Guest Opinion | Covenant-smuvadent – the deforestation of Decatur Island

||| 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.