Programmatic Updates:
Our Latest Appeals
WEAN Appeals Island County’s Comprehensive Plan
WEAN is challenging aspects of Island County's updated Comprehensive Plan—the long-range blueprint that governs, among other things, where and how development happens across the county. WEAN is petitioning the state Growth Management Hearings Board (GMHB), arguing that the update, adopted in June, opens rural Island County to more growth than the Growth Management Act allows and fails to plan for concurrency between septic capacity and septic needs.
One of WEAN’s concerns is a "rural cluster" scheme that, by WEAN's analysis, would allow homes at densities well above the rural standard—potentially thousands of additional dwelling units countywide—while overstating how much open space is genuinely preserved. The same rules would reach into the county's only protected commercial farmland, allowing up to a third of those parcels to be developed for residential use.
WEAN contends the plan reduces Oak Harbor's share of future growth without a transparent basis and allows Oak Harbor to annex greenfield land on the city’s outskirts without meeting the legal requirement to address urbanized “doughnut holes” —fully surrounded, but not annexed, by the city and left without access to urban sewer, water, and services. WEAN is also concerned about weakened protections for wetlands, streams, and shorelines through removal of "best available science" and "no net loss" safeguards that shield the nearshore habitat salmon, forage fish, and Southern Resident orcas depend on—while deferring hard questions about sea level rise to a later, unfunded process.
The petition, to be filed on August 28, asks the GMHB to send the plan back to the county for corrections in accordance with state law. We'll keep members posted as it moves forward—watch here for documentation and updates.
WEAN Challenges Premature Clearcut Approval Above Quade and Maxwelton Creeks Near Wildes Road
The Department of Natural Resources has approved a 37-acre clearcut at the head of the Maxwelton Valley, signing off on the permit on August 19. Approval came two days before the agency’s own public comment deadline, and before it read the concerns neighbors and WEAN had submitted.
The steep, wet site drains toward Quade Creek and Maxwelton Creek—fish-bearing waters that flow to Puget Sound, in the same watershed as the Outdoor Classroom where South Whidbey students release salmon fry each year. The approved plan would remove about 97% of the trees and push some 2,000 feet of new road across saturated ground above county road culverts. Island County shares WEAN’s concerns, and was neither consulted by DNR nor allowed on the agency’s site visits.
WEAN is appealing to the state Pollution Control Hearings Board and asking for a stay to pause operations until the case is heard. Our appeal rests on DNR's own record: the decision came early, the permit was misclassified (it should have triggered full environmental review), the application is riddled with internal contradictions, and fieldwork DNR's own team called for was never done.
Our members give us standing in this case. Remember, joining WEAN means that when an ecosystem in your neighborhood is threatened, we can stand at your defense in administrative hearings and in court. Go here to watch for updates on this and other appeals.
