Growth Management Increased Grays Harbor's Risk?

In the David Postman entry I cited below, he mentions something that I can't find more about:

Officials with the Grays Harbor Public Utilities District said that laws restricting how far back trees can be cut from streams and rivers left too many tall trees standing too close to electrical towers. When the winds and floods came, the trees hit the towers which "just crumpled like an accordion," said Richard Lovely, general manager of the PUD. He said five towers on the BPA line into the county were lost. "We just kept watching things collapse and collapse," he said.

He and others blamed the state law requiring buffers of trees between sensitive habitat and cleared land, whether for logging or a utility right-of-way. Rep. Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, told me that some trees that took down utility towers had been required to be left standing because they were designated habitat for the endangered marbeled murrelet.

Hm. If anyone reads or hears more about this and what the particular situation was, I sure would like to hear. I'm a bit skeptical that the Growth Management Act has increased risk. But perhaps there are some situations where variances are necessary to reduce some forms of particular damage due to flooding. (Actually, I would have thought if the Grays Harbors officials knew about the situation beforehand a variance would have been possible with Grays Harbor county.) So if this isn't just politicking, a review of the case should be made. But I need convincing...