As nearly 20-year residents of Holmes Harbor and high tax-paying owners of waterfront property, we are writing in protest of the proposed Nichols Brothers huge industrial expansion on Holmes Harbor in Freeland.

This is an environmentally sensitive area, a habitat for eagles, owls, herons, loons and all manner of bird life. The bluff areas are unstable and could easily be adversely affected by the massive bulldozing necessary to put rails half way down it. It is a non-flushing bay, where shellfish for human consumption are farmed, and it is a recreational area for all of the homes around it, as well as for public use at Freeland Park.

It is impossible to conceive how this expansion can be approved. The environmental impact will be huge. Doesn’t anyone remember how toxic the bay became as a result of Nichols Brothers’ earlier industrial stewardship, before they were finally compelled, after a long fight, to clean it up? Forcing deep water industry on a shallow bay area will cause

irrevocable damage to the bay bottom and surrounding wetlands. It will diminish the quality of life for the citizens who live on that water and use it recreationally. It will cause a decrease in the property values, as the level of toxic industrial waste generated by such an expansion increases.

If for some political reason this expansion is allowed to proceed, we predict long and costly law suits in the county’s future, absorbing county funds which need to be spent on schools, parks and human services. Those funds should go to benefit our community, rather than wrangle legally over such an obvious misjudgment on the part of our county supervisors, commissioners and other persons in charge.

Judith Walcutt

David Ossman

Freeland