UPDATE: Washington State Parks commission grants parks director authority to issue Navy permits
Updated Feb. 11 at 1:42 p.m.: The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission granted the director of state parks full authority to remove the restriction on daytime training events for the U.S. Navy.
For the first nine months after the first permit is issued to the Navy, the SEALs will only be authorized to conduct training events at night, when parks are closed or not in use. After that time, if the director feels the Navy has conducted training events consistent with all the permitting conditions, they can remove that restriction and allow the Navy to use the parks, day or night.
In their original proposal, the Navy said its training events would require troops to stay in parks overnight and for several days.
The current director of state parks, Don Hoch, is retiring this year. His successor, who would likely be making this decision, has not been named.
Previous post: The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission will hold another special meeting about the U.S. Navy’s request to use some of the state’s parks for special operations training.
At the virtual meeting, scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday, the commission will decide whether “clarifying language” is needed for an amendment that was added during the Jan. 28 meeting before the proposal was passed, according to a press release.
The amendment delegates the authority to issue permits to the Navy to the director of state parks, requires parks staff to give periodic reports on training activities to the commission and limits the Navy’s activities to evening hours for the first nine months of each permit. However, after the proposal was passed and parks staff began its review of each individual park permit, park officials discovered the commissioner’s discussion of the amendment during the Jan. 28 meeting was inconsistent with the language in the amendment.
“Specifically, the written amendment appears to require that after a nine-month trial period, further Commission action would be required to lift the restriction on training during daylight hours,” state parks staff wrote in clarifying documents for the Feb. 11 meeting. “Discussion among commissioners, however, indicated that the intent of the amendment was to delegate authority to the Director to make an independent evaluation and decision to permit training activities during daylight hours at the end of the nine-month review period.”
State parks staff are requesting the commission clarify the intent of the amendment during tomorrow’s meeting.
Public comment is not allowed during the meeting, but people are invited to watch the proceedings online.
This story was originally published February 10, 2021 at 1:42 PM.
