||| FROM SHANNON WELINSKE |||
It’s a funny thing about islands. They tend to stay put. The trees stay put, too—quiet, hardworking citizens who ask for nothing except a little rain and the chance to stand upright for a century or two. On Decatur Island, where I grew up and now live, those trees have been doing their job faithfully, keeping the hillside from wandering off, shading the deer, and sheltering the owls. Did I mention they’re holding the soil in place so the rest of us don’t slide into the Salish Sea?
That’s why the recent letter in this paper struck a chord. OPALCO bought land with Native Growth Covenants and open‑space protections, the kind meant to keep wildlife moving and the island breathing. Then they asked the County to move those protections so they could clear the forest and put in solar panels that would produce less than 1% of countywide demand. Less than 1%! That’s the sort of number that makes you wonder if someone forgot to carry the one.
Decatur is a small island, and small islands have a way of magnifying consequences. Meanwhile, we’ve already got a lithium‑ion battery sitting beside critical electrical infrastructure, and no guaranteed emergency‑response plan. On Decatur, we don’t have a fire engine coming down the road or a barge waiting on standby. Heck, we don’t even have a road that a fire engine would find agreeable or a boat ramp that a barge could use at all if the tide is too low! If something goes wrong, it’ll be just us, the trees, and whatever prayers we can muster.
Most of us who live here—and many across San Juan County—have said clearly that renewable projects belong on disturbed or industrial sites, not in the last pockets of pristine forest. That wasn’t a radical opinion. It was common sense. And it was the majority view.
Decatur Island is not a theoretical landscape on a planning map. It is a real place, with real people, real wildlife, and real risks. Once a forest is cut, it doesn’t grow back in time to protect anyone. Once you start moving conservation covenants for convenience, you don’t stop at one.
That alone is something our island neighbors should sit up and take notice of, because they’ll be coming for your green spaces next. They’re setting a precedent.
I hope OPALCO’s board will take a moment, pour a cup of coffee, and reconsider. A permit allows a project, but it doesn’t require one. The board still owns that choice. I hope they choose a wiser path – one that respects the recorded protections, honors member input and has a care for their neighbors safety.
And out here, where the ferry comes when it feels like it and the trees stand exactly where they’ve always stood, we’d like to keep our forest right where it is.
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The OPALCO board approved this project in April 2026 and OPALCO was awarded a conditional use permit in May. The video recordings of those meetings with full member comments and the special meeting where they deliberated are on the website. Interested OPALCO members can find the extensive project details about the Decatur Solar expansion project here: https://www.opalco.com/quick-fact/quick-fact-august-2026-update/
Thank you, Shannon. Do recorded land-use protections mean what they say? What confidence can anyone place in “permanent” open space if it moves when the next owner finds it inconvenient?
OPALCO bought this property with the restrictions already recorded. Management then pursued changing the protected layout to accommodate its project. Why was this site purchased before those conflicts were resolved? The environmental cost of that decision falls on everyone.
Now consider KING 5’s reporting on the disputed 120-foot tower and OPALCO’s response: “In general, OPALCO follows all permitting requirements when installing infrastructure.” OPALCO now calls the reporting “misinformation” and says the pole is 103 feet, while KING 5’s video prominently shows “120FT” marked on the pole itself. If the difference is simply the buried portion, explain that plainly before using it to discredit the reporting.
Add the existing solar array’s roughly 18% production shortfall I documented and the unanswered emergency-response questions beside critical electrical infrastructure on Decatur. Taken together, these demand a public examination of management’s judgment and the board’s oversight.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/investigations/120-foot-cell-tower-appears-on-couples-property-uninvited/281-859820a3-3a7b-4dcb-8f25-0af401162a9c
https://theorcasonian.com/easements-keep-the-opalco-co-op-running/
Members understand that island infrastructure is expensive and regional power costs are rising. Neither makes every proposed project a sound investment. Neither justifies clearing protected forest when OPALCO’s own survey showed a strong preference for disturbed and industrial sites.
The Seattle Times just challenged Sound Transit’s board over executive pay and accountability. Sound Transit has roughly 38 times OPALCO’s staff and an annual budget roughly 80 times OPALCO’s annual revenue. Its board is being asked whether executive rewards match results. OPALCO’s board owes members the same explanation.
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/sound-transit-ceo-pay-raises-bonus-speaks-to-disconnect-of-board/
And let’s be sober: the available Form 990s do not tell members what Foster is being paid today. If the increases documented in those filings continued, his current compensation package could be on the order of twice the published base salaries at Sound Transit or Seattle City Light. That is an extrapolation from lagging disclosures. The board should publish the current figures so members do not have to extrapolate.
OPALCO defends Foster’s compensation by citing complexity, risk and responsibility. Those are precisely the reasons to demand sound property purchases, respect for recorded protections, candid accounting of project performance, and credible emergency planning. What judgment and results is that compensation buying?
The board is responsible for supervising management and protecting members’ interests. It should stop the current Decatur expansion, provide a public accounting of its costs and decisions, and explain how management’s performance is being evaluated.
Members deserve to hear directly from their elected directors: What does the board believe has gone well, what needs correction, and what will it do differently?
That is the independent oversight we elect our directors to provide.
I AM GUTTED!
Stunned and nauseous.
I would like to add something to the thoughtful comments already made here on the Orcasonian.
It was actually my handwriting on the 2012 recorded Simple Land Division that established this protected open space.
At that time, the property consisted of 27 acres, and the County required that a very SPECIFIC 30% be set aside. The required Open Space created a continuous wildlife corridor connecting Armitage Road to Thatcher Pass Road, providing wildlife access to one of the largest ponds on Decatur Island.
This was not simply a matter of setting aside a certain percentage of land. The location and continuity of that protected open space were essential to its purpose.
Relocating that protection onto land that is already environmentally protected completely defeats the original intent.
As you can imagine, I am heartbroken, stunned, and frankly nauseous over this rollback of existing, recorded environmental protections, and deeply troubled by what it portends for the future of environmental protection throughout San Juan County.
If recorded environmental protections can be undone this way, what protections can any of us truly rely upon?
I am gutted! That is exactly how l feel concerning this issue! If the county REQUIRED 30% set aside “back then”, how can they now say ( in effect) we were just kidding? Really? Do they know what they are doing? I’m reminded of the old addage ‘don’t let the camel get his nose under the tent’! That is exactly what this permit has done. No restriction can stand in the future if this ruling is allow to remain in effect.
Correction, Krista…
The board has not been given the opportunity to vote on preserving the Open Space as originally recorded.
While a vote was held, preserving the existing Open-Space protections was not among the five options presented to the board.
The board did, however, agree that the solar panels should not infringe upon the smaller Native Growth Area Covenant, which was also recorded against the property OPALCO purchased.
I believe it is imperative that the board be given the opportunity to vote specifically on whether these recorded environmental protections should be rolled back to accommodate this project, or whether the project should be required to respect the environmental protections that have been in place for years and years.
That is a decision the board itself should be making.
Correction: OPALCO does not have the type of battery storage mentioned in this article. Lithium iron phosphate batteries like our existing battery on Decatur have a more thermally stable chemistry than the nickel-based batteries used in many electric vehicles and power walls.
I am a resident of San Juan outside of Friday Harbor and continue to support the Bailer Hill Solar Project if and when all the boxes are checked. I continue to be disappointed by the general level of energy consumption and tiered rates that are not high enough to force conservation by larger businesses and people who feel entitled. What happens on Decatur as well as Bailer Hill and other future sites is an issue that affects all OPALCO members.
There are subjective feelings that matter to all of us but there are also scads of hyperbolic, over-wrought statements in all of our necessary issue discussions that fall into the category of misleading that make these already difficult decisions for larger community well-being more messy than need be.
Wildfire is much less of a real threat due to a number of key environmental and weather factors employed in fire behaviour analyses. In a critical situation resulting from an uncommon “heat dome” to the east (strong, dry easterly winds and greatly increased day and NIGHT temperatures with associated lowered relative humidity) can greatly exacerbate burning conditions. A fire at a cleared, hardened landscape patch such as for a solar site is highly unlikely and likely to be easily managed with DNR helicopter water drops as initial attack followed up with a small crew and engine as has been demonstrated several times of late. No heat dome conditions happened in the last couple of years.
Trees always grow back and very small patches of real semi-pristine old-growth forest exist anywhere in the entire archipelago except for uninhabited and protected islands.
Industrial or cleared sites are few and far between, not well suited to maximum sun track exposure and often privately owned creating additional issues and controversies.
And finally after many decades as a conservationist, educated in natural sciences and over 3 decades of National Park management and policy development I understand that land classifications and zoning are anything but permanent. All such protective layers especially some of the soft ones out here as well as preserved public landscapes of all sizes are social constructs. As society changes and the care and feeding of inexorable population overshoot and resource consumption increases at larger scales, social constructs, especially at small patch scale (as here) must be options for new social constructs that begin to build resilience for the great challenges of the near future. Accelerated change is now the only certain thing and whistling in the graveyard ala Tom and Huck is a decision of sorts that will inevitably lead to greater tumult.
I fervently wish it weren’t so and I can only wish that small community solar production was more efficient but the evidence and trends at at scale are serious.