Here is a concern, especially if you are familiar with Deer Harbor on Orcas
Island. An application for a community dock and boat house on the west
side of Deer Harbor has been submitted to the San Juan Island Permit
Center. The hearing examiner has indicated that the permit will probably
be approved.

The dock and boat house will be below a strip of mixed conifers between two
vertical cliffs of over a hundred feet in height. Currently this shoreling
is pristine with no dock or other structures along the shoreline. It is
south of the stream of fresh water which enters Deer harbor from the
Richardson's Preserve. The strip of conifers is a roosting area for
Great Blue Herons, Perigrine Falcons, Ospreys, Bald Eagles and Turkey
Vultures. Pigeon Guillemots have been observed nesting on the ledges of
the cliffs.

Here is a partial list of birds which Sandi and I see regularly while
canoeing or kayaking along the base of these cliffs.

Peregrine Falcons, Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Red-Tailed Hawks, King-Fishers,
Turkey Vultures, Great-Blue Herons, Double Crested and Pelagic Cormorants,
Golden Eyes, Scaups, Common and Pacific Loons, Harlequin Ducks, Coots,
Pie-Billed, Western and Red-Necked Grebes, Pigeon Guillemots, Bonaparte's,
California, Glaucous-Winged, Heerman's, Herring, and Mew Gulls, Common,
Red-Breasted and Hooded Mergansers, Buffle Heads, Marbled Murrelets, and
Old Squaws. In addition there are dozens of species of passerine birds
which we have not listed.

We have written a letter to the Permit Center expressing our concerns about
the potential harm that these structures could cause. We have sent copies
to: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington State Departments of Fish and
Wildlife and Natural Resources, University of Washington Friday Harbor
Laboratories. If you would like a copy of our letter, please respond to
the email address below.

Does anyone have any other ideas of how to constructively oppose such a
development?


Don and Sandi McVay
Seattle and Deer Harbor
dmcvay at cmc.net