Port commissioner seeks to delay Capitol Lake vote, but others disagree
The Port of Olympia commission is divided about whether to officially support the state’s recommendation of allowing man-made Capitol Lake to revert to an estuary.
On one side are commissioners Bob Iyall and Amy Evans Harding who appear ready to have that conversation, a discussion that is tentatively set for April 10.
On the other is Commissioner Joe Downing, who took a long pause after the idea was proposed by Iyall last week, then set out during Monday’s work session to have that conversation withdrawn.
At the beginning of regular port commission meetings and work sessions, the president of the commission always asks if there are any proposed amendments to meeting agendas.
Downing had one, asking that the topic of “withdrawing the Capitol Lake discussion of April 10” be added to the agenda.
However, his efforts to change Monday’s agenda failed from lack of support from either Iyall or Evans Harding.
“Sorry, Joe, the amendment fails to move forward,” Evans Harding said.
Still, Downing was given a few minutes at the end of the work session to explain his position.
He said he would like to postpone next month’s discussion on Capitol Lake because he believes the port will be competing against itself with the state legislature. He said that he was very “middle of the road” on the Capitol Lake effort.
“We already have something that we’re advocating for and I would not want our Capitol Lake discussion to conflict with what we are already trying to do with the legislature in terms of our Budd Inlet cleanup,” he said.
The state Department of Enterprise Services, the agency that manages state property, including Capitol Lake, made its estuary recommendation official in October, saying it was the best way to restore the lake’s health. The public has been denied access to the lake since 2009 after an invasive species known as the New Zealand Mud Snail was discovered.
How do you restore the lake to an estuary? The key element of the project is to remove the Fifth Avenue dam so that the Deschutes River would empty directly into Budd Inlet and the water would rise and fall with the tides.
Commissioner Iyall gave three reasons last week for why the port commission should formally support the estuary plan, the first of which was that the port has a plan to clean up Budd Inlet, so it only makes sense to support the estuary.
“Although the projects are separate, they rely on each other and each one needs the other to be completed,” he said.
Iyall also said the estuary conversion is not only good for Budd Inlet, but also benefits the Deschutes River and the area’s salmon population.
And lastly, Iyall said formal support of the recommendation “might help some of our legislative members gain more confidence to support each of the projects for what they are.”
Evans Harding said during Monday’s meeting that she and Iyall would “like to see that (Capitol Lake) agenda item happen as the executive director deems appropriate.”
This story was originally published March 21, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
