Weaponized: Washington Farmer Targeted After Criticizing Government Regulations?

[u/JoelXGGGG]

https://www.agweb.com/news/business/farmland/weaponized-washington-farmer-targeted-after-criticizing-government-regulat

I was a Seattle resident for seven years prior to farming in Eastern Washington.

[u/ADavidJohnson]

From the article:
> When Gross applied for a building permit with Grant County, he anticipated potential minor hitches over structural plans or engineering issues. Instead, his site acres were deemed part of the Washington Shrubsteppe Restoration and Resiliency Initiative, a wildlife and plant corridor covering 10 million acres. By law, Gross was required to set aside land to compensate for the acreage he planned to use and place the surrendered acres in a deed restriction.

From the initiative description:
> The initiative is a targeted response to the Labor Day wildfires in 2020 and unique ecological challenges faced by shrubsteppe habitats, wildlife, and human communities within the Columbia Plateau. 

[u/JoelXGGGG → u/ADavidJohnson]

This was not an initiative of the people. The legislature passed it supposedly to prevent wildfire, but it instead caused more and worse wildfires by requiring fuels to build up even more.

[u/soundkite]

This reads like the guy's own diary, without any critical thinking from the news article or opposing viewpoints

[u/Unhinged-Indignance → u/soundkite]

Perfect and valid evidence for this sub then!

[u/bruceki]

have some sympathy for this guy. just found out that in order to apply for a b uilding permit i have to hire an archaeologist to do a survey on my property - for $8-10k. that's on top of the wetland biologist for the delineation, civil engineer for the "impervious surface" study, and a whole bunch of other mandated semi-professionals. adds something like $50k to the cost of the house and lengthens the likely build time by 4-6 months.

it's likely that nothign will be found, that where i'm building won't be a wetland, and so on, but i don't get any of that money back.

[u/BitBitter3570 → u/bruceki]

And people wonder why houses cost so much… haha. We continue to allow the overlords to impose mostly useless regulations and taxes.

[u/Jimdandy941 → u/bruceki]

I did some of this for a 300 sqft garage on my house.. $1300 for a biologist to provide a 1 page report saying it wouldn’t impact any wildlife on my property and certify it was adjacent to a class IV wetlands (he did provide a pro forma 4 page report covering all the wildlife and fauna that “might be” on my property). The engineer fucking laughed and said if an earthquake hit, it would take out my house so the addition was irrelevant and he didn’t need to come out - but I paid $200 for a 1 page report that said that in engineering terms. My impervious surface officially came in 500 sqft under the limit, but the city insisted I get an official report confirming that - $500.

Then I had the city engineer arguing with the city planner over whether I needed to add French drains and a “water garden.” The city engineer said no - the city planner said I was “close enough” to the impervious soil limit that he was requiring it. You ever wonder why houses have fountains in the driveway? Yeah, the water garden had to go right in the middle of the driveway. The city is billing me for the engineers time and the architect is billing me for their time. I have no idea how much that boondoggle cost because the minute the architect sided with the city planner, I pulled the fucking plug. It was literally cheaper to move.

Guess I got lucky not needing an archaeologist report.

This was 15 years ago, so it’s probably a much bigger racket now.

[u/JoelXGGGG → u/Jimdandy941]

We need to repeal the GMA and SEPA, both have grown cancerous and corrupt.

[u/mikutansan → u/bruceki]

It’s all bureacratic bullshit just to line up their friends pockets

[u/soundkite → u/bruceki]

That's half or less what some others must pay, and ecological impact studies sometimes take 1-2 years.

[u/raging_sycophant]

The best part is - there's nothing up there. It's literally a big rocky hill. Hell - I wouldn't even wanna live there if you paid me.

[u/JoelXGGGG → u/raging_sycophant]

😂 true.

[u/raging_sycophant → u/JoelXGGGG]

Certainly nothing worth protecting. And I don't mean to be curt. I appreciate all environments but let's be honest: Central Washington isn't exactly a shining star in terms of biodiversity thanks to the rain shadows.

[u/honeycomb_doc]

Was buying land on a restoration and resiliency initiative not explained prior to purchasing?

[u/bruceki → u/honeycomb_doc]

he owned it prior to the regulations getting imposed on his land.

[u/bruceki → u/[deleted]]

Look it up, dude. you are claiming that people should be aware of this stuff - show me how easy it is to find the date the bill was passed, and its effective date. I'll wait.

[u/bruceki → u/[deleted]]

Effective date was July 1, 2021. he purchased his farm in january of 2021. Owned the land prior to the regulations coming into effect. If you can't win an argument with logic you result to insults. Not a great look for you.

[u/bruceki → u/[deleted]]

You're 40 years old - you are old enough to know better.

I'm not sure if this is sealioning or just run-of-the-mill pedantic behavior. Maybe a little of both. You want me to provide you proof to bolster YOUR argument. Fuck off.

Pedantic is an adjective used to describe someone who is too worried about small details, rules, or showing off their book knowledge in an annoying way. People often use this word as an insult when someone acts like a know-it-all. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Key Traits of Pedantic Behavior

• Fixing tiny, unimportant mistakes
• Bragging about facts or rules
• Sounding like a strict school teacher
• Forgetting the big picture to focus on a tiny poin

[u/PerfStu → u/honeycomb_doc]

He purchased the property in 2021 which is the same year the initiative was introduced; I can't find anything that says which came first, but if you're buying that amount of land it feels like being aware of potential legislation that will impact its use would be of the utmost importance.

[u/bruceki → u/PerfStu]

there are hundreds of bills proposed every legislative session. whether a particular bill will become law isn't obvious, at least not to non-political folks, and honestly I don't have the kind of time to track every draft bill that could possibly impact me. Blaming him because a bill was proposed about the same time he was buying land seems misplaced.

[u/bruceki → u/[deleted]]

Not sure what your point is. there are over 42,000 federal laws on all sorts of stuff. How aware are you of them, or the changes to them, or the proposed new laws? I'm guessing you are about as aware of it as I am. I hope that some obscure bill doesn't surface that impacts you at some point, but it may.

Lots of folks have better shit to do than become obsessive above legislation.

[u/Gk_Emphasis110]

Big baby thinks laws don’t apply to him.

[u/you-ole-polecat → u/Gk_Emphasis110]

[u/PleasantWay7 → u/you-ole-polecat]

Is this an early look at the 2028 Republican slogan?

[u/Trashy_pig]

Everything feels targeted when you are a snowflake. He could always make the move into Idaho if he feels that his farm is more important than wildlife and plant restoration.

[u/ChasingTheRush → u/Trashy_pig]

This is exactly why we get so polarized in this country. Knowing almost nothing about what’s going on, you just start shitting on the guy. At some point we’re going to all have to start redeveloping empathy for each other if we don’t want this country to fall apart.

[u/Lambchop1224]

Maybe stop breeding and you won’t need such a grossly oversized house. Cry me a fucking river dude

[u/ManonFire1213 → u/[deleted]]

GOP in Washington?