[Views expressed are those of the authors, not the Living Snoqualmie website. You may submit letters to info@livingsnoqualmie.com.]
There is a version of leadership that waits—that studies indefinitely, defers endlessly, and promises action at some future moment that never quite arrives. And then there is the version our neighbors have been modeling for the last month: showing up, knocking on 4,300 doors, organizing a march, and demanding action. We write today to offer the latter.
The Mt. Si Substation sits inside Snoqualmie city limits. Any battery energy storage system (BESS) connecting to the regional grid connects there. That makes our city a party to this project—not a spectator. And yet this council’s posture for the last month has been to wait.
There is no active BESS permit application with King County and we believe that the absence of a pending application isn’t a reason to wait. It’s the opposite, in fact: an opportunity to get ahead.
We write today to respectfully offer a different perspective than the one the city administration and some councilmembers have put forward. Official statements have asked residents to be patient and promised that concerns will be addressed at some unspecified time. We think our community deserves more than that. They deserve a plan—and they deserve elected representatives willing to unapologetically advocate for residents. They deserve direct communication about how the City intends to protect public safety, our environment, our families, and our kids.
While the city has dragged its feet, our community has sprung into action. Residents founded Snoqualmie Valley for Responsible Energy (SVRE)—staffed by lawyers, engineers, environmental scientists, and parents giving up evenings and weekends to research, organize, and canvass. Policy experts flooded the inboxes of elected officials with legal analysis and draft ordinances. Designers and marketers blanketed the neighborhood with some of the most creative advocacy this city has ever seen. All of it, while the city was still deciding when the appropriate time to act might be.
We don’t claim to have all the answers. But we have spent the last month listening to experts who live in this community, and what follows is our best attempt to translate that into a clear plan of action. This is not an exhaustive list, and we welcome collaboration from the Mayor, our fellow councilmembers, neighbors, King County, Puget Sound Energy and anyone else genuinely committed to protecting this community. Good ideas can come from anywhere.
What We’re Asking King County to Do
Most of the proposed BESS sits on unincorporated King County land, and King County will run the primary permitting process. That doesn’t make us bystanders—it means we need to show up forcefully and on the record. The city should issue statements of support for King County to:
- Commit to issuing a SEPA Determination of Significance, requiring a full Environmental Impact Statement. If and when a new permit application is filed, we want nothing less than the most robust environmental review available—one that examines impacts on air quality, fire safety, first responders, wildlife, Fisher Creek and downstream waterways, and the families who live here. That is the baseline standard this community deserves. Unfortunately, a measure advocating for this position was voted down by the council majority at our April 13 meeting.
- Commit to requiring a site-specific emergency response plan developed jointly with the school district, Eastside Fire & Rescue, and the City of Snoqualmie—with explicit protocols for school notification, shelter-in-place, and evacuation during school hours that takes into account our limited roads out of Snoqualmie Valley.
These requests are a first step and do not prejudge the outcome of any specific project—they reflect a consistent standard we would demand regardless of the developer. Calling for rigorous analysis and coordinated safety planning is not predetermination; it is the City fulfilling its duty to ensure that any decision is informed, transparent, and protective of public safety. Legal-risk framing is being used to unnecessarily narrow the City’s role. Residents deserve an honest account of which legal risks are real and which are policy choices.
What Snoqualmie Can Do Right Now
King County runs the permit process. But Snoqualmie is not powerless—not even close. The proposed project’s interconnection point is the Mt. Si Substation inside Snoqualmie city limits. Here is what we are calling for:
- Enact a moratorium on all BESS-related permits, including grid interconnection at the Mt. Si Substation. A moratorium is a reasonable pause—a bare minimum protection that stops the clock long enough for us to get our arms around the situation and put the right policies in place. Black Diamond, Enumclaw, Maple Valley, and Covington have all enacted BESS moratoriums for exactly these reasons. Seattle is considering a moratorium on data centers for similar reasons. Snoqualmie is in the minority in its inaction on this front.
- Assert control over the project’s point of connection. The Mt. Si Substation—where any utility-grade BESS would be looking to connect to the grid—sits inside Snoqualmie city limits. When the city annexed that land in 2011, it signed a legally binding agreement with PSE restricting surface uses and vegetation alterations on the corridor parcels. We have leverage. The only question is whether we are willing to use it.
What Comes Next
Some will argue that pushing back could drive developers to the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC)—the state body that can override local zoning entirely. We’ve heard this argument. It doesn’t hold. Developers don’t voluntarily choose the harder, longer, more expensive regulatory path. The developer that applied for a BESS permit chose King County for a reason. They could have gone to EFSEC on day one. They didn’t. And if they ever do, EFSEC offers more robust public comment, is more likely to trigger a full environmental review, and requires the developer to fund independent analysis. We shouldn’t surrender the decisions we control out of fear of one we don’t.
To our fellow council members: this is the moment for us to step up, or to explain ourselves. If we won’t pass a moratorium, won’t assert our legal rights, and won’t publicly demand answers—we owe this community a real accounting. A specific, honest explanation of how we will protect Snoqualmie. What levers we will pull. What lines we will hold.
As elected officials, we work for the community. It is our responsibility to act in alignment with their wishes. The community is united and nearly unanimous in their opposition to this project. We must act on their behalf. We view this as a non-negotiable obligation of our offices and the trust the public has placed in us.
Here is what we know: one BESS developer or another has been working on this project for years. They have attorneys, engineers, and lobbyists whose full-time job is getting this permitted. Every week this council waits is a week a BESS developer spends working on their application. A new permit application could land at King County tomorrow. The moment we’ve been waiting for will have arrived—and our city government will have done nothing to prepare for it.
We’ll work with anyone willing to fight for this community. Our residents have done the heavy lifting—they are organized, informed, and ready. They deserve a city government that matches their diligence and urgency. The moratorium is not complicated. The only thing standing between this community and a real plan of action is the will to act.
So let’s act. Now.
