The Wetland Incident

The year 2006 was a great year for the temple construction process. We had already obtained the zone change, so it was the year to obtain the permit for a new Commercial class building. It was a year where a lot of things fell into place for the new temple construction process. Sometimes Lord Krishna wants us to trust him and so he puts what seems to be apparent obstacles, and then those obstacles disappear when we bring ourselves to remember Him and repose our faith in him, as Maharaj Dhruv did when he was attacked by the Yakshas [ SB Canto 4].

The first problem that we ran into at the beginning of the year was the classification of a portion of the lot where our old building was as a Wetland, especially at the back of the property. A wetland is an area of land consisting of soil that is saturated with moisture, such as a swamp, marsh, or bog. As defined in terms of physical geography, a wetland is an environment "at the interface between truly terrestrial ecosystems and aquatic systems making them inherently different from each other yet highly dependent on both". Wetlands often host considerable biodiversity and endemism. In many locations such as the United Kingdom and United States they are the subject of conservation efforts and Biodiversity Action Plans.
Washington is a state that is very eco-conscious and so the classification of the lot as Wetland put a real dampener on the building permit process as building over a wetland is prohibited. As our building plans had designs that spanned the area marked as Wetland, the permit process ground to a halt!
NSP after consulting with HG Harivilas Pr. called a full-day Harinam sankirtan at the temple building on April 15. I remember attending the sankirtan party and as the day wore along, a significant number of devotees showed up. The chanting of the Holy Name is very powerful as it is non-different in spiritual quality from the Lord Himself. Srila Prabhupada has made this point on several occasions. Anyway, after the Harinam Sankirtan, NSP presented our case to at least half a dozen different organizations like Dept. of Ecology, Army corps of engineers, Washington fish and water management and a couple of others.
A little glimmer of hope showed up at the end of the dark rocky tunnel of permit-land. The various organizations agreed to allow us to build all the way up to the Wetland. This was however not very satisfying for NSP and Aja Pr. as they had really worked with the architects to come up with a ideal building plan and building up to the Wetland meant a part of the plan would have to be truncated. NSP was quite crestfallen about losing fifteen parking spots and also not being able to do anything with the land.
NSP was quite persistent. He met with the city planner multiple times and requested for a site inspection. On May 26, 2006 the city planner finally was inspired somehow to visit the site with some measuring equipment and also brought along their biologist to assess the part that was classified a Wetland. After some inspection and deliberation, they declared the WETLAND WAS NON-EXISTENT! It was an amazing turn of events, and no doubt that the day-long Harinam Sankirtan had pleased the Lord and he exercised his divine will to remove the obstacle of the Wetland.