Save a Forest in Southworth, WA

Southworth Forest Update:

Neighbor Refutes Edwards' Vague Farm Management Plan

Posted February 28, 2023 by Southworth Forest

A farm plan from the Kitsap Conservation District obtained by Clint Edwards for 11090 SE Southworth Dr. in Port Orchard as required by Kitsap County is woefully vague. It lacks information needed to address soil, pasture, or waste management at Edwards' proposed agricultural operations. The plan does, however, reveal some impactful new details about Edwards' intentions, including a sizable barn complex.

At the February 2023 board meeting for the Kitsap Conservation District, neighbor Christian Clemmensen provided a statement for the record that refutes assertions made by Edwards for the farm plan. "I am saddened to see that the Edwardses again obfuscate their intentions and continue their attempts to whitewash their prior violations," Clemmensen said.

Farm plans from the District are based upon cooperative input from the landowner, even in cases where a landowner such as Edwards is involuntarily participating in the process. While communities can hope that the District's procedures would acknowledge and consider a farm plan's health impacts on people and the environment outside of the subject property, that did not happen here.

Attempts by multiple interested parties to provide the District with background information about Edwards' violations and ongoing impacts prior to the completion of the plan went unanswered. Direct neighbors informed the District of their severe allergies to livestock but were ignored, the final farm plan placing animal areas against the property line upwind of the neighbors' home site.

You can read Clemmensen's statement to the District board.