All-American’s oratory
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Peninsula Daily News August 3, 2016 | 75¢
Port Townsend-Jefferson County’s Daily Newspaper
Clean water rules adopted
In all shapes and forms
EPA to decide on state’s regs THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
STEVE MULLENSKY/FOR PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
Jeanette Best, board chair and director of Art Port Townsend at the Northwind Gallery in Port Townsend, looks at how a 24-by-36 acrylic painting titled “Point Wilson” by Victoria artist Jim McFarland will look on the wall. The piece, one of 84 works by 55 artists from Canada, Montana, Washington and Oregon, were juried into the 18th annual Art Port Townsend show, which opens Thursday and runs through the 28th.
Port Townsend festival paints a communal picture 84 pieces from NW, elsewhere displayed at arts center in city BY CHRIS MCDANIEL PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
PORT TOWNSEND — Dozens of original art pieces submitted by artists from throughout the Pacific Northwest will be on display this month at Northwind Arts Center, 701 Water St., as part of 2016 Art Port Townsend art festival. The display — part of the 18th Annual Juried Art Show: Expressions
Northwest — will be revealed to the public at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, and remain open during regular business hours through Aug. 28. The Art Port Townsend 18th Annual Artist Studio Tour, held in conjunction with the art show, will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 27 and 28. Other events are planned throughout the month. Both events are free and open to the public. For the juried art show, “we have 65 artists from the Northwest and there are 84 pieces in the show,” said Jeanette Best, Northwind Arts Center, board chair. “They were chosen by our juror,
Patricia Watkinson, from over 300 pieces that were submitted.” Watkinson is an art and museum consultant, based in Seattle who recently served as the interim director of the Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, according to northwindarts.org. She has curated numerous art exhibitions on all forms of the arts and crafts and has written about contemporary art, chiefly of the Pacific Northwest. “We feel that it is very valuable to bring what our distinguished juror considers to be the best art of the Northwest to Port Townsend,” Best said. TURN
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SEATTLE — State regulators have adopted new clean-water rules tied partly to how much fish people eat after years of heated debate over how clean the state’s water should be. Now it’s up to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency— which stepped in last fall to write its own rules for Washington — to decide whether the state’s plan is good enough. “We believe our new rule is strong, yet reasonable. It sets standards that are protective and achievable,” Ecology Director Maia Bellon said in a statement issued Monday. She noted that the EPA has indicated it prefers states to write their own rules and she believes Washington’s can be approved by the federal agency. A message to an EPA spokesman in Seattle was not immediately returned. Federal law requires rivers and other water bodies to be clean enough so people can safely swim and eat fish from those waters. The rules set limits on pollutants that factories, wastewater treatment plants and other industrial facilities can discharge into state waters.
Fish consumption rate The state’s rules dramatically raise the current fish-consumption rate to 175 grams a day, which would protect people who eat about a serving of fish a day. Tribes and environmental groups have pushed for more stringent rules to reduce water pollution and protect the people who eat the most fish. Cities and businesses have said the technology isn’t available to meet stricter rules and it could cost billions of dollars with little or no benefit to the environment. The Ecology Department has made several attempts at drafting new rules since 2011, and has missed its own deadlines. TURN
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Regulations for vacation rentals are eyed Clallam public hearing is planned BY PAUL GOTTLIEB
PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
PORT ANGELES —Unincorporated Clallam County’s growing and unfettered inventory of short-term vacation rentals is on the verge of getting regulated. Clallam County commissioners agreed Monday to set a public hearing for a draft ordinance regulating vacation rentals that the planning commission recommended for approval July 20. The date of the hearing hasn’t been set. Commissioner Mike Chapman said Tuesday that he expects the hearing to be in late
Auguest or early September. Short-term rentals also an issue in neighboring Port Townsend, where the city Planning Commission voted 6-0 July 13 to recommend the prohibition of short-term rentals of under 29 days in which owners do not live on-site. The new Clallam County regulations are driven by residents’ complaints and the growth of Airbnb. The San Francisco-based company founded in 2008 connects vacationers directly with rentals and has more than 2 million listings worldwide.
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“It was past time to pay attention to it,” Mary Ellen Winborn, county Department of Community Development director, said Tuesday. “People complain all the time.” Vacation rentals of under a month in residences where the owners are not present are not regulated in the Clallam County comprehensive plan. That includes no rules on how many people can rent the places. Under the proposed ordinance, the maximum number of visitors would be determined by the capacity of the septic system, and one space of on-site parking would be provided for every bedroom in the vacation rental. The county would conduct
safety inspections of the accommodations prior to being rented, and owners would have to meet local and state regulations for business licenses and lodging taxes. The need for new regulations “was driven more about the complaints, and the more we looked into it, we realized it was because of the need, just because of the number,” Winborn said. “We have over 400 Airbnbs in the area. “We know Airbnb is there, and people are calling and saying, ‘What do I have to do to be an Airbnb.’ “It was past time to pay attention to it.” She recalled one woman who became a default landlord for a
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neighboring short-term rental after the renters had trouble with the septic system. “She had to reset the septic system alarm all the time.” Winborn said most of the complaints have been generated from waterfront parcels in Sequim, followed by the Port Angeles area. Senior Planner Donella Clark said the regulation will “level the playing field a little bit more” with bed and breakfasts and other lodging establishments that abide by land-use and other regulations. Winborn said the new regulation also will make it easier for county Code Enforcement Officer Barb McFall to address neighborhood concerns.
BUSINESS CLASSIFIED COMICS COMMENTARY DEAR ABBY DEATHS HOROSCOPE LETTERS NATION/WORLD
B4 B6 B5 A9 B5 A8 B5 A9 A3
PENINSULA POLL PUZZLES/GAMES SPORTS WEATHER
A2 B7 B1 B10