City of North Bend Unanimously Passes BESS Moratorium

A packed house turned out on May 19th as North Bend council members voted unanimously to adopt a 12-month moratorium on battery energy storage systems amid growing opposition to the proposed Cascadia Ridge project.

The council also authorized Mayor Miller to send a letter to the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission objecting to the project’s siting at its current location in unincorporated King County, with a filing deadline of May 26.

City Planning Manager Mike McCarty opened the item, explaining that North Bend currently has no regulations addressing BESS facilities, which could otherwise be permitted as utility facilities under existing zoning. The moratorium prohibits the acceptance, processing, and approval of applications for land development proposals that relate to or incorporate BESS and gives the city time to develop recommendations on whether such facilities should be allowed within city limits and under what conditions.

Ten public commenters spoke in support of the moratorium. Snoqualmie City Council member Dan Murphy attended as a neighbor and described the project as emerging without community input, characterizing the developer as a private equity-backed Texas company that identified available land, permissive zoning, and a friendly utility provider, all without consulting the community. He said passing the moratorium sends a message to developers looking at the broader valley.

Director of Snoqualmie Valley for Responsible Energy, Peter Lugli, urged the council to file public comment with the UTC objecting to PSE’s inclusion of Cascadia Ridge costs in its pending rate increase request, arguing PSE committed ratepayers to the project before there was known public opposition.

Danielle Wallace, president of Snoqualmie Valley for Responsible Energy, asked the council to partner directly with SVRE and join the broader regional conversation across communities facing similar decisions about industrial-scale BESS proposals.

Before the final vote, the council approved an amendment to remove language describing BESS as storing energy “produced by renewable energy sources,” making the ordinance energy-source neutral after council member Joselyn pointed out that BESS can store power generated by any means.

Mayor Pro Tem Tremolada spoke to the motion. “Our role is to look to the future. Land use planning and keeping ourselves up to date with technology and environmental risks need to be incorporated in that,” he said. “As we go through this process, if at the end, we make a land use decision, we need to have the data and the due diligence behind it. Secondly, if it helps our neighbors, we are a valley. What happens next door affects us both positively and negatively. Let’s do the work. Let’s figure this out and really look to the future for not only our town, but the upper valley and all of the valley as a whole.”

Council member Torguson said the moratorium should not be read as support for battery storage, emphasizing that the first question should be whether such facilities are appropriate for the community at all, given the geography, emergency response capacity, environmental concerns, and proximity to neighborhoods.

The moratorium passed unanimously.

[North Bend City Council Image courtesy of the City of North Bend]