legalize the code-violating 2019 deforestation in Southworth closed on November 9, 2023. Comments were submitted by a wide variety of concerned neighbors, locals in the Southworth area, and from around the region. Sadly, a public record request fulfilled after the comment period suggests that an alarming quantity of the submitted comments were not recorded in the permit's case file.

Among the comments missing from the record was a comprehensive, 41-page submittal assembled by the SouthworthForest.org group. This community response details both the facts and the law involved in this deforestation action, and it is supported by 187 photos, videos, maps, diagrams, and legal filings. Supplied to the County on November 8th, this comment applies State and County code to show clearly why this proposal is incompatible with and damaging to the rural character of the area. It also addresses the highly problematic permit materials from clear-cutters Meghan and Clint Edwards:

"The preliminary Determination of Non-Significance (DNS) is based upon applicant submittals that are riddled with errors, obfuscation, and misrepresentation, continuing a trend that began with fraudulent Edwards submittals for the 2019 County danger tree permit (18-04575) that led to the massive over-clearing violations that spawned this corrective SDAP. The extensive evidence cited below illuminates the disturbing quantity of these issues on the applicants' engineered site plan, State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) checklist, farm plan, and more."

Other remarks that failed to be included in the permit's case file include those provided by J.B. Fenton during the comment period. "I am highly disturbed by how the DCD has handled this permit, and I believe the director and commissioner should be made aware of how badly the Southworth community has been let down," Fenton stated. He objected to waived fees for the violators, previously lost comments by the County, the permit reviewers' dismissive attitudes, environmental impacts ignored, and the failure to apply Kitsap Land Use Policies to prevent what the reviewers themselves noted as additional "spite use" clearing by Edwards in an easement on a neighboring property.

Read more comments submitted to Kitsap County.

On October 23rd, Kitsap County withdrew its State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) determination for the after-the-fact permit (20-04869) to legalize the code-violating 2019 deforestation in Southworth. The associated final administrative decision is also to be withdrawn. The County admitted mishandling this permit by failing to follow proper procedures in providing a Notice of Application to all neighbors within 800 feet of the forest conversion. That notice has now been issued.

The County also reversed course temporarily because several community members asked its permit reviewers about specific details of the proposal for which the reviewers did not know the answers. Since the permit approval relied heavily upon incomplete and contradictory information submitted by code violators Meghan and Clint Edwards, the reviewers were forced to withdraw approval on the planning/zoning and environmental aspects until Edwards provides additional clarification on clearing limits and road orientations on revised site plans.

Despite parts of the permit undergoing further review, the Southworth community (and beyond) now has until November 9th to provide final comment on the impacts of the deforestation. The County has stated that they do not anticipate revising their Determination of Non-Significance on the environmental impacts based on this community feedback. This rubber stamp comes despite substantial submissions of evidence of existing impacts caused by the 2019 violation to the surrounding area, most of which apparently ignored by reviewers.

Your comments are important, too! The County must address public comments in the final environmental decision, so make sure your voice is heard. The Notice of Application instructs us to contact lead permit reviewer Cecilia Olsen at colsen@kitsap.gov or (360) 337-5777. This is your final chance to comment on this impactful deforestation in Southworth.

The community's goal is for the County to disallow further removal of forest as proposed by Edwards and require them to restore a non-livestock conifer forest buffer around all violated edges of their property. These mitigations may not stop all the impacts, but they are the most practical solutions available.

Read more about how to comment to Kitsap County.

Kitsap County has issued its State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) determination for the after-the-fact permit (20-04869) to legalize the negligent 2019 deforestation in Southworth. As expected, the determination relies heavily upon the incomplete information submitted by code-violators Meghan and Clint Edwards. Community concerns are barely recognized in the Determination of Non-Significance.

Kitsap County SEPA coordinator Steve Heacock has repeatedly failed to answer questions or address concerns expressed by direct neighbors and the community in regards to the environmental impacts of the deforestation. Heacock had also declined to stop the original violation when he discovered it in process, and he has demonstrated difficulty remembering the nature of the corrective permit since. Thus, the community has been preparing to appeal his SEPA determination for nearly a year.

Starting in November 2022, the community began submitting installments of evidence detailing existing environmental impacts and errors in Edwards' submittals to Kitsap County's hearing examiner, who handles appeals. Heacock originally refused to view this evidence because of how it was submitted. SEPA determinations typically attempt to predict future impacts, but this case has had four years of ongoing deforestation impacts to study prior to the installation of agricultural operations. You can view evidence submitted to the hearing examiner.

Heacock's determination has few concrete conditions to address many obvious impacts already experienced by neighbors. Through an appeal to the hearing examiner, neighbors and the community have the opportunity to force the recognition of videos, photos, maps, and other materials that Heacock appears to have mostly disregarded. The hearing examiner has the power to require that this evidence is considered for a new determination with additional conditions to protect neighbors.

Read more about how you can help the SEPA appeal.

Much has been written about the gloomy future for Washington State's official tree, the Western hemlock. Aphid-like insects and drier conditions are moving north to threaten this tree's place in the Puget Sound region and beyond. It remains a majestic tree, however, and one that typically grows under fir trees as a replacement generation.

There are surprisingly few young Western hemlocks thriving in the Southworth area of Port Orchard, WA. In the few remaining natural forests of the area, they have yet to establish themselves under the fir and cedar trees that dominated after the mass harvesting of the area 50 to 60 years ago. They still have an important role to play, however, as one of the most shade-tolerant native trees available.

At the 2022-2023 King Conservation District plant sale, the Western hemlock was the only species of ten trees offered that did not sell out. (It was not offered at all at the Kitsap Conservation District sale the same year.) They can be really fussy to transplant in the wild as well. Unless you move them (into pots or directly to another location) in November or December, you risk losing them the following summer even with consistent watering.

Because hemlocks have a shallow root system, they tend to require wider holes or pots to maximize their chances for survival when transplanted. Creating a compost-rich dirt bowl free of noxious weed remnants like Scotch Broom and English Holly will help. Hemlocks also prefer to be consistently wet, requiring regular watering in summers during their first three years. (Volunteer trees left where they sprout in shade are a little hardier in this respect.)

Read more about Western hemlock trees at the Southworth forest.

Kitsap County records reveal that they opened a second code compliance case in January 2023 against 11090 SE Southworth Dr. near the ferry terminal in Port Orchard, WA. The County's first open compliance case against the property stems from an impactful 2019 violation for its improper deforestation. In 2023, the County investigated a separate compliance case against the same property for an unpermitted garage and accessory dwelling unit (ADU), confirming the additional violations.

Kitsap County's Department of Community Development is failing to hold the property's owners, Meghan and Clint Edwards, accountable in a timely manner on either compliance case. It took over a year for Edwards to submit an error-prone Site Development Activity Permit (SDAP) for the reckless deforestation, and that permit still remains in a fourth review after four years. Neighbors have experienced multitudes of environmental impacts during that time, including dead trees that timely restorative actions may have prevented.

Meanwhile, the County discovered the unpermitted garage and ADU in January 2023 and has not enforced the law in this compliance case. Unpermitted structures like ADUs typically require a corrective permit be submitted by the property owner within 30 days, but none has been submitted by Edwards in the eight months since the violation was cited. County records indicate that compliance officers are allowing the ADU violation to slide while the deforestation violation is handled. No violation should be left uncorrected for years.

Not only is the ADU disallowed explicitly by documentation recorded against the property, but the underlying garage structure beneath the ADU was itself disapproved on its inspection by the County in 2006. The garage never passed a final inspection, and its permit was closed in 2012. The structure therefore cannot be occupied as a garage, let alone an ADU, especially as records indicate that the space could not be heated. Instead, it was finished out with a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen.

Read more about Kitsap County's failure to hold violators responsible.

Work in August 2023 has continued at John Sedgwick Middle School to convert its forested area to grass, and the community is concerned that the activity violates the limitations of a danger tree permit obtained by South Kitsap School District (SKSD) for the forest removal. Through information provided on the permit and from district administration, as well as photos on the ground, it appears the proper permit for this conversion was not obtained.

Danger tree permits allow applicants to remove trees that pose a danger to a habitable structure, but they do not allow for the total conversion of a forested area to other use. On their permit, the district proposed that the forested area "will be leveled and put back to grass" even though the County states on the permit that "This permit is ONLY for the removal of trees. This does NOT include ground disturbing activities, such as: clean-up of stumps, brush, surrounding vegetation, etc."

The deforested area near the school has been significantly re-graded to the extent that a Site Development Activity Permit (SDAP) should be necessary. The district has one such permit concurrently for the adjacent installation of a new running track, but this SDAP was not approved for work in the forested area. In fact, that permit's site plan indicates that excess excavations would be disposed off-site. Instead, SKSD appears to be using the running track's authorization to conduct total forest conversion activity on the parcel, an inappropriate extension of the track construction.

District Superintendent Tim Winter has confirmed that 1,860 cubic yards of dirt and 654 cubic yards of sod was piled into the danger tree area. Of this material, about 500 cubic yards of dirt and 500 cubic yards of sod remained in that deforested area, which was extensively re-graded in the process of moving all this sod and dirt. Slashings from the trees were mixed into this new grade. All of this work is despite a prohibition of "ground disturbing activities" in effect there because of the danger tree permit limitations.

Read more about the violation concerns with this deforestation.

Port Orchard's John Sedgwick Middle School long enjoyed one of the most beautiful and environmentally sustaining campuses in the South Kitsap School District due to its magnificent conifer trees. Mature forests are critical to diminishing the impacts of climate change, and this school set the standard for establishing a balance between development and the environment. That is, until 2023.

The district obtained a danger tree permit approved by Kitsap County's Steve Heacock in June, 2023 and promptly removed all the mature, mostly conifer trees in the forest near the school shortly thereafter, an estimated 20,000 board feet of lumber. Authorized by Director of Facilities & Operations Charles J. Riley, District Grounds Lead Patrick Burke sought the permit, citing the school's trees as a liability and detriment to the campus. With extremely poor grammar in the permit application materials, the district indicated that its forest was to be converted to grass.

According to the permit, the trees "jeopardize school security by obstructing the line of sight between school building and the playing fields and may cause injuries from falling debris and broken sidewalks. In addition, their proximity to the building is causing damage to the roof." [sic] Using this reasoning, every mature conifer tree within roughly 150 feet of the school could be removed, with no stated intention to replace them with young trees. No effort was made to selectively remove the closest trees to the structure or merely thin the school's forest.

Proper forest management can mitigate risks from large trees. Clear-cutting a forest because it is inconvenient or potentially liable teaches the students of the school (and the public) that forests are a mere nuisance not worth managing to balance potential problems with the life-sustaining, climate-protecting benefits of the trees. By this reasoning, forests are undesirable because a branch may fall on someone and staff cannot be bothered to monitor school grounds from outside the school's structure. (No windows in the building face this direction anyway.)

Read more about John Sedgwick Middle School's deforestation.

Southworth Forest Update Archive ⏩