How to live in a sustainable way

The effects of runoff from the upper Samish on oyster harvesters have proved Newton’s law that says every force has an equal and opposite reaction. Case in point: At the Anacortes Waterfront Festival, I met the Ratfields, a family who own and operate Samish Bay Oyster Co. Other people’s waste is slowly destroying their sustenance.

When the Ratfields stopped by the Skagit Conservation Education Alliance booth, water quality conversation segued into how pollutants washing downriver affect their lives. They explained how the health department calls to mandate a shutdown in their operations when rain washes high levels of fecal coliform into the Samish Bay. This lasts from several hours to a several days.

The Ratfields feel powerless to mitigate the problem. They don’t know how to determine where it is coming from and they don’t have the resources to improve water quality themselves. They are currently relying on third-party sources to perform mitigation, many of which are not in good contact with the Ratfields.

A logical step toward resolving the crisis is communication between different communities: the oyster harvesters, scientists, farmers, and residents upriver. People need to meet each other and see the faces and stories behind the outward appearances and hearsay. Everyone needs to educate one another and ask themselves these questions: How can farmers and residents upriver live in a way that is sustainable for everyone — for them, wildlife, and people downriver? How can we make this affordable? Can the county step in to help pay the price for, say, upgrading septic systems?

Most importantly, there has to be a compromise for everyone to live happily ever after. We have to remember that everything and everyone is connected by cause and effect. We are all interdependent and we must coexist, or man will destroy himself.

Sue Edelberg

Mount Vernon

Appoint assessor from within

Once the position of county assessor really becomes available, county officials should remember they have a long-term employee, eminently qualified — David Thomas — who can be appointed from within, rather than reaching outside to the political “good old boys network.”

The commissioners have abdicated responsibility and delegated county authority to an administrative triumvirate that has laid off many smart employees who dare speak up and who are unprotected by the union. These same administrators gave themselves a quick, hefty raise after they were appointed, as they decimated valuable services to the people of our county — i.e. health services, parks, etc. — while tax assessing their homes as if we were living in an economic gold rush.

The position of county assessor has become open with the resignation of the current assessor, or to put it this way: “off again, on again ...” as the current assessor decides to stay on — allegedly to babysit the installation of a new computer system.

Could it be that the county has a commissioner who could not get re-elected and is waiting to feed from a new trough for which he is only qualified by connection, not skills? Evidently, once you have been commissioner, you take access to the trough for granted.

Alex von Cube

Mount Vernon