In a letter to the Department of Natural Resources, the Lewis County commissioners are claiming Washington Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz violated the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) in a project to sequester forest lands as a trade for carbon credits.
The work would set aside 10,000 acres of Washington forest land into a trust, offering the chance for companies and individuals to pay into it in order to offset carbon emissions, according to the department’s webpage. There, it states the first part of the two-phase project would impact Whatcom, Thurston, King and Grays Harbor counties.
The county commissioners last week sent out a news release encouraging people to submit written testimony in opposition of the project during the SEPA phase. In a meeting that week, Commissioner Sean Swope called it a “scheme” that would penalize rural communities with profitable timber industries in order to pay for the carbon emissions caused by urban areas.
In a followup letter on Wednesday, the Board of County Commissioners went further and said Franz violated the legal guidelines of the process.
In a letter to stakeholders on Oct. 10, Franz said “earlier this year, I committed to leasing 10,000 acres of state land with high ecological, social and cultural resource value for carbon sequestration. … At the time of the announcement, I identified the first 2,500 acres of forests to be leased.”
In a response, the county cites Washington code 197-11-070, which states an agency cannot limit the choice of reasonable alternatives for action before the final SEPA determination.
“The SEPA process is ongoing — DNR cannot have committed to the project (eliminating a no-action alternative); cannot have set the acreage (limiting alternatives for more or less acreage); cannot have identified the location for the 2500 acres (limiting other location alternatives); and cannot have narrowed the range of candidate parcels (same),” the commissioners wrote.
They continued, saying they applaud Franz’s effort to seek engagement on the project, but said the department must scrap its current course and “go back to the drawing board.”
If they do not do so, the commissioners said, the department would show that the SEPA process was meant to “paper over” a previously-made decision.
“That violates both the letter and spirit of SEPA. Lewis County urges DNR to change course,” they wrote.
A spokesperson from the department said there has not yet been a final determination on the SEPA process, however, and there is an opportunity for appeal after that notice is issued.
Last week, Commissioner Lindsey Pollock, who forwarded the county’s letter to The Chronicle for publication, compared the project to restrictions for endangered species such as the northern spotted owl and the effects those had on the timber industry. Further, she said, the trees sequestered in the locations from the plan would be allowed to grow to around 80 years old, making them too large to be milled in Lewis County in the future.
To read more about the project, visit https://www.dnr.wa.gov/CarbonProject.
