By Shaun Scott, Puyallup Tribal News
When it was all over, Puyallup Tribal Councilwoman Annette Bryan made her way around the table handing out Indigenous beads to the entire City of Tacoma Tideflats Steering Committee members, commemorating an achievement seven years in the making.
The committee, which consists of two representatives from the Puyallup Tribe, City of Tacoma, Pierce County, City of Fife and the Port of Tacoma, unanimously voted 10-0 to approve a Draft Tideflats Subarea Plan and Letter of Recommendation to the Tacoma City Council and Planning Commission for consideration on Dec. 5 at the Fabulich Center in Fife.
Here is an excerpt of Puyallup Tribal Council Chairman Bill Sterud and Councilwoman Annette Bryan’s remarks.
Chairman Bill Sterud
“We did something really good here. This kind of reminds me of the land claims settlement (1990). … I have been through this and in that time, I begin to see you people as humans, to see you people as working together, to see you people as having a real heart and care about the community and care about the future. … Hopefully we have built a nice strong foundation because there are generations after us and they’re going to be here and be part of us growing here. They are going to need the clean air, the clean water. I actually felt like that was a priority around this table. … I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for working with us. Thank you for being, people. … The land settlement is an important component. This wouldn’t had happened without the consultation portion where all the governments get to talk about what they are doing. That wasn’t there before. There was no table before, but if there was, we wouldn’t had been invited to sit down. That’s then, this is now.”
Councilwoman Annette Bryan
“I remember being in those first rooms and how everyone was kind of positioning, and now we are to a place where we can sit and really be with each other in our truth, in our transparency and our honesty. I really appreciate that. I appreciate the environmental groups who have been with us all along the way before, during and after, for holding us accountable as governments to do the right thing for the people that live in the communities that we serve. I want to thank the industries, too, for showing up and teaching us and listening to us and wanting to do the right thing, to do things better than they have been done in the past. … I’m a little teary eyed too, because I never thought that I would see a day where you’re acknowledging the Puyallup Tribe and our treaty rights. … The fact that we are here, our ancestors are proud because we won’t give up, we never give up and we continue to pound the tables and now we are at the table. I really appreciate that.”
All 10 members of the steering committee including Chairman Sterud, Councilwoman Bryan, Victoria Woodards (City of Tacoma Mayor), Kristina Walker (City of Tacoma Councilmember), Deanna Keller (Port of Tacoma Commissioner), Dick Marzano (Port of Tacoma Commissioner), Bruce Dammeier (County Executive, Pierce County), Ryan Mello (Council Chair, Pierce County), Kim Roscoe (City of Fife Mayor) and Bryan Yambe (City of Fife Councilmember) posed for a quick photo together following the historic vote.
Chairman Sterud and Councilwoman Bryan were the Tribe’s representatives on the committee for the past seven years. The City of Tacoma Tideflats Steering Committee met more than 20 times since 2017 to discuss planning and land use for the tideflats in the surrounding area including the Puyallup River and parts of the port.
Sterud said clean water, clean air, fish and economic development is what mattered to the Tribe throughout the process.
“That’s the world,” Sterud said of the four topics he referenced in his prior sentence.
Puyallup Tribe Planning and Land Use Director Andrew Strobel said each entity began with different goals and objectives, but was proud the group came to one unanimous decision through compromise and hard work.
“There were a lot of conflicting interests and not everybody got what they wanted out of this, but as a staffer working for the Tribe, I can really confidently say that future generations are going to benefit from this plan of the Tribe where fish (and) the Tribe’s cultural treaty rights are going to be better preserved in this environment than what we have right now,” Strobel said. “Coming up with a vision that recognizes the sovereignty of the Tribe, its ancestral rights to these lands and also the Tribe’s initiatives to want to do economic development, and continue to prosper and provide benefit for its people and us being part of that shared vision with all of these partners here is great.”
The unanimous 10-0 vote is something that will stick with Strobel for the long haul.
“I used to joke that if you started this process and you had a kid, they could read the plan now,” Strobel said with a smile. “There is not a lot of things in the world where a planning process lasts seven years. To bring this over the finish line is one of the biggest accomplishments I think for the Tribe to make sure that its voice is heard here in the greater region and the community here.”
The future preservation of the environment is something the Tribe is ecstatic about. The Tacoma Tideflats was decimated by air and water pollution over the past century. The WestRock Paper Mill, which was located in the area for nearly 100 years, closed in September 2023. The Asarco Smelter Smokestack loomed large on the Tacoma waterfront for decades and was finally demolished in January 1993. Those types of facilities will never be seen on the Tacoma Tideflats ever again. Strobel said other uses banned with this Subarea plan include animal rendering plants, pulp and papermills, surface mines and tire related manufacturing and processing.
“One of most important things that we (steering committee) had is we banned any future pulp and paper mills to ever happen in the Tacoma Tideflats. A lot of people ask, ‘Why did it take seven years and was seven years worth it?’” Strobel said. “I would probably tell you if WestRock didn’t go out of business during this time, we probably wouldn’t be able to have banned pulp and paper mills. To stop that type of use that puts a lot of harmful contaminants in the air, their pulp would get into the water right at the mouth of the Puyallup River. This caused a lot of problems for the Tribe. In relation to smelters like Asarco, we have also banned those types of uses, those heavy metal, toxic metal types of facilities from happening in the tideflats ever again. We are walking away from a lot of that toxic legacy. This plan is moving us toward a more environmental future.”
While those types of unfriendly environmental businesses are in the rearview mirror forever, other types of businesses will flourish and ascend in the coming decades.
“It is still industrial. The Tribe is going to be able to profit off what it uses for its lands here for its port operations. We’ve built things like warehouses and things that are connected to logistics,” Strobel said. “These are the types of uses that don’t put a smokestack in the air or discharge lots of bad stormwater into lakes, streams, Commencement Bay and Salish Sea that hurts fish, shellfish and all of the creatures out there.”
The future of the Tacoma Tideflats will pale in comparison to the days of yesteryear.
“This is a plan that is respectful of nature and the Tribal Members that live here and eat those fish, eat those shellfish,” Strobel said.
