Timber industry shouldn't take advantage of a bad situation

Right now, things Washingtonians care about – education, health care and critical environmental protections – are all being gutted.

State legislators are making tough decisions about how to try and stitch together a budget that doesn’t undermine our core values; in many ways, they’re coming up short, as evidenced by the impasse they’re at right now.

While it’s easy to think it’s a politician’s problem, the state budget has serious impacts. People will lose their health care, state parks will close and seniors will lose their in-home care.

As a middle school math teacher, I am facing increased class sizes and fewer resources to help kids, making helping students learn that much more challenging. And it’s certainly not just me; teachers and families across the state are confronting similar problems. People across the state are facing serious consequences and making sacrifices.

But not everyone is stepping up. Industries that have up until now been getting a free ride from taxpayers are balking when asked to pay their fair share.

For a long time, Washington state taxpayers have footed the bill for industry-related services. Industry has paid nominal fees or no fees at all to support essential programs that make their business operations safe and possible.

And now, when the Legislature has considered asking them to pay part of the costs of protection programs, industry has responded by trying to weaken enforcement of laws that protect all of us.

For example: The timber industry right now pays a minimal $50 permit fee to log hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of wood. The Legislature has proposed raising this fee to help pay for the inspections to make sure that logging is done right, so poor logging practices don’t hurt our environment or endanger lives and property by increasing risk of flooding and landslides. But timber companies will agree to an increased permit cost only if the environmental regulations around logging are weakened.

That is not paying your fair share; it’s taking advantage of a bad situation for your own gain.

By playing this dangerous game during a time of budget crisis, industries are putting state legislators in a tough position: Take the increased fees along with the increased dangers or hold firm to protect our state from costly slides and flooding, which means having to cut more for health care, education and environmental protections.

That’s not the Washington way. And I hope that as a state we’re able to find solutions that help take some of the burden off our overstretched state budget without endangering our safety, economy and environment.

Our kids deserve more. Shandra Crosby is an eighth-grade math teacher in Tacoma.