Save a Forest in Southworth, WA

Southworth Forest Update:

Kitsap Decision About Southworth Clear-Cutting Appealed

Posted April 4, 2024 by Southworth Forest

Kitsap's revised SEPA Determination of Non-Significance (DNS) continues to ignore five years of impacts from the 2019 deforestation. It was issued prior to permit reviewers knowing the full scope of the project or resolving countless errors on the permit's submittals, including 45 inaccurate answers on the applicants' own SEPA checklist.

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."

The appeal does not attempt to stop Edwards from finishing their basic conversion to agricultural operations. Instead, neighbors are advocating solid forest buffering around the edges of those operations, solutions to new wind and dust problems, and limits to the removal of additional natural forest that wasn't already destroyed in 2019. The Edwards permit proposes the construction of a new road across a disputed easement within the Clemmensen restoration area solely to access a new parking lot for these operations, a plan that the County has deemed a "spite use" since the Clemmensens were among those who originally reported the 2019 violation.

The County must consider all the facts of a permit before issuing a permit decision, and that diligence has not occurred in this case. Despite admitting Kitsap's processing mistakes along the way, SEPA Responsible Official Scott Diener insists that with permits like this one, the County sometimes must "agree to disagree" with community concerns. But that statement ignores clear warning flags about the negligent handling of this permit and refusal to examine the five years of existing impacts. The County has also lost track of community comments and failed to recognize all the many inaccuracies in Edwards' SEPA checklist and inconsistencies in their site plan and farm plan.

Communities deserve better, more consistent and thorough review of deforestation permits like this one, especially if they are legalizing a clear-cutting violation. Agricultural operations of this size don't exist in the core of the ferry community of Southworth, and the smaller ones that do exist typically have forest buffering between their animals and adjacent residents. Through state law and Kitsap's Comprehensive Plan, the County has the ability to put conditions in place on any permit to protect the rural enjoyment of communities while also preserving natural habitats.

The appeal of the SEPA decision now goes before the County's Hearing Examiner, where the proposal and its approval conditions will need defended by both the County's permit reviewers and Edwards. The appellants' initial filing is extensive and points to countless factual errors in the submittals and review process. That filing promises hundreds of supporting exhibits, some of which already published on this website in past articles. It's a process that can serve as a model for other community campaigns protesting deforestation in Kitsap County, including the Save Enetai campaign to preserve a vital natural habitat in Bremerton.

Meanwhile, Clemmensen and his family vow to continue their forest restoration efforts next to the Edwards operations, but without additional protections like conifer buffers in this permit, their work will be much harder. "Losing this last mature riparian corridor along our east side will really worsen our struggle against tree death and noxious weeds," he lamented while examining the trees on his property that Edwards plans to remove for the needless road. "We're watching climate change happen right here in Southworth on a small scale, and the community is worried. All we can do is continue trying to protect ourselves and our future."

You can read the initial appeal filing.

The Edwards' proposed agricultural operations to the left would extend the existing road in the foreground, branching it off to the right and across a neighboring property to access solely a new parking lot. This would eliminate the remaining mature riparian buffer seen along the right side of this photo and further damage the neighboring forestlands.