Of all the recent regional policy discussions to fall behind the couch in urbanist circles perhaps the most important is on the topic of fish. In short, Governor Inslee is considering changes to clean water standards that could potentially increase allowable cancer rates in fish tenfold while grossly underestimating the average consumption of fish in native and non-native communities. The justification behind this is to preserve jobs because cleaning runoff up might harm Boeing’s bottom line or might require outright giveaways to the area’s top polluters.
Such a shift would be disastrous to urban policy.
This policy change is being made in the buzz around the Boldt 40 commemorations which reflect back on the landmark decision in United States v. Washington. In that case, the court upheld longstanding treaties giving local tribes the right to harvest fish “as long as the rivers run”. This court decision was important because it reaffirmed treaty rights and the importance of fish to local tribal communities while simultaneously changing course on how the state assesses the impact of policy.
A retrograde in policy toward one that prioritizes corporate profit over legitimate ecological impact would be harmful to regional policy. Invariably, such a policy ratchets down the importance of the human rights of tribes and begins to carve out massive concessions to environmental policy in the name of profit. It also codifies in administrative policy a deliberate decrease in the value of life by increasing the allowable number of cancer deaths based on estimates that assume fish consumption rates that are lower than reality or the standards in other states like Oregon.
The disparity in the underlying policy process is well-known and is a point of contention in discussions between the State and the Northwest Indian Fishing Commission. To allow a harmful policy shift to go through would demonstrate the sort of foreboding ill-will that often precedes other damaging environmental policy changes. Indeed, we’ve already seen the local permitting of a large methanol facility at the Port of Kalama and the hiring of a coal industry lobbyist into the Inslee administration. Tribes really are the canary in the proverbial coal mine here, but if people come together strongly enough, we can turn it around.
The upside to turning aside this potentially deadly shift in policy would be great. First, it reorients policy decisions toward legitimate human life rather than excusing more deaths. By doing so, policymakers would reaffirm that decisions should be made from a human-level perspective, rather than a theoretical reshaping of market conditions. Secondly, it urges smarter urban form by forcing developers to be more circumspect in planning and procedure. This would benefit cities especially because it would change the ecological dynamic in areas that are rapidly increasing in density. Finally, and most importantly, a policy that decreases allowable cancer rates and implements a realistic place-based fish consumption standard would save lives. This should be the paramount consideration of public policy, but it seems to be drowned out by a wash of cash.
Urbanists should keep an eye out on this issue as it progresses, especially those near sensitive areas where fish is currently–and traditionally–fished. It might change their world dramatically.
