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2004 Legislative and Policy Team Highlights

Important Bird Area Program

• Adopted a new state law to recognize Important Bird Areas in Washington. See below for details.
• Tim Cullinan met with chapters in Southwest Washington to identify potential IBAs in their area. He also worked with NAS to update and standardize the IBA selection criteria and to improve the site nomination forms.
• The Policy Team is working on a proposal for an IBA information system (Important Bird Information System – IBIS) that will track, analyze and report on our IBA data and sites. If funded and built, IBIS would coordinate with NAS’ data on IBSs and link Washington State data. An information systems consultant in Olympia has donated her time to help us design IBIS and is now developing a projected budget to build, test and deploy IBIS.

Great Washington Birding Trails

• Christi Norman met with 7 chapters in Olympia to begin planning the “Olympic/SW Washington Birding Trail”. This will be our 3rd birding trail following the Cascade and Coulee Corridor trails. All 7 chapters have signed Memorandum of Understandings (MOU) specifying their responsibilities and those of the State Office. In addition, the MOU establishes a standardized process and criteria to select birding trail sites. The chapters and Christi are now planning up to 7 public workshops to involve local community members and businesses in planning and funding this trail.
• Next month, the North Olympic Visitor Bureau is taking several boxes of the Coulee Corridor Birding Trail map to an international tourism conference in Germany to test how well birding and nature tourism will sell in Europe. They will report back to us after their trip.
• Christi completed a statewide strategic plan for all 7 Birding Trails in our state. It describes the mission, goals, objectives, partners, funding requirements and timeline for the remaining trails. The Washington State Conservation Committee will review the plan in April and then it will come to the Stewards at their June for information only.
• Two state agencies, the Washington State Departments of Fish and Wildlife and the Commerce and Trade Department, completed a strategic plan to promote Watchable Wildlife in our state. Audubon’s birding trails are prominently featured in the plan with the Coulee Corridor Birding Trail listed as a successful project. We will work with these agencies to seek federal and state funds for our trails.

Chapter Relationships and Field Organizing

• Heath Packard is in the lead to coordinate a marketing research project on the general publics' knowledge, awareness and attitudes towards environmental education.
• He recruited Audubon chapter members for an all-day Legislative Workshop in Seattle in early January; the Environmental Lobby Day in Olympia in late January; and to attend several legislative hearings on forests, Important Bird Areas, and a public hearing on the 10-Year Harvest calculation on state lands. In all, hundreds of Audubon chapter representatives were seen and heard at these different events. For example, nearly half of all Audubon chapters were represented by over 50 Auduboners at Lobby Day. Our first IBA hearing had a half dozen chapter representatives and the forest harvesting hearing was standing room with 6 Audubon chapters represented.
• Heath was part of the ” Forest Field Affinity Group” which consisted of 8 grassroots organizers from peer organizations to support Sustainable Forest lobby efforts.
• During the session, Heath researched, wrote and sent out six Audubon Washington Action Alerts to thousands of Audubon members in our state. This work generated over one hundred phone calls and faxes to target legislators regarding our IBA bill and sustainable forest legislation.
• Heath led the House lobby strategy to secure $75,000 for Environmental Education fund.
• Contributed stories, edited, designed and distributed five issues of Birds Eye View. We receive many thanks for this year’s edition; and especially on the “Legislature 101” stories.

Legislative Policy Issues

This was a successful year for our legislative work. Normally, we plan on three years to pass a new law, but this year the IBA bill was an attractive and reasonable proposal that received bi-partisan support. We worked on many other issues described below as well as the operating and capital budgets.

Important Bird Areas (ESHB 2650)
This new law allows the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to work with Audubon to officially recognize Important Bird Areas in Washington. Once our sites are recognized, then data from Audubon’s IBA program will be included in the statewide Natural Heritage Database. This database is a scientific tool that helps public and private landowners and elected officials when they make land use decisions, public land acquisitions or manage private or public lands. The information can be used for watchable wildlife projects, habitat restoration projects and community environmental education. The IBA bill has several important components:

• It creates a partnership between the DNR and Audubon to recognize the importance of birds and their habitat in our state.
• It does not establish new regulations nor trigger existing regulations. Audubon worked with the Business and Industry Association of Washington and Farm Bureau to clarify the relationship to the Growth Management Act. The amendment explains that recognizing Important Bird Areas does not automatically create a critical area designation under GMA.
• It includes a public involvement component requiring DNR publish information about IBA sites in a local newspaper and hold a public hearing; these actions will help Audubon make better community contacts to increase our visibility and support for the IBA program.
• It saves money for the state because DNR will use Audubon’s existing data about bird populations to officially recognize Important Bird Areas.
• It uses a scientifically valid recognition process for IBAs. The bird population data from Audubon was rigorously tested and collected using internationally adopted criteria. When DNR recognizes the IBA, the public can be assured that these sites have gone through a legitimate and scientifically defensible process.

State Forest Certification Process (ESHB 2753)
Forest certification is a process in which a forest landowner undergoes an audit of the forest practices used on his or her land by a third party organization. If the forest practices of the landowner are modified to satisfy the standards for long-term sustainability identified by the third party organization, then that organization will "certify" that any wood products originating from that land holding were grown in a way that will provide long-term sustainability for the forest resource.

Currently, state-owned forestlands are not certified by any third-party organization. Certain
lands managed by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) have previously been audited
by the third-party organization known as the Forest Stewardship Council; however, the
required identified management changes were not instituted, and certification has not been
granted.

Audubon supported ESHB 2753 by testifying at the legislative hearings and organizing our Chapter members to write emails, make phone calls and attend hearings. The bill made it through the House and through a rather difficult hearing in the Senate Committee on Natural Resources. It died, however, on the floor of the Senate. Audubon will work with other environmental organizations over the summer to resurrect the bill in January 2005.

Ban on Beach Driving
Several legislators from Seattle introduced a bill to ban beach driving. The bill caused much anxiety and was covered by the news media as an “urban vs. rural” issue pitting vacation homeowners against families living in our coastal areas. The bill was given a hearing by Representative Mike Cooper, but it died in his committee. While Audubon supported banning beach driving in some areas (especially those with breeding birds!), this bill was premature in a politically charged climate. Instead, Audubon met several times with legislators from the coastal communities to begin a constructive dialogue about how and when to change existing beach uses. Senator Doumit will work with Audubon Washington over the summer to continue this discussion.

Oil Spill Prevention (SSB 6641)
The primary objective of the state oil spill program is to adopt a zero spills strategy and prevent the release of oil or hazardous substances from entering marine waters. The Department of Ecology (DOE) must develop a statewide plan and new regulations by June 2006 to deploy booms around ships taking on fuel. The goal is to prevent spills from reaching the shorelines, wildlife, birds and shellfish beds. Ecology may also require automatic shutoff devices and alarms, extra personnel or additional containment equipment. Audubon supported this bill.

2004 Supplemental Operating Budget

This year Audubon Washington successfully worked to include the following items in the budget.

Swan lead poisoning -- $65,000
Over the past 2 years, a coalition of scientists and volunteers have analyzed why swans are dying in the Skagit wetlands. The Audubon chapters, the Trumpeter Swan Society, the Canadian and US Fish and Wildlife Services and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have worked together to gather data and now ready to analyze the data. The $65,000 allows WDFW to analyze their portion of the data and participate in an international plan to identify and clean up the “hotspots” poisoning swans.

Spartina Control in Willapa Bay -- $85,000
Audubon worked successfully with Congressmen Dicks and Baird to include federal funds to eradicate Spartina in Willapa. This legislative session, Audubon worked with legislators and state agencies to increase funding to cover the costs needed by state agencies to continue this year’s Spartina control project. Without these funds, the control effort will be delayed and will risk increased Spartina growth for another season.

Wetland Banking Pilot Project -- $120,000
Two years ago, Ecology proposed a draft rule to manage wetland banking, but funding was withdrawn and the rule postponed. Audubon Washington and Wetnet reviewed and commented on the draft rule, but none of our changes were acted upon because the project stopped due to the lack of funding. This year, Audubon worked with Ecology and the wetland banking community to include funding for Ecology, but we wanted to have an environmental citizen representative on the Ecology Wetland Advisory Committee and to have our representative reimbursement for expenses. Funding has come through for Ecology and we have a seat “at the table”, but the reimbursement requirement was not included in the budget. Instead, we have received a confirmation that our representative will be reimbursed by Ecology even without the specific legislative proviso.

Biodiversity Council -- $125,000
Last year, Audubon participated in a temporary Biodiversity committee and is pleased to see funding to create a permanent Council. Audubon will seek to be appointed to the Council so that we may include information from our Important Bird Area program and our State of the Birds Report in the Council’s future work. The Governor will be making appointments to this Council within the next two months.

Environmental Education Partnership Fund -- $75,000
Audubon Washington successfully worked with the 2003 Legislature to create the EE Partnership Fund. However, funding was not included in the 2003 Legislative budget. This year, Audubon, the Woodland Park Zoo, Washington Forest Protection Association and Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife worked together to include seed money to start this grants program. Grant funds may be used by schools and non-profit organizations for costs such as school bus rentals, scientific equipment, teacher training, and field trips to forests, wetlands or farms. The grant program will also create new partnerships between schools and non-profit organizations to increase opportunities for students to learn about science, math and critical thinking in settings that help them retain knowledge and become interested in carries in science, forestry, farming or environmental studies.

2004 Supplement Capital Budget

Funds to buy land near Dungeness River Audubon Center
Audubon worked hard to make sure the Legislature gave the Department of Washington Fish and Wildlife enough spending authority to complete the purchase of 300 acres across the river from our Nature Center. The Severson property has been under negotiations for purchase for a few years. This funding authority was the final hurdle to complete the project.

Funding for Audubon Nature Centers
This year Audubon requested $600,000 from the State Legislature for the Seward and Leavenworth Nature Centers ($300,000 each). Twelve legislators from the Centers’ districts and surrounding districts requested the Chairman of the Capital budget committee, Rep. Hans Dunshee to include $600,000 in the supplemental capital budget. Unfortunately, we did not receive the funding nor did any other special request projects because Rep. Dunshee did not have enough bond capacity in this year’s capital budget to fund any extra projects. However, legislators from both the Senate and House urged us to re-submit our request for the 2005-07 Capital budget. Audubon Washington has already contacted staff in the Governor’s Office and his capital budget staff on how to begin this process. Meanwhile, Nina Carter traveled to Washington DC in mid-February with a request for federal funding from the same 12 Washington State legislators. Our Congressional delegation was impressed with the number of supporters, but were non-committal about federal funding as of March 2004; they have until this summer to make a decision. They were receptive to visiting our Center this summer, so we will be arranging those visits very soon.