Take Action

Where to start

If you do one thing, sign up for updates. We’ll alert you when the SEPA comment window opens, when new permits are filed, and when community meetings are scheduled.

After that:

1. Now: Start preparing your SEPA comment. Jupiter’s clearing-and-grading permit (GRDE26-0036) is filed and through intake review; when King County accepts it as complete and publishes the Notice of Application, a 14-day State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) comment window opens, and it will move fast. Read our SEPA comment guide and pick the one topic where you have knowledge or standing. The Sources and Evidence library has the primary sources to cite.
2. Then: If you have energy beyond your own comment, the targeted asks below cover the gaps that remain.

What the institutions have already done

The groundwork phase of this effort asked local institutions to engage. They have:

• The City of Snoqualmie sent a joint Mayor-and-Council letter to PSE and King County (April 30), the Mayor separately endorsed a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to King County Permitting (April 30), the City petitioned the state utility commission on PSE’s rate case (June 1), introduced a BESS moratorium (May 11), and appropriated $450,000 for outside legal and expert review of the project (June 22).
• The Snoqualmie Valley School District board unanimously adopted Resolution 901 (May 1), requesting environmental review sufficient to evaluate student and staff safety and asking to be a notified agency throughout the SEPA and permitting processes.
• King County Fire Protection District 38, the fire district with jurisdiction over the site, went further than anyone asked: its elected Board of Fire Commissioners told the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) it is “opposed to the siting of this facility within our jurisdiction” and that “local resources are not adequate in the event of a BESS emergency” (June 18). Eastside Fire & Rescue Chief Will Aho’s statement that EF&R “cannot confirm” preparedness has been on the record since April 6.
• North Bend (May 19) and Duvall (June 2) adopted 12-month BESS moratoriums, and North Bend objected to the project at the WUTC (June 3).

See the updates timeline for all of it. What remains is below.

What you can do now

Comment to the WUTC on PSE’s rate case

PSE is asking the WUTC to approve cost recovery for the Cascadia Ridge tolling agreement in its 2026 general rate case (Docket UE-260005). The City of Snoqualmie, the City of North Bend, and Fire District 38 have each asked the Commission to defer or condition any finding that this project’s costs were prudent until safety, siting, and permitting questions are resolved. Individual ratepayers can file public comments in the same docket.

The comment window is open now: the Commission’s review runs through late 2026, with new rates taking effect in early 2027 if approved, so comments filed today are timely. Use the UTC’s comment form or email comments@utc.wa.gov, referencing Docket UE-260005 (the docket record shows the letters already filed). Ask the Commission to make no prudence determination on the Cascadia Ridge tolling agreement until the environmental review and local permitting questions are resolved.

Write to the Snoqualmie City Council

The City has done the heavy lifting. Three asks remain:

• Ask the City to carry its funded expert review into the SEPA record. The City’s outside consultants are reviewing fire and emergency response, plume dispersion, stormwater, noise, and water resources. Those findings matter most as formal SEPA comments filed during the County’s comment window, where they become part of the legal record.
• Enforce the recorded covenant restrictions on the PSE corridor parcels. The City holds a perpetual Covenant and Grant of Easement (Rec# 20110429001446) whose vegetation maintenance, buffer, and native growth protection areas require prior written City approval for disturbance. BESS construction traffic and gen-tie clearing through those areas would need that approval, and the city has standing to say so.
• Update the city’s evacuation plan to address an industrial toxic release scenario. The current plan (November 2017) does not contemplate a chemical fire producing hydrogen fluoride adjacent to Snoqualmie Ridge.

Email: councilmembers@snoqualmiewa.gov

Write to Snoqualmie Valley Hospital

Snoqualmie Valley Hospital is the closest emergency facility to the project site. Hydrogen fluoride exposure causes deep tissue burns and pulmonary edema that require specialized treatment. The hospital would receive casualties from an HF release event. It has not yet taken a public position.

Email Ken Rudberg (Director of Quality, Risk & Compliance): kenr@snoqualmiehospital.org

Ask them to:

• Request a full Environmental Impact Statement from King County. A comment from the local hospital on patient safety and emergency capacity carries institutional weight that individual comments cannot.
• Participate in the SEPA review when the comment window opens.
• Evaluate whether the hospital can treat mass hydrogen fluoride exposure. HF requires calcium gluconate and specialized decontamination protocols. Does the hospital stock these? How many patients can it handle simultaneously?
• Update the hospital’s emergency operations plan to include an industrial toxic release scenario from the adjacent BESS facility.

If you’re on a private well

The project site is surrounded by dozens of private domestic wells, with the highest concentration in the unincorporated residential area downhill to the southwest (31 water wells in that quarter section alone). The City of Snoqualmie also draws its municipal water from valley groundwater wells. Contaminated firefighting runoff from a lithium-ion battery fire (heavy metals, fluoride compounds, electrolyte) could migrate through soil to groundwater. No hydrogeologic assessment has been submitted for this project.

If you’re on a private well near the project site, you have a direct stake in the SEPA review. Your comment about groundwater risk carries weight that a general safety concern does not. See our groundwater analysis for the data, including well locations, depth ranges, and the Sumner precedent where a public water well on a BESS project parcel triggered the strongest groundwater conditions in any Washington BESS project.

When the SEPA comment window opens, submit a comment identifying your well and asking King County to require a hydrogeologic assessment before issuing a development permit.

Write to local fire agencies

The fire authorities are already on the record: Fire District 38’s elected board opposes the siting, and Chief Aho has stated EF&R “cannot confirm” preparedness. The remaining work is converting those positions into the County’s decision record:

• Submit the District’s opposition and preparedness assessment as formal SEPA comments when the County opens the comment window. Statements filed with the WUTC do not automatically reach King County’s SEPA record.
• Evaluate whether existing mutual aid agreements can handle a multi-day battery fire producing hydrogen fluoride adjacent to a residential community.
• Assess fire suppression water supply. The project parcels have no municipal water connection, no fire hydrants, and no water mains.

King County Fire Marshal Eric Urban: eric.urban@kingcounty.gov

Eastside Fire & Rescue Chief Will Aho: waho@esf-r.org

City of Snoqualmie Fire Department Chief Mike Bailey: mbailey@snoqualmiewa.gov

When the SEPA comment window opens

How to watch for the comment window yourself

The 14-day comment window opens the day King County publishes the Notice of Application for GRDE26-0036. You do not have to wait for anyone to tell you. There are three ways to know, and the third one puts the County’s own email in your inbox.

1. Ask King County to add you as a party of record. This takes one email. Write to PermitQuestions@kingcounty.gov, copy AskLocalServices@kingcounty.gov, and ask for both of the County’s two open permits on this project: GRDE26-0036 (clearing and grading) and FLOD26-0137 (floodplain development). It helps to name the parcels: 3624079030, 3624079039, 3624079093, 3624079100, 3624079101, and 3624079103.

Include your full mailing address, not just your email. The County’s SEPA Process page states that requests “need to include the file name and file number of the proposal, along with the name and complete mailing address of the requester.” A request without a mailing address gives them something to bounce on. If you would rather phone it in, Permitting Customer Services is 206-296-6600.

Use wording like this, and don’t skip the last sentence:

Please add me as a party of record for permits GRDE26-0036 and FLOD26-0137 and place me on the notification list for the Notice of Application. I am a member of the public asking to be notified, under the definition of party of record at King County Code 21A.06.865. I am not requesting delegate or agent access to the applicant’s permit file.

That last sentence matters. Two different things at King County are both called a “party.” One is a party of record, meaning a member of the public who asks to be notified. The other is a party on the permit itself, meaning the applicant’s contractor or agent, who gets access to the application inside the County’s software. Adding that second kind does require the applicant’s permission. Requests that don’t make the distinction clear have been answered as though they were the second kind.

If you’re told you need the applicant’s consent, that answer is wrong. Reply, don’t give up. King County Code 21A.06.865 defines a party of record as a person who “has submitted written comments, testified, asked to be notified or is the sponsor of a petition entered as part of the official county record on a specific development proposal.” Asking to be notified is enough on its own. Nothing in the code makes it depend on the applicant’s consent, and KCC 20.20.090.C.4 requires notice of the decision to go to any person who asked for notice beforehand. The County’s own SEPA Process page tells the public to do exactly this: “Any person interested in receiving information related to the environmental reviews of development proposals, such as notice information of SEPA appeals, should contact Permitting Customer Services and ask to be made a ‘Party of Record.’” That same page gives Permitting Customer Services as 206-296-6600 and PermitQuestions@kingcounty.gov. No applicant consent, no party type. And King County granted this same request on GRDE26-0036, in thirty-one minutes and with no applicant involved, when we filed ours by email on May 21, 2026. Quote those back and ask them to reclassify your request.

GRDE26-0036 is the permit that carries the SEPA review and the one whose Notice of Application opens the comment window. The County has said the two permits are being reviewed concurrently, so asking for both costs nothing and makes sure you are not left off a notice issued under the other.

2. Watch the County’s public notices page. The Notice of Application posts at King County’s public notices page. No account needed.

3. Watch the permit records. The grading permit is GRDE26-0036 and the floodplain permit is FLOD26-0137, both in King County’s permit portal and linked from our permitting page. Watch for the status to move past intake and for a public notice to appear.

If you see the Notice of Application post, tell other people. Do not assume someone else already has.

Submit a SEPA comment

Jupiter Power’s clearing-and-grading permit (GRDE26-0036) is filed and under County review. When King County accepts it as complete and publishes the Notice of Application, a 14-day public comment window opens. The comments submitted during that period form the legal record. If an issue isn’t raised during SEPA comments, it cannot be raised later in an appeal. We’ll send an alert when the window opens.

Read our guide on how to write an effective SEPA comment. It covers the legal standard, the checklist elements relevant to this project, what makes a comment effective, and what to avoid. You don’t need to cover everything. One well-supported comment on a single topic is more valuable than a vague letter touching all of them. Start reading now so you’re ready the day the window opens.

Push the institutions above to submit formal comments

The City, the school district, and the fire agencies have all taken public positions. During the SEPA window, follow up and ask each to put those positions into a formal comment to King County. Institutional comments on the record carry more weight than individual letters, and positions stated elsewhere (a WUTC filing, a board resolution, a press statement) do not reach the County’s SEPA record unless someone files them there.

Get informed

Understanding the permitting process, the technology, the fire risk, the site and environment, and what we’re asking for makes your voice more effective when the time comes.