Moving mountains

Progressive activists in Seattle don't often find their efforts resulting in 180-degree policy reversals by the city. But on the heels of several workshops and public hearings recently concluded on the city's 50-year plan for timber management in the Cedar River watershed, all signs are pointing to just such a win. The option of not allowing any commercial logging at all in the watershed plan wasn't even on the radar 18 months ago; how it got to be a favorite option in January's public forums (as James Bush reported in his 4th & James column last week) is a remarkable triumph of grassroots activism.

In 1992, the city assumed ownership of the 90,000-acre watershed, home to more than a dozen threatened species and with a long history of aggressive timber harvest that had left more miles of logging roads than streams. The plan the city came up with, released last year, proposed setting aside two-thirds of the watershed for conservation and funding the plan by allowing commercial harvest—ranging from thinning to near-clearcuts—in the remaining third. The range of acceptable debate, then, was between this plan—progressive for a timber management plan, as it allowed far less logging than most private firms would engage in—and compromise plans offered by mainstream enviro leaders like the Sierra Club's Charlie Raines.

But a funny thing happened on the way to a compromise. Unlike many issues, in which the range of options determines the outcome, activists from such groups as Earth First!, Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project, and Seattle Greens demanded a different approach—one that, for the next 50 years, allowed no logging at all. They pointed out the low cost—$3.63 per household per year—of financing the conservation plan through rate hikes instead of logging, and the fundamental problem with cutting more trees to raise money to restore the watershed.

Organizing a coalition called the Protect Our Watershed Alliance (POWA), activists found allies on City Council after the 1997 elections: the newly elected council members who had drawn a lot of their electoral support for their image as environmentalists, and who were now being asked to take a public stance on one of the few environmental issues on which the city can take a clear, principled stand. Members Peter Steinbrueck, Richard Conlin, and Nick Licata obediently lent their support. So, surprisingly, did new Mayor Paul Schell, in an announcement last February. And suddenly, from a draft environmental impact statement that didn't even treat no-cut as an option, it was an option with a lot of muscle behind it. Last week, Seattle Public Utilities director Diana Gale announced she would go with the no-cut, $3.63 option; all it needs now is to be written into the Habitat Conservation Plan.

No-cut is not quite a done deal. Margaret Pageler, the council member with jurisdiction over utilities, has been notably lukewarm to the idea. But the terms of the debate have changed. And that never would have happened without a few dedicated community activists willing to take on seemingly insurmountable odds in pursuit of what seemed right. It's nice to see such folks even in position to win one, for a change.

Stopping trains

Another story of community activists positioning themselves to stop a (literal) runaway train is brewing in the South End. There, a remarkable coalition called Save Our Valley (SOV) has come together in recent months to challenge Sound Transit's vision for light rail in Rainier Valley.

SOV is potentially remarkable in the annals of Seattle activism for several reasons, not the least of which is that it's genuinely multiracial and multi-ethnic. The group also cuts across political lines, drawing from social activists as well as small-business owners impacted by the rail plans. Their beef is simple enough: Sound Transit's plan to run an at-grade line down Martin Luther King Jr. Way would dislocate businesses and homes, slice through neighborhoods the way I-5 did in the early '60s, and, once running, would be a constant source of noise and congestion.

The critics are further exercised that the city is willing to sacrifice the South End to these types of problems, while sparing other parts of the city: The average cost per mile for the rest of Seattle, most of which will be underground, is $129 million per mile, but in the Rainier Valley Sound Transit is hoping to save money ($47 million per mile) with the at-grade line. The Sound Transit plan would put nearly 90 percent of Seattle's business and home dislocation on Rainier Valley.

As with the Cedar River watershed, the message of South End light-rail activists is simple and powerful. The symbolism of the most ethnically and racially diverse part of town being asked to absorb most of the damage from construction of light rail—and running it down the street named for a revered civil rights leader—is obvious. And there's the further matter that the transit doesn't appear even to be designed with South End residents in mind. Until October, Sound Transit—which originally had intended to skip Rainier Valley altogether, running the line down the Duwamish to serve Boeing—was saying underground rail in the valley was geologically impossible. (A local valley company, produced studies that proved it wrong.) Now, only one of three drafted alternative routes serves the Southcenter mall area, which has some 16,000 mostly service-oriented jobs. Sea-Tac Airport—which the routes go through major contortions to reach as a final destination—has far fewer jobs, but, of course, far more affluent travelers. Those travelers will rarely get off the train to help resuscitate the stricken businesses of Genesee and Columbia City.