Neighbor presses county after unpermitted grading, building and planning says work in creek stopped

Neighbor Neil Crawford told the Cowlitz County Board of Commissioners that heavy equipment has been clearing and grading land near Castle Rock without required approvals, damaging wetlands and a salmon-bearing stream. Crawford, a Kelso resident, singled out parcel WJ0214001 on Spirit Lake Highway and said he and neighbors contacted county staff after work began in May. “What’s the new permit process for land development?” he asked at the Tuesday meeting, saying the contractor began work before permits were complete and that adjoining properties had been damaged. The concern centers on critical-area designations flagged in the county GIS for the parcel — annotations Crawford read aloud that include “riparian fish-bearing stream,” “potentially unstable slopes” and “mine hazard.” He cited state and county authorities as relevant to the situation, including the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA), the county critical-areas code and a timber-trespass statute: “If it’s not your property and you damage it … RCW 64.12.030 gives the property owners … the right to take the parties that affected them to court,” he said. Tracy Jackson, director of Cowlitz County Building and Planning, told the commissioners staff had visited the site after receiving neighbor complaints and that the property owner, identified in the record as Mr. Roseland, “is working with our department and obtaining the correct permits he needs to continue his work.” Jackson said the county had intervened to stop work in the creek areas: “He has stopped working in the creeks. We have stopped him. He is not working in the creeks. He’s not doing any of that right now at all.” Commissioners and other speakers pressed on county enforcement and sequencing. One commissioner said a landowner who damages a…