Large costs loom with new sewer system | Letter to the editor

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In Port Hadlock we’re insulted when told that we need a sewer to give us “dignity and opportunity.” We’re doing fine without one, thank you, Commissioner Dean. 

She says that we need sewers to get density so some developer can “pencil out” a housing project. Apartments already here seem perfectly feasible, so who needs sewers? What guarantees are there from this developer? If he needs a sewer to make it profitable, it should easily pencil out in Port Townsend. Or, do they object to greater density there, too?

Single-family homes would face big costs if a sewer were put in, even considering federal grant money. And, there are some 70 spaces in B&R mobile home park for people with decent, affordable homes, but since they don’t own the land, they have no say in the outcome of the sewer LID. What is to become of them when the park owner is hit with the high costs of sewer and decides to replace them with “affordable” apartments?

The Tetra-Tech sewer study warns that, with the increased use under a sewer system, the water source at Sparling Well could end up being depleted.

Sparling Well, the only water source, also serves the Navy, Marrowstone, Chimacum, etc. Tetra-Tech warns that with a sewer, the aquifer could be depleted. 

Sewer systems have a terrible history of spills. (Seattle, Poulsbo, Port Angeles, Sequim). You name it, they’ve spilled it.

All residents in the Hadlock/Irondale UGA are impacted by this proposal and deserve a vote on it. But the gerrymandered boundary around the “Core Area” is stacked to approve the sewer. At least 40 acres of it are county-owned properties that are being counted as “supportive” of the sewer. This manipulation is designed to bypass a legitimate poll of the entire UGA, a serious disenfranchisement of our community.

How can we have dignity without a say in our destiny? It doesn’t just happen with density. Give us a vote and let’s have democracy!

Mike Regan
PORT HADLOCK