Port’s estuary project ignores wisdom of late salmon expert

The Herald’s article on the loss of the Biringer farmland to salmon smolt habitat restoration, the Port of Everett’s Blue Heron project (“‘Strawberry Lady’ will miss life and home on Spencer Island,” May 12), aroused some long and sad reflections. But not merely the loss of farmland. Government projects often confuse human values with those of nature and municipal economics. In any case, nothing can beguile certain interests from the notion that young salmon will thrive in warmed tidal shallows or ever did so anywhere.

This letter is rather a tribute to a Snohomish County treasure, the late Bob Heirman, and an answer to the Blue Heron project that ignores his life’s expertise. More than anyone, Heirman understood local fish species, their habitat needs and their integration with modern development. More than anyone he wrote and pictured them in concerned details. More than anyone he told and taught their story to the public and uninformed leadership.

Heirman was not flogging a dead horse. Salmon smolt and time are on his side for eternity.

And incidentally, the embodied blue heron has thrived in quiet co-prosperity with the Getchell Farm and Ranch on Ebey Island, of which I am co-owner, since its founding in 1873.

Alex Alexander

Everett