CONTACT ELECTEDS
March 2025
Ask Tukwila City Council to preserve tree canopy in conjunction with new development
Tukwila City Council is accepting citizen feedback on proposed zoning changes. The Defenders are concerned that these changes will lead to substantial, avoidable tree loss in the city. Use or adapt the letter below or write your own to urge Councilmembers to prioritize tree protection: citycouncil@tukwilawa.gov
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Tukwila City Councilmembers,
Proposed rezoning of residential areas in Tukwila appear to risk significant loss of mature tree canopy in the city. I urge you to ensure that the zoning changes you adopt include explicit environmental measures to protect and expand Tukwila’s tree canopy, especially for those living under the flight path of SeaTac International Airport.
This is a pressing issue of environmental justice and public health. Adequate and mature tree canopy is essential for residents' health, well-being, and quality of life. A University of Washington study has established the harmful health effects of living under the flight path. Removing trees will worsen air quality, increase noise pollution, and reduce life expectancy, especially for people with existing health vulnerabilities or who live in more polluted areas.
Observations from Seattle indicate that without clear protections, zoning changes can accelerate the loss of mature trees and degrade the environment. Last year alone, Seattle lost 2,000 significant trees that will take years to replace. We are particularly concerned because Tukwila’s tree retention policy allows developers to pay a fee instead of retaining trees. These fees go to a Tree Fund, but there is no assurance that funds from one neighborhood will remain there to replace the benefits lost from tree removal. This could lead to diminished neighborhood health and increased environmentally damaging activities in pockets across the city. We encourage you to look to Portland for a plan that successfully balances out these competing factors.
Sincerely, (your name and address)
**
February 2025
Reach out to your state legislators, urging them to co-sponsor Senate Bill 5652
Senator Tina Orwall has introduced SB 5652, “Reducing environmental and health disparities and improving the health of Washington state residents in large port districts.” Please consider reaching out to your legislator to thank them for co-sponsoring the bill (if they have done so) or to urge them to become a co-sponsor. You can easily find who your legislators are and write to them on the Washington State Legislature’s public comment page for this bill HERE. Your message can be as simple as: “People living near SeaTac airport are unfairly and disproportionately harmed by airport pollution, noise, and heat. Those of us near the airport die up to 5 years earlier than people in the rest of the county. The state and the Port of Seattle have an obligation to stop causing this harm. This bill takes important steps in that direction. I urge you to co-sponsor it and to support it in every way you can.”
Background
This bill appears to do four positive things:
Require the Port of Seattle to include an environmental justice implementation plan in its strategic plan and to create a community engagement plan with equitable participation from vulnerable populations and overburdened communities;
For any 'significant port action' after January 1, 2026, requires the Port to obtain an environmental justice assessment from the University of Washington Dept. of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences in collaboration with the county department of health with an action plan to mitigate or minimize adverse impacts;
Requires the port to take actions to reduce or eliminate the environmental harms created by significant Port actions on overburdened communities and vulnerable populations;
Enables the port to spend money for remediation and mitigation of its current and historical environmental impacts and cumulative environmental health impacts.
Contact Des Moines City Council by 6PM on Thursday 2/6 urging them to establish a planning commission
The City of Des Moines, has no planning commission. It needs one. Planning commissions are crucial advisory bodies that provide citizen review and recommendations on planning and land use to governments. They provide opportunities for regular community engagement in decisions that shape their lives and futures.
Just recently, in January, the City Council voted against purchasing 6 acres of green space adjacent to the Barnes Creek Trail Extension, likely sealing its fate as a site for yet more industrial development (Read more). This follows the November 21, 2024 decision by the city’s Hearing Examiner to deny a citizen appeal to save 500 trees on the site of the proposed Des Moines Business Park West development. (Read more). Those decisions follow years of other lost opportunities to preserve needed green space for Des Moines residents. A planning commission could have helped.
At its Thursday, February 6th, 6PM Study Session, the City Council will review a proposal to establish a planning commission. Please consider contacting the Council to support this proposal.
To provide public comment for this meeting:
In person: Show up a few minutes before the meeting and sign the sheet. Public Comment is usually conducted at the beginning of the meeting. City Council Chambers 21630 11th Avenue S, Suite C. Des Moines, Washington
By e-mail: All e-mails sent to citycouncil@desmoineswa.gov are considered public comment. They are instantly available to all members of the City Council and the City Clerk who includes them into the record of public comments for the meeting.
Frequently Used Contact Info
City of SeaTac : Mayor Mohamed Egal, Deputy Mayor Iris Guzman, and Councilmembers Peter Kwon, James Lovell, Senayet Negusse, Jake Simpson, and Joe Vinson
megal@seatacwa.gov, iguzman@seatacwa.gov, pkwon@seatacwa.gov, lovell@seatacwa.gov, snegusse@seatacwa.gov, jsimpson@seatacwa.gov, jvinson@seatacwa.gov
Port of Seattle: Commission President Hamdi Mohamed, Vice President Toshiko Grace Hasegawa, and Commissioners Ryan Calkins, Sam Cho, and Fred Felleman
calkins.r@portseattle.org, cho.s@portseattle.org, felleman.f@portseattle.org, Hasegawa.t@portseattle.org, Mohamed.h@portseattle.org, commission-public-records@portseattle.org, EnvironmentSEA@portseattle.org, metruck.s@portseattle.org
Recent Actions
JANUARY 2025
Defenders of Highline Forest issued a Special Bulletin in late January asking readers to urge Des Moines City Councilmembers to purchase and preserve a 6-acre parcel adjacent to Barnes Creek Trail. This parcel - equivalent in area to about 6 football fields, is now covered in trees and other vegetation. We don’t know how many people responded to our bulletin, as the City has not, as of early February, published the minutes for this meeting.
Unfortunately, the city rejected the opportunity. This parcel will now likely be used to site even more industrial development in this residential area. The vote was 4-3, with Councilmembers Harris, Matsui, and Nutting voting in favor of the city purchasing the land and Mayor Buxton, Deputy Mayor Steinmetz, and Councilmembers Mahoney and Nutting voting to reject the opportunity.
If the city had accepted WASH DOT’s offer, it could have kept this land in a natural state, helping to reduce pollution and heat in this residential area - as well as continuing to serve as a buffer for the connected natural areas. Their decision is extremely disappointing.
DECEMBER 2024
In Q4 of 2024, The Port of Seattle and FAA released a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for over 30 industrial construction projects proposed as Near Term Projects (NTPs) in their Sustainable Airport Master Plan (SAMP) for SeaTac Airport.
The EA concluded that, except for traffic, these projects, which would replace dozens of acres of air-cleaning and cooling trees in our near-airport community with more sources of noise and pollution, would have NO significant impact on human health, air quality, water quality, or local quality of life.
Defenders of Highline Forest submitted this letter during the official period for public comments, calling for a full Environmental Impact Statement to be conducted and provided sample language for community members to send their own comments. It also co-signed, with numerous other organizations, Fix The Harm’s Letter of Concern.
OCTOBER 2024
Defenders of Highline Forest members supported Des Moines residents in raising funds, organizing, and filing an appeal with the City of Des Moines of a State Environmental Protection Act (SEPA) Determination of Non-significance that a 402,000+ square foot industrial building and accompanying parking lot set in a densely populated neighborhood on top of existing forest land used as a park by residents would not have significant impacts.
The Defenders October newsletter provides more information.
The appeal did not succeed, making it likely that this land used as a public park, including over 500 trees, will be replaced with more industrial construction, most likely a warehouse.
AUGUST 2024
SeaTac City Council deliberated on whether to act on a provision in the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act that offers a potential pathway for permanently protecting the park. The Defenders strongly urged the Council to prioritize this opportunity and provided sample language for community members to send their own comments.
The Council received 79 emails from the community supporting their decisive action to protect North SeaTac Park and voted to take strong action. Read more in our September newsletter HERE.
June 2024
The Port of Seattle finalized a Land Stewardship Plan (LSP) with a purported goal of “increasing the ecological and community benefits provided by trees, forest, and other habitat” in the community. The Plan, however, provided support for and did not call for any re-evaluation of the Port’s own plans to remove dozens of acres of health-protecting trees in the densely-populated neighborhoods adjacent to SeaTac International Airport.
The map in Figure 16 of the plan, in fact, categorizes most forested land in the near-airport community as not of “ecological use.” This ecologically ‘useless’ land includes an estimated 110+ acres of mostly-forested land in densely-populated areas that the Port’s SAMP recommends to be replaced with cargo warehouses and other industrial airport expansion. Impacted neighborhoods include Riverton Heights, Southwest SeaTac, the neighborhood just south of SeaTac Park, and 55 acres within SeaTac Park itself.
The Defenders and community members submitted nearly 100 emails to the Port during the comment period on this plan, including this letter from Defenders of Highline Forest, calling on the Port to amend the LSP to protect these areas of community forest. In addition, over 3,700 community members have signed the Community Forest Consensus, making the same call.
Despite this input, the Port failed to revise the LSP to protect community forest. In fact, it did not even acknowledge this input in its April 16th presentation on the finalized LSP which has since been removed from its website.