The Election for Washington Commissioner of Public Lands

Washington State’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has one of the most complex missions in state government. Managed by the Commissioner of Public Lands, DNR administers a $625 million, two-year budget.

Peter Goldmark is finishing his first 4-year term as Commissioner and will be facing Clint Didier (who filed at the last minute) in the 2012 election for the position.

In order to assess which candidate is best qualified to lead DNR as Commissioner, Goldmark or Didier, it's important to understand what the Commissioner and DNR does.

What is the job?

As Commissioner, Goldmark chairs the Board of Natural Resources, which sets policy for the management of state trust lands. These lands include some 5.6 million acres of publicly owned forests, agricultural and grazing lands, and commercial properties. The Board’s functions include: approving trust land timber and mineral sales; establishing the sustainable harvest level for forested trust lands; approving of sales or exchanges of trust lands; and guiding DNR’s stewardship of state Natural Area Preserves, Natural Resources Conservation Areas, and aquatic or submerged lands.

State lands raise millions of dollars each year to fund the construction of public schools, colleges, universities, and other government institutions, as well as county and state services. In fiscal year 2007 alone, the lands managed by DNR under the leadership of the Commissioner, produced more than $209 million in revenue for trust beneficiaries.

DNR is also responsible for approximately 2.6 million acres of aquatic lands, which include shorelines, tidelands, lands under Puget Sound and the coast, and navigable lakes and rivers and natural lakes, generating nearly $35 million every two years.

The Commissioner must ensure that DNR monitors cleanup and restoration efforts from mining operations, and assists communities by providing scientific information about earthquakes, landslides, and ecologically sensitive areas.

Science is the basis of DNR’s work and the Commissioner must be sufficiently conversant with the various disciplines used by DNR foresters as they use techniques based on science to help manage state forests, including trust lands, for long-term public benefit. They regulate timber harvest practices on state and private forestlands that reduce timber losses, and protect clean water and habitat. DNR foresters also help small forestland owners improve forest health and reduce wildfire risks, and maintain public access to recreation on state lands, and they protect natural, undisturbed, and unique ecosystems.

DNR scientists provide a wide range of research, monitoring, data, information, and expertise that support state policy, resource management, and resource protection programs. They work on riparian restoration and management, conservation and preservation of natural areas, silvicultural prescriptions and resulting forest stand treatments, Washington’s geological survey, watershed analysis, and endangered species conservation strategies, to name a few. Sciences essential to DNR’s work, and for which the Commissioner must have more than a passing knowledge, include forest entomology, forest health, aquaculture, geology, biology, hydrology, and other natural resources sciences.

DNR aquatic staff work near the waters of the state with businesses, government, communities, and volunteers to manage and protect these precious resources for long-term public benefit. Aquatic responsibilities also focus on public recreational access, navigation, commerce, environmental issues, aquatic leases and easements, and special projects. 

DNR engineers build forest roads, bridges, culverts, and fish barriers and crossings that protect streams and habitat. They produce data and products to assist with management of trust lands and regulatory functions. DNR engineers also create aerial maps, and identify and maintain a statewide repository of land boundary information, along with other responsibilities. 

DNR also manages the largest on-call fire department in the state. DNR forest fire fighter crew members and natural resource workers perform pre-suppression and suppression activities in order to protect 12.7 million acres of non-federal land including private, state-owned, and tribal land from wildfires. The Commissioner of Public Lands chairs the state Forest Practices Board, which sets regulations concerning private timber harvests, forest road building, and other forest operations.

What are the candidates' qualifications?

Peter Goldmark is the current Commissioner of Public Lands and has held that position for the last 4 years. He earned his BA from Haverford College, near Philadelphia, in 1967, and earned his PhD in Microbiology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971. He was also selected for a post-doctoral fellowship in Neurobiology at Harvard.

Goldmark has had a lifelong involvement with agriculture, science, education, and public service. To this day he maintains a small scientific research facility at his ranch and has published scientific articles in national and international journals. He currently maintains a wheat-breeding program at his facility and has recently released new varieties for Washington wheat farmers.

Included among Goldmark’s many public service positions are the following:

• Director of Agriculture for State of Washington, appointed by Governor Lowry in 1993
• Chairman of the Governor's Council on Agriculture and the Environment in 1994-1996
• Governor's Council for a Sustainable Washington in 2002-2003
• Governor's Council on Biodiversity in 2004-2005
• Founding board member and past Chairman of the Board of Farming and the Environment, a unique coalition of farmers, ranchers, and conservationists founded in 1999
• Board of Regents of Washington State University, 1996-2005; President of the Board in 1999-2000
• Board of the Washington State University-University of Washington William D. Ruckelshaus Center, 2003-present 
• Okanogan School Board, 1998-2005
• Wildland firefighter, Okanogan County, Fire District No. 8 - 30+ years
• Commissioner of Public Lands, 2009 to present

Goldmark has been endorsed by Washington environmental groups, labor unions, Native American tribes, and all Washington's major elected leaders (for a full list click here).

Clint Didier is a farmer in Eastern Washington near Pasco, and owns and operates an excavation company. He earned an Associate of Arts degree from Columbia Basin College in Pasco, and a BA in Political Science from Portland State University, where he excelled in football.

After graduating from PSU, Didier played professional football for the Washington Redskins for 7 years, during which time he participated in three Super Bowls, and then played another 2 years for the Green Bay Packers.

Didier was assistant coach for the Connell High School football team for 9 years. He stepped down in 2009 to run for the US Senate against Patty Murray.

Didier has been endorsed by the Tri-Cities Tea Party, the Spokane Homebuilders, the Gun Owners Action League of Washington, the Franklin County Farm Bureau, and Pastor Fruiten's Picks, among others (for a full list, click here)

The Aral Sea Disappears in a Cloud of Toxic Dust

The Aral Sea is located in the lowlands of Turan occupying land in the Republics of Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. From ancient times it was known as an oasis. Traders, hunters, fishers, and merchants populated this fertile site littered with lagoons and shallow straits that characterised the Aral landscape. The word “aral” in Kazakh is translated “island”, over a thousand of which were scattered throughout this region which made up part of the Silk Road, the highway between Europe and Asia.

During the former Soviet Union's hay day of central planning a major project was undertaken to turn the Central Asian plain between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan into the Soviet Union's own version of the Fertile Crescent by diverting the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, the two rivers that fed the Aral Sea. At the time, early 1960s, the Aral Sea was the World's fourth largest lake.

From a report on NASA's Earth Observatory web site:

Beginning in the 1960s, farmers and state offices in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Central Asian states opened significant diversions from the rivers that supply water to the lake, thus siphoning off millions of gallons to irrigate cotton fields and rice paddies. As recently as 1965, the Aral Sea received about 50 cubic kilometers of fresh water per year—a number that fell to zero by the early 1980s. Consequently, concentrations of salts and minerals began to rise in the shrinking body of water. That change in chemistry has led to staggering alterations in the lake's ecology, causing precipitous drops in the Aral Sea’s fish population.

The Aral Sea supported a thriving commercial fishing industry employing roughly 60,000 people in the early 1960s. By 1977, the fish harvest was reduced by 75 percent, and by the early 1980s the commercial fishing industry had been eliminated. The shrinking Aral Sea has also had a noticeable affect on the region's climate. The growing season there is now shorter, causing many farmers to switch from cotton to rice, which demands even more diverted water.

A secondary effect of the reduction in the Aral Sea’s overall size is the rapid exposure of the lake bed. Strong winds that blow across this part of Asia routinely pick up and deposit tens of thousands of tons of now exposed soil every year. This process has not only contributed to significant reduction in breathable air quality for nearby residents, but has also appreciably affected crop yields due to those heavily salt-laden particles falling on arable land.

It is no exaggeration to say that the case of the Aral Sea is one of the greatest environmental catastrophes ever recorded. For more information, see Philip P. Mickin, 1988, and The Aral Sea Crisis, Thompson, 2008.

The Ecological Crisis: In Search of a Solution

Today, the dramatic threat of ecological breakdown is teaching us the extent to which greed and selfishness—both individual and collective—are contrary to the order of creation, an order which is characterized by mutual interdependence. (Pope John Paul II, 1989)

There are those who argue that America would be foolhardy to suffer under a self-imposed cap and trade policy in an effort to limit green house gas emissions when China has been building new coal-fired plants at a rate of three per month and, it is estimated will, by 2020, generate roughly the same amount of electricity from coal as the United States does from all sources combined. Why should we saddle ourselves with what amounts to a tax on CO2 emissions when China, and for that matter India, and probably other developing countries will continue to use cheap coal?

The irony of the argument for doing nothing, although it recognizes the reality of an interconnected and therefore, interdependent world, is that it is promulgated by global warming deniers. These people, represented aggressively by the Heartland Institute, among others, with support from major players in US industry, have all along denied the human element in global warming, but in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary are now changing tactics. Basically, their argument boils down to, They're doing it. Why shouldn't we? To label this argument juvenile is to give it more credit than it is due. These people are not ignorant of the facts, they simply choose to distort or ignore them in order to further the ends of complicit industrial partners who can't imagine a future in which their bottom line isn't the promised land to which all humanity aspires.

Let's face the facts. The United States, a country just two hundred and thirty-three years old, has pumped more green house gases into the environment cumulatively since 1850 than any other country, including the combined countries of the European Union. America's cumulative contribution to GHG emissions is four times that of China, and fifteen times that of India. China did overtake the US in 2007 as the World's largest emitter of CO2 from fuel combustion, but the per capita CO2 emission in the US is five times that of China. In 2007, the United States alone generated 20% of world CO2 emissions, despite a population of less than 5% of the global total.

The United States has been an industrial powerhouse creating a standard of living for its citizens that is the envy of the world. America's scientific and technological achievements are second to none. Americans on the whole, are one of the World's most generous people. It is now time for America to translate its productivity, its science and technology, and its generosity into comprehensive, wide-ranging action to rescue our imperiled planet.

In his 1989 message, Pope John Paul II made the point that "the newly industrialized States cannot... be asked to apply restrictive environmental standards to their emerging industries unless the industrialized States first apply them within their own boundaries. At the same time, countries in the process of industrialization are not morally free to repeat the errors made in the past by others, and recklessly continue to damage the environment through industrial pollutants, radical deforestation, or unlimited exploitation of non-renewable resources."

The Pope points out that "The earth is ultimately A COMMON HERITAGE, THE FRUITS OF WHICH ARE FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL. God destined the earth and all it contains for the use of every individual and all peoples (Gaudium et Spes, 69). It is manifestly unjust that a privileged few should continue to accumulate excess goods, squandering available resources, while masses of people are living in conditions of misery at the very lowest level of subsistence. Today, the dramatic threat of ecological breakdown is teaching us the extent to which greed and selfishness—both individual and collective—are contrary to the order of creation, an order which is characterized by mutual interdependence.

The Pope goes on to say that "There is an order in the universe which must be respected, and that the human person, endowed with the capability of choosing freely, has a grave responsibility to preserve this order for the well-being of future generations. THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS IS A MORAL ISSUE. Even men and women without any particular religious conviction, but with an acute sense of their responsibilities for the common good, recognize their obligation to contribute to the restoration of a healthy environment. All the more should men and women who believe in God the Creator, and who are thus convinced that there is a well-defined unity and order in the world, feel called to address the problem. Christians, in particular, realize that their responsibility within creation and their duty towards nature and the Creator are an essential part of their faith." Evangelical Christian leaders have published their own call to action on global warming.

Pope John Paul II conveys both the critical need for action to rescue the environment, but also the moral responsibility we all have for doing so. He makes it clear that countries and their leaders must work hand-in-hand to overcome the obstacles to effective action. Those obstacles include, among others, distrust, greed, selfishness, and apathy.

According to Pope John Paul II, modern society must take a serious look at its life style. This, I think, is particularly true of American society, where consumerism has been for so long now, the engine that drives the US economy. After former President George W. Bush signed into law an economic stimulus package that, among other things, provided $600 to individuals, there were some who voiced regret that people seemed to be saving the money rather than spending it. The fact that on average, the US tax payer was burdened with nine to ten thousand dollars of annual debt didn't seem to matter. Our commercial sector creates products that are designed to be thrown out, and packages them elaborately in plastic, and cardboard, and paper, and cellophane, and rubber, and we throw that out, too. If America continues to be a throw away society, we are likely to find ourselves throwing away our future.

Therefore the land mourns

"Therefore the land mourns and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and even the fish of the sea are taken away" (Hos 4:3).

On December 8, 1989, Pope John Paul II delivered a message for the celebration of World Peace Day, January 1, 1990. The message was titled, "The Ecological Crisis, A Common Responsibility." Pope John started by saying, "In our day there is a growing awareness that world peace is threatened not only by the arms race, regional conflicts and continued injustices among peoples and nations, but also by a LACK OF DUE RESPECT FOR NATURE, by the plundering of natural resources and by a progressive decline in the quality of life. The sense of precariousness and insecurity that such a situation engenders is a seedbed for collective selfishness, disregard for others and dishonesty."

In my view, the Pope's message was the most pointed, insightful, and forceful statement on man and his place in nature ever delivered by a leader of a major religious movement at any time anywhere in the world. It was a remarkable lesson in just what it means to be a Christian who believes that, "the Father has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery ... which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite ALL THINGS in him, all things in heaven and things on earth (Eph. 1:9-10)."

The Pope used various biblical considerations to help the followers of Christ better understand the relationship between human activity and the whole of God's creation. But he also stated that, "The profound sense that the earth is suffering is also shared by those who do not profess our faith in God. Indeed, the increasing devastation of the world of nature is apparent to all."

The Pope's message states that the world's current ecological crisis is a MORAL problem and further, that "the most profound and serious indication of the moral implications underlying the ecological crisis is the lack of RESPECT FOR LIFE evident in many patterns of environmental pollution. Often, the interests of production prevail over concern for the dignity of workers, while economic interests take priority over the good of individuals and even entire peoples. In these cases, pollution or environmental destruction is the result of an unnatural and reductionist vision which at times leads to a genuine contempt for man."

The Pope's message points out forcefully that "WE CANNOT INTERFERE IN ONE AREA OF THE ECOSYSTEM WITHOUT PAYING DUE ATTENTION BOTH TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCH INTERFERENCE IN OTHER AREAS AND TO THE WELL-BEING OF FUTURE GENERATIONS...delicate ecological balances are upset by the uncontrolled destruction of animal and plant life or by a reckless exploitation of natural resources. It should be pointed out that all of this, even if carried out in the name of progress and well- being is ultimately to mankind's disadvantage."

In the next post, THE SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION

Bioneers Conference, October 16-19, 2009, San Rafael, California, October 16-18

“Bioneers” is an odd name. It was coined by Kenny Ausubel, who along with Nina Simons founded the non-profit organization and its annual conference in 1990. The word derives from its founders’ belief that humans can work with and through nature to make our world a better place. Bioneers’ “founding perspectives" are:

Natural Medicine. Nature has a profound and profoundly mysterious ability for self-repair. The primary source of healing lies in nature. In environmental restoration as in medicine, the role of the practitioner is to support nature to heal itself. This principle became foundational to Bioneers.

Nature’s Solutions. Nature has solved all the ecological challenges we’re trying to address. Practitioners such as John Todd, Amory Lovins, Wes Jackson and Donald Hammer, as well as traditional indigenous practices, were a primary inspiration. In 1997, naturalist and author Janine Benyus gave this emerging science a name in her landmark book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, the same year she first spoke at Bioneers. Biomimicry has been a core focus since Bioneers’ inception.

Biocultural Diversity. In nature, diversity is the very fabric of life. Because change is the only constant in nature, diversity is the source of resilience to adapt to change in both natural and human systems. Successful adaptation requires keeping open the greatest range of biologically and culturally diverse options. Diversity is also the sacred tree of life, with intrinsic value.

The Bioneers Conference is a leading-edge forum of social and scientific innovators focused on solutions inspired by nature and human ingenuity where you may:

Explore the forefront of positive change in deeply inspiring keynote talks, panels, workshops and intensives.

Connect with leading-edge people and ideas. Network with dynamic changemakers. Experience Moving Image Festival screenings, and networking receptions.

Discover powerful opportunities and strategies for creating positive change in your work, life and community.

You can participate virtually in the conference by registering and downloading the electronic program.