PORT ANGELES — Sprint boat race organizers Kelie and Dan Morrison say they expect their upcoming sprint boat races will proceed as planned in August and September despite what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says is a wetlands violation on property that includes the sprint boat race course.
A Corps representative and the Morrisons will meet Tuesday to attempt to resolve what the Corps says is a “knowing and willful violation,” said Corps of Engineers spokeswoman Patricia Graesser.
The Morrisons said last week that they have every intention of holding the Aug. 11 United States Sprint Boat Association race, the Sept. 8 USSBA National Finals Challenge and the Sept. 29 Run A Muck Challenge & Music Fest at the couple’s Extreme Sports Park at 2917 Edgewood Drive.
“Our attorney has advised us that we can still have our event as long as we abide by staying out of the wetlands in question,” Kelie Morrison said.
“At this point, we are going to do everything we can to make sure these events happen, and we are diligently working hard to make sure that we are abiding by the Army Corps guidelines.”
The small boats competed in races on the 4-acre track in mid-September, attracting between 8,000 and 10,000 spectators to the initial race.
Seven months later, in an April 27 letter, Corps’ Seattle district Engineer Bruce Estok told Dan Morrison, and the Morrisons’ A2Z Enterprises, that Dan Morrison had committed “a knowing and willful violation of federal law” by not obtaining a permit to deposit material that was excavated to build the track, access roads and a utility line into 1.44 acres of wetlands.
Graesser said the agency also issued a stop-work order for any work in the wetlands area.
“As far as I understand it, almost one-and-a-half acres of wetlands were partly or all filled in,” Graesser said, adding that the Corps is “looking forward to discussing ways to resolve the violation” at Tuesday’s meeting.
“There are a number of ways to do that,” she said.
The measures include pursuing criminal or civil penalties, having A2Z apply for an after-the-fact permit, removal of the unauthorized fill, restoration of the site, settlement penalties or any combination of those options, Graesser said.
Dan Morrison said Friday he intends to fix the problem.
“Mitigation is probably the way we want to go and just deal with that,” he said.
The toe of the track’s slope “in a couple of places encroached on the wetland,” he said.
“It appears off the survey we did that there’s a few spots that are crossing the line, yes, and we will have to deal with that,” Morrison said.
“The reality is, it’s in the middle of an existing agricultural piece of property that we can plow and disk, legally.”
Morrison — and initially the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce — said the Dry Creek Coalition is trying to shut down the track — but a coalition official says that’s just not true.
Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce President Brian Kuh read to dozens of weekly luncheon participants July 16 a statement that grew out of a July 13 chamber board meeting.
It said: “These challenges are being caused mainly by a group of individuals under the name of the Dry Creek Coalition, who are doing everything they can to shut the Extreme Sports Park down.”
The statement also said legal help for the coalition was coming from the Seattle-based Center for Environmental Law Policy and Port Angeles lawyer Shirley Nixon, the group’s former staff attorney.
The statement, written by chamber Executive Director Russ Veenema, urged luncheon participants to write letters to the Peninsula Daily News supporting the Extreme Sports Park and said “the park has protected wetlands” and “been mindful of using the land in an eco-friendly manner.”
Morrison said a now-former member of the Dry Creek Coalition, whose members live near the track, had contacted the state Department of Ecology about the wetlands.
Morrison said the group also was responsible for notifying state officials after the Port of Port Angeles illegally, according to Ecology, allowed water to be drawn from a man-made pond for the sprint boat race course for the 2011 race.
No fines were issued, and a temporary permit has been issued for this year’s event, Morrison said, criticizing the Coalition and CELP.
“The reality is, they opened the can up; these guys are the ones who opened the lid on the can,” he said.
“If the Dry Creek Coalition hadn’t gotten the ball rolling, we wouldn’t be here now,” he added.
Nixon said CELP had notified the Corps of Engineers about fill being deposited in the wetlands last fall.
“CELP helped to set that in motion,” she said Friday.
The Dry Creek Coalition did contact state officials about the water permit issue last year but was not involved in notifying Ecology about the wetlands, group Corresponding Secretary Harley Oien said Friday in an interview.
“It’s simply not true,” he said.
In 2008, the coalition initially wrote a letter to the port supporting the course.
It said the group “strongly endorses establishing a sprint boat event course on the Critchfield 113 acre property” with three caveats that included that “Dry Creek and its riparian area would not be adversely impacted by the race course.”
The coalition later withdrew its support for the track.
“Only after A2Z continued to disregard the wetlands did DCC remove its approval for the Sprint Boat raceway,” Oien said in an email.
The statement that was read at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon “came from individual members of the community that had told us they had heard this and that,” Veenema said.
“We had been given some information that was a little old with regard to the Dry Creek Coalition,” he added.
“What we are doing is encouraging people to work together with a common good in mind of making [the sprint boat races] succeed.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.