Take Action

Where to start

If you do one thing, sign up for updates. We’ll alert you when Jupiter files with the state, when comment opportunities open, and when community meetings are scheduled.

After that:

1. Now: Start preparing your comment on the project itself. EFSEC runs its own comment opportunities once an application is filed, and the substance of a good comment does not change with the venue. Read our 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

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 comments filed into the state proceeding, where they become part of the record EFSEC decides on.
• Enforce the recorded covenant restrictions on the PSE corridor parcels. The City holds a perpetual Covenant and Grant of Easement (Rec# 20110429001446). Disturbance in its vegetation maintenance area and its wetland and stream buffer requires prior written City approval; disturbance in its native growth protection area, which sits in unincorporated King County, requires County approval. BESS construction traffic and gen-tie clearing through those areas would need that approval, and the City has standing to enforce the covenant either way.
• 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. A comment from the local hospital on patient safety and emergency capacity carries institutional weight that individual comments cannot. The request now goes to EFSEC rather than to King County.
• Participate in the state environmental review when EFSEC opens comment.
• 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 environmental 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 comment window opens, submit a comment identifying your well and asking that a hydrogeologic assessment be required before the project is certified.

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 state’s decision record:

• Submit the District’s opposition and preparedness assessment as formal comments when EFSEC opens its comment window. Statements filed with the WUTC do not automatically reach the state siting 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 state process opens

Jupiter has said it is going to the state. It has not filed yet. We check EFSEC’s records daily and will email the list the day a filing appears. Sign up for updates and you don’t have to track it yourself.

Prepare your comment now

The venue changed. The substance did not. The site conditions, the fire and emissions questions, the water supply problem, the groundwater and stream issues, and the proximity to homes and schools are all the same facts, and they will be argued to EFSEC instead of to King County.

Read our guide on how to write an effective 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 now so you are ready when the window opens rather than starting from scratch inside it.

Push the institutions above to participate

The City, the school district, and the fire agencies have all taken public positions. Those positions were built for a county proceeding that no longer exists, and they do not carry over on their own. Ask each to bring what it has already said into the state process, through comment, through the consistency hearing on local land-use codes, or through formal party status. Institutional participation carries weight that individual letters cannot, and a position stated elsewhere (a WUTC filing, a board resolution, a press statement) reaches the state record only if someone puts it 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.