Bill Puts Farm Plans Off-Limits to Public Records Requests

By Adam Wilson, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

Mar. 1–A bill waiting for a final vote in the Legislature would make secret the now-public environmental protection plans drafted by conservation districts and private landowners. When an environmental group obtained copies of every so-called farm plan in the Whidbey Island Conservation District, it infuriated local farmers and prompted the area’s state senator to draft a bill to make them secret. The Whidbey Environmental Action Network requested the plans to see whether landowners were following them, network member Steve Erickson said. The state agency’s initial response to the request was to try to keep the records private, he said, and now it wants to exempt them from public records law. “We’ve been told these contain really personal, private information. Well, there’s no financial information,” Erickson said. He provided one of 115 plans the group obtained, which detailed landowners’ strategy to deal with the soil and water quality effects of raising six chickens and two horses on a 2.9-acre parcel. “These are not earth-shattering documents,” Erickson said. But Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, said the environmental group’s investigation was “offensive” to residents. “Most people don’t imagine that by going in and asking for some advice, to be good stewards of the land, that you could end up with somebody peeking over your fence,” she said. Haugen said the environmental groups’ past lawsuits against the county and new interest in farm plans has made landowners leery of working with the conservation district. She said the district usually cannot fill the demand for conservation grants, and now did not have enough applications to give out the money it had. Conservation districts are funded partly by local property taxes, and offer education and grants to landowners to help protect soil and water quality. “One of the things that helps us do our work with farmers is our relationship,” said Karen Krug, supervisor of the Whidbey conservation board. “To get them to come forward, to want our help with conservation, they have to trust us. Farm plans are very personal information for them. They’re talking about how they do their own farming, their plans.”

Haugen’s bill, SB 6617, would make farm plans off-limits to public records requests unless they are used in a permit application, or the farmer has given the conservation district permission to release it. The Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington had opposed the bill until the provision to open records used in a permit was adopted. The bill passed the Senate, and a House committee approved it. The entire House must approve it by Friday for it to become law.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

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