Category: Illegalities

February 1st, 2022: Illegal camping in the old-growth forest. We received the report, then took these photos on a slope above Andrews Bay. Tomorrow we will contact Seattle Parks and SPD, maybe the mayor’s office also, to see what can be done. We offer sympathy to those in straitened circumstances, those left behind as Seattle inequities grow, and housing becomes increasingly expensive. But we do not wish to see Seward’s rare remnant old-growth forest become a campground.

Update (February 7th 2022): The tent remains, and an email from the City explained – plausibly, I think, that “our [ability to accomplish] removal of encampments is limited, with priority given to areas where there are the greatest health and public safety concerns.” I will keep an eye on the tent, which may be abandoned. It may have been associated with the now-removed derelict boat.

January 26th, 2022: A semi-derelict boat has been parked, listing slightly to one side,in Andrews Bay since early last Fall, with one or two part-time residents. Sometimes trash and refuse appeared on the shore. Numerous calls to SPD and the Harbor Patrol were answered graciously — and with the explanation that nothing could be done: the normal 48-hour maximum stay policy had been suspended. It seems that the city’s somewhat hands-off policy on inhabited RVs during the COVID-19 pandemic had been extended to boats . This week, however, the boat was towed away. We are grateful to SPD and Harbor Patrol – and to whoever in city government was responsible for returning Andrews Bay to pre-COVID policies.