Sound Off: Commissioner Bacon is right that we’re in a crisis — so let’s act like it
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 4, 2026
By MARNIE JACKSON; AMANDA BULLIS; KIM DRURY
Whidbey Environmental Action Network
Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon’s recent Sound Off column is worth reading carefully. She is right that we are living in a climate emergency, but we would push back on one central premise: that because real change happens at the federal level, local action is inherently limited. In fact, the adage “think globally, act locally: could never be truer: some of the most consequential decisions for our climate future happen right here. And some of those decisions are being made right now, in the county’s Draft Comprehensive Plan.
The Comprehensive Plan is not just a statement of values. It is the legal framework that governs land use in Island County for the next two decades. As we have emphasized in our formal comments to the county, when the draft plan replaces the word “require” with “consider,” or adds “where feasible” to a policy, it is not a stylistic choice — it is a regulatory loophole. The Growth Management Act requires functional, enforceable policies. Instead, the county has chosen to remove or weaken many existing environmental protective policies. In the current draft, lands valued for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and aquifer recharge are administratively invisible — they carry no formal conservation status that would protect them from future reclassification. Strong policy protections are climate action: forests, wetlands and intact natural areas are not incidental features of our landscape. They are the primary tools we have for managing stormwater, recharging our sole-source aquifer, sequestering carbon and buffering the intensity of storms.
Sea level rise will reshape Whidbey’s shorelines regardless of who occupies the White House. The planning decisions we make now will determine how resilient our community is as that happens. The current draft lacks a concrete strategy for managed retreat — the necessary, if difficult, process of planning for the strategic relocation of infrastructure, septic systems, and, eventually, structures away from areas of high inundation risk. The draft plan also fails to address the future wetlands and estuaries that will form as the sea reshapes our shores.
Proactive land protection along our changing coastlines — acquiring or working with conservation partners to protect public shorelines, boat launches, wetlands, and aquifer recharge areas before they become crisis zones — is one of the highest-return investments the county could make. These acquisitions would support climate resilience, benefit all islanders and cost far less now than restoration will cost later.
During a recent work session on the plan’s Natural Resources and Climate Elements, Commissioner Bacon suggested allowing a “grace period”— potentially spanning decades — during which Island County homeowners could install shoreline armoring without the usual scrutiny. Neither the law nor the science here is ambiguous, and the costs of delay are severe: a 2023 independent study found that shoreline armoring in Island County is continuing at an alarming rate, and that, between 2016 and 2023 alone, less than 5% of that armoring had the necessary permits. Today, roughly 25% of the county’s total shoreline is already hardened, meaning that nearly half of our available forage fish spawning grounds are directly armored or severely impacted.
The entire foodweb of the Salish Sea depends on forage fish, which spawn on the beaches of Whidbey and Camano Island. Without them, the food web collapses, impacting the entire ecosystem, including our Chinook salmon and southern resident Orca populations. Granting unrestricted hard armoring would be catastrophic to the entire Puget Sound region, and the costs to taxpayers of restoring our shorelines would be astronomical. Advocating at the state level for home relocation for community members directly impacted by sea level rise is a proactive approach the county could take that recognizes the need for urgent climate action without decimating our shorelines.
Commissioner Bacon rightly invokes environmental justice and Black Climate Week. If equity is foundational to this Comprehensive Plan — and the Board of Commissioners has said it is — that commitment must be written into the actual policy language, not just the introduction. Environmental justice has to start here, at home. It has to start with how we engage community members in planning, and how we ensure that the most vulnerable among us — and the least historically enfranchised—share power and influence over outcomes affecting us all.
Commissioner Bacon argues that making an official climate emergency declaration would essentially take “funds and focus away from other important issues we actually can impact like homelessness and public safety,” a perspective that fails to recognize how core community issues like homelessness and public safety are affected by climate change. Our unhoused populations will be the first to be impacted by increasing heat, extreme precipitation, and storm severity. Sea level rise will make many homes unlivable; saltwater intrusion will impact septic and water infrastructure, with real impacts on public health. Climate change impacts nearly every aspect of our lives and, as such, should be funded accordingly, especially given the Commissioners’ three policy statements for this planning period. Climate resilience, equity, and public health are deeply intertwined with the growing needs resulting from a rapidly changing climate — and deserve funding.
We are not asking the county to solve climate change. Absolutely, federal action is essential. What we are asking is that Island County use the tools it actually has — the Comprehensive Plan, the Shoreline Management Program, the Critical Areas Ordinance, the Open Space Tax program — to the fullest extent of its authority. That means mandatory language, not aspirational language. It means proactive land acquisition and conservation designations. It means planning honestly for rising seas, not writing policies suited to conditions that no longer exist. And it means funding projects to fulfill the goals and policies that support community resilience.
It also means leading by example, doubling down on climate actions within the county’s direct control. Already, the county is investing in cleaner vehicles, more efficient building energy systems, and updating its emissions inventory. Communicating the value of these actions, and others, to the public sends a strong, motivating message that the County is tackling the climate crisis both now and, with its updated Comprehensive Plan, into the future.
Nobody is suggesting that the county can fix climate change. But, we need Commissioner Bacon, along with her Board colleagues, to adopt a Comprehensive Plan that addresses climate change with policies and actions that are science-based, locally-informed, proactive, and consistent with existing County policies and with state law. It’s not too late.
Marnie Jackson is executive director; Amanda Bullis is engagement director; and Kim Drury is a board member for Whidbey Environmental Action Network, a nonprofit organization based in Langley.
