EBEY ISLAND — Jim Clemetson can’t get a break.
“Alls I want is a half-acre,” he said, Thursday, adjusting the choke on his fire-engine red 1973 Ford dump truck.
He took a drag off his cigarette. A frog croaked. A lone rooster pecked the mud near the truck’s side step. A tow truck had just pulled his truck from the bog.
Clemetson was attempting to fill in a hole in the mud left by two expensive excavators that were swallowed by the unforgiving land more than a year ago.
This tale of woe began when Clemetson, 49, of Everett, tried to cut a road to landlocked property that his mother bought on the island for $65,000.
The Clemetsons claim the person who sold the land assured them that they would be allowed to cut a driveway through brush that separates the property from a state road.
After the sale went through, the state saw Clemetson trying to build a driveway and told him it wasn’t allowed. Department of Transportation crews set up concrete barriers to block him from finishing the job.
Things went from bad to worse for Clemetson, who offered to share his story so that others might learn from his mistakes.
“Be careful,” he said of land transactions. “Investigate (things) yourself.” Clemetson wanted to use the 4.5 acres to store native trees and plants that he harvests.
Clemetson negotiated an easement with his neighbor, and began cutting a driveway with a practically new, rented excavator, valued at about $200,000.
When it got stuck, he called a contractor for help. But, he said, the contractor split with his $15,000 before getting the job done and actually made things worse, Clemetson said.
The Department of Ecology investigated and opened a file. The state environmental agency told Clemetson he did not have proper permits to operate in the wetlands.
A second contractor from Grays Harbor bought salvaging rights for the first stuck excavator, then in the process got his own excavator stuck. It took a crew of 22, two bulldozers and a giant crane to get the mess sorted out.
Clemetson is still cleaning up. The state told him he has to restore the wetlands that he disturbed.
Dick Peterson, owner of Dick’s Towing in Everett, shook his head after freeing the dump truck from the “soup bowl.”
“If you have weight and hit a soft spot, you’re done,” Peterson said.
Bruce King said he hopes for the best for Clemetson, his unlucky neighbor.
“But I wish he’d stop getting stuff stuck back there,” King said. “I’m trying to run a farm, not a rescue service.”
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
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