Build Up, Not Out

How cities in other countries are making room underground for the canopy overhead—cooling neighborhoods while preventing sidewalk damage Room to grow: Street trees along this section of Kempton Street in Olympia, developed in 1995, were planted in broad grassy areas between the houses and sidewalk, rather than narrow planter strips. Now mature, the trees provide substantial canopy and shade, while more than 30 years later, the sidewalk shows no visible displacement from their

Thurston County got sued by Futurewise for failing to include tangible action items to fight climate change when it adopted its comprehensive plan in December. It lost. Will the county appeal? We hope it chooses to abide by the decision rather than fight it. If you watch the video of the oral arguments starting at 1:02:36, you will see that the county was clearly in the wrong. For an example, you can read page 24 of the Hearings Board's decision, where it noted that the Count

The Growth Management Hearings Board has issued its decision in the appeals of Thurston County’s 2025 Comprehensive Plan update—and it includes two major environmental victories. South Sound Bird Alliance prevailed in its challenge to the Black Lake Quarry rezone. The Board found the County’s decision to rezone the quarry property for Rural Resource Industrial use clearly erroneous and invalidated the rezone. That is significant. County Commissioners voted 4-1 on December 16,

In December 2025, federally threatened Mazama pocket gophers played a key role in halting a plan to significantly expand the Olympia Regional Airport. Seven months later, the species and its Bush Prairie habitat at the airport have become part of a nationwide effort to stop a sweeping rollback of the Endangered Species Act. Illustration created by Ronda Larson Kramer using Google Gemini The U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries Services — federal agencies that

If a city official ever tells you that one of their priorities is to "extend services to rural residents," please tell them that this is not consistent with the Growth Management Act. "In general, it is not appropriate that urban governmental services be extended to or expanded in rural areas except in those limited circumstances shown to be necessary to protect basic public health and safety and the environment and when such services are financially supportable at rural dens

A first-of-its-kind lawsuit by growth management watchdog Futurewise against Thurston County is set to become one of the initial tests of Washington’s pioneering climate planning law. The 2023 law builds on decades of planning research showing that development patterns influence how far people drive and how much money local governments spend extending water, sewer, and other infrastructure. The climate planning law requires many local governments to reduce greenhouse gas emis

The Thurston County Board of County Commissioners recently postponed its vote for a second time on a proposal that would remove the Board from the county’s land-use appeals process. The proposal by Board Chair Tye Menser has faced staunch opposition from environmental groups and the county’s own advisory committee. West Rocky Prairie contains some of the last remaining prairie ecosystems in Thurston County. Conservation advocates have spent decades fighting development propos

The Thurston County Historic Commission will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, June 10, at 5:30 p.m. regarding an application to place a surviving segment of the historic Cowlitz Trail corridor on the Thurston County Historic Register. If approved, the designation would help bring greater recognition to an important piece of Indigenous and regional history. Many people know about the Oregon Trail. Far fewer know about the Cowlitz Trail—the Indigenous travel corridor that ex

In March 2026, community members were asked to tell Thurston County whether BAR Holdings/Salish Landing should remain on the County’s docket — the list of projects the County plans to work on over the next two years. The response was overwhelming: nearly all of the 183 survey respondents opposed keeping the proposal on the docket. Before the County was required to take a position, the developers requested that BAR Holdings be removed from the docket. The most likely reason th

Bird Alliance sued Thurston County to stop an industrial rezone on land surrounded by a national wildlife refuge.

The Center for Environmental Law & Policy (CELP) helped defeat Senator Jessica Bateman's bad bill that was a request of BAR Holdings to enable its UGA swap. With worsening drought conditions, declining snowpack, and increasing pressure on water resources, CELP’s role as a watchdog and advocate is becoming more important. Donate here.

SB 6016, sponsored by Senator Jessica Bateman, would modify the UGA swap statute in ways that would benefit BAR Holdings. It has advanced to the Senate Rules Committee but has not received a floor vote and the companion bill has not received a House hearing. Senator Bateman describes the bill as “alignment” of prior swap laws. In reality, it selectively adopts one provision while leaving out key anti-sprawl safeguards.

At its meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 3, the Tumwater City Council will decide whether to support keeping the BAR Holdings/Salish Landing urban growth area (UGA) swap on Thurston County’s comprehensive plan docket. Over 440 people have signed a petition opposing the development. If you care about affordability, consider giving public comment at Tuesday’s 7 p.m. city council meeting. Attend in person or register with Zoom by 6:45 p.m. Two problems should most concern council membe

Pat yourselves on the back. Many of you responded to our request a few weeks ago to register your opposition (your "CON") on the legislature's webpage for SB 6016, which Senator Jessica Bateman wrote specifically to help BAR Holdings get built. You also responded to our request to ask questions during an online town hall event with Sen. Bateman, Rep. Parshley, and Rep. Doglio. We are happy to report that in both cases, your actions made a real difference. As for the town hall

Please take 2 minutes today to submit “CON” testimony on SB 6016, sponsored by Sen. Jessica Bateman. Submit your position here: https://app.leg.wa.gov/csi/Senate?selectedCommittee=34080&selectedMeeting=33614 Why this matters: SB 6016 isn’t a harmless technical fix. It reopens a flawed 2022 loophole in Washington’s Growth Management Act that allows Urban Growth Area (UGA) “swaps” to be used as a backdoor UGA expansion. In Thurston County, this directly enables the BAR Holdings

We are still waiting to know what the Washington Department of Commerce decides to do: will it follow its mandate to not make policy, or will it decide to make policy and create regulations that don't follow the UGA Swap Law. As you recall, the swap law was improved in 2024. That improvement said you can't do a swap if it would increase development capacity inside an urban growth area. That rule is in place because, well to put it simply, who wants to live in an urban growth

We are happy to say that we withdrew our appeal today because today the county rescinded its flawed determination of nonsignificance (i.e., its determination that it didn't have to do an in-depth investigation into the environmental consequences of the UGA swap policy that the developers wrote and tried to get the commissioners to approve). The reason the county rescinded the DNS was because of YOU. Everyone's amazing contributions to the 1/21 hearing got the commissioners to

We're discovering that violations of the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) are rampant in Thurston County. The purpose of an in-depth environmental review under SEPA is to give the public and elected officials data to make the right decision. But local governments, at least in this county, often do whatever it takes to avoid doing an in-depth environmental review. The City of Olympia has not done one for over 20 years on any proposed projects. The Port of Olympia also fai

The county is looking at how many people oppose the draft UGA swap policy language--language created by the BAR Holdings developers themselves to get around a provision in the law that would kill their development. We had a packed public hearing on Jan. 21st before the county commissioners. Click here to watch (public comment starts at 1:57:00 and runs over an hour and a half). Commissioner Menser said he had never seen so many people signed up to testify in all his time on t

Attendees got to see this buck rub tree, which bucks use in late summer and fall to rub the velvet off their antlers as they prepare for the breeding season. Bucks also use rubs to leave scent marks and mark their territory. Credit: Chad Kramer, 12/26/2024. Attendees walk through the Squalli-absch Family Forest to the Cowlitz Trail crossing at BAR Holdings on January 25, 2025. Credit: Maverick.