State signs lease for new dock to expand Maury Island mine

In a move sure to infuriate environmentalists and favorable to a major campaign backer, outgoing state Public Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland signed a lease Tuesday crucial to the expansion of a controversial gravel mine on Maury Island.

The 30-year lease from the state Department of Natural Resources would enable Northwest Aggregates Glacier Northwest to build a massive new dock to expand its gravel mine there.

Environmental groups have fought the expansion over the past decade, claiming it will damage critical shoreline habitat and threatens chinook salmon and killer whales.

After the November election, in which Democrat Peter Goldmark unseated Sutherland, environmental groups called on Sutherland not to take action on the lease during the remainder of his term.

"It's a spiteful move. Nothing more," said Bill Dunbar, a consultant with the environmental group Preserve Our Islands. "He just thumbs his nose at the ... groups that he blames for his defeat."

In a statement, Sutherland said the lease includes environmental protections.

"I directed staff to add requirements to protect this aquatic ecosystem in the long-term — which they have," he said. The lease, he said, protects the environment while accommodating "existing commercial activities."

Goldmark issued a statement saying he was "deeply disappointed" by the lease, and troubled that it came one day after another state agency, the Puget Sound Partnership, released a plan to revive Puget Sound.

The lease is a big win for a company that gave $50,000 to try to help re-elect Sutherland this year. Glacier Northwest donated that much to an independent political group, the Committee for Balanced Stewardship, which campaigned for Sutherland's re-election.

On its Web site, Glacier Northwest said that after 10 years of intensive study and review, multiple local, state and federal agencies have issued permits or found that the project "will not harm the environment, endangered species, other fish, or their habitat."

In July, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a permit for the expansion. Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit in September, arguing that federal agencies didn't adequately study potential threats to orcas and other endangered species. That suit is still pending.

The new lease will immediately be challenged in court, environmentalists vowed. Dunbar said the Natural Resources Department will now become a defendant in the federal lawsuit as well.

"As Maury Island goes, so will go Puget Sound," said Rep. Sharon Nelson, D-Maury Island. "... I find it sad that this is Doug Sutherland's legacy."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.