A message from Friends of
Grays Harbor and Grays Harbor Oysterman's Assn.
Friends of Grays Harbor (FOGH) and the
Grays Harbor Oysterman's Association
would like to comment about the complicated
process of locating a large
facility on the shoreline of the Grays
Harbor estuary. First, we would like
to say that we are for: a prison,
jobs and tax revenues. However, we are
opposed to any facility that has the
potential to disrupt those industries
and jobs that are presently an important
part of the cultural and economic
heritage of Grays Harbor.
The whole process of siting the prison
at Stafford Creek was backwards. The
Department of Corrections (Prisons)
sold the public on the idea that the
prison was an economic engine.
Then, to push this idea, some basic
assumptions were made with an optimistic
spin. With this in place, the
prison siting took on a life of its
own and Harbor residents were told it was
as good as done.
Enter reality. As more and more
information became available, the basic
assumptions began to look very frail.
Observations by independent people
questioned these basic assumptions.
Comments by these people in response to
the Draft Supplemental Environmental
Impact Statement(DSEIS) will bare this
out. The siting of a project as large
as this has many steps and each step
reveals new problems that must be analyzed
for their relationship to
everything else. All these steps
serve the purpose of making sure poor
decisions are not carried forward.
In retrospect, the process of siting
the prison at Stafford Creek should have
been reversed. The first concern
should have been the environmental
consequences and not sales. You
may wonder why such important decisions were
made the way they were. Where were those
State and Federal agency folks that
were supposed to be looking out for
all our interests? The best answer to
that is that we are all political animals
and we bend to political pressure.
The public has been told, "not
to worry" and "everything will be OK." We
want to believe that and we take the
course of least resistance. Therein
lies our problem.
With that in mind, the Oystermen and
FOGH will continue to work for solutions
that best meet the needs of all citizens
and in so doing allow all of us to
share the bounty of the estuary.
Back to F.O.G.H.