Anacortes planning commission hears public concerns over climate-element edits, battery storage and refineries

The Anacortes Planning Commission on April 23 held a public hearing on proposed amendments to the climate element and the environment and conservation element of the 2025 Comprehensive Plan, hearing concerns about proposed references to energy storage and the local impact of March Point refineries.

Planning staff member Libby Graige opened the item and introduced Katie Saunders, a consultant with Makers, who reviewed a set of largely editorial changes to draft climate goals and policies. Saunders said the edits trimmed repeated wording, rephrased an introductory goal from “climate change leadership” to language that “focused on kind of build local capacity,” and removed some specificity previously listed under CE‑6. “We removed that specificity there, but otherwise kept the statement as is,” Saunders said, describing the changes as mostly non‑substantive text edits.

The hearing drew multiple members of the public who pressed the commission to reconsider or clarify changes they said could enable large battery energy storage projects and asked the city to more directly address impacts from the March Point refineries. Suzanne Roner of Anacortes said she opposed “adding the word storage to goal CE 6 and adding the words battery storage to CE 8,” calling those insertions “a Trojan horse.” Roner warned of safety and policy risks, saying recent federal incentives would increase pressure for utility‑scale battery projects.

Other speakers raised water and refinery concerns. Mark Neihart, an Anacortes resident, urged the commission to update water planning assumptions to reflect recent Skagit River flow conditions and to pursue infrastructure hardening and reuse by local large water users. Bud Anderson, a longtime resident, urged the city to include refinery emissions data in the plan and pointed commissioners to recent Skagit County and Western Washington University reports. Andrea Dahl asked the commission and city to examine industrial growth at March Point and cited other Washington jurisdictions that have enacted restrictions on new fossil fuel infrastructure.

Commissioners and staff acknowledged they had not yet had time to digest all public input and that some sections (including CE‑8) required additional review. Chair Martin and other commissioners indicated they would add continued review of the climate element (including CE‑8) to the May 14 meeting agenda. Planning staff said the overall schedule aims to release a fully integrated draft of the comprehensive plan to the public in June, with additional public hearings planned (staff noted draft goals and policies for parks, recreation and open space and economic development would be presented to the commission on May 14, and a public hearing on those elements is tentatively scheduled for May 28).

Votes at a glance: • Motion to excuse Commissioners Ryan and Mills — moved by Commissioner Currier, seconded (not named in the record); voice vote in favor; outcome: approved. (Commissioners present at roll call: McCombs, Martin, Stoneman, Dretske, Currier; two commissioners were excused.) • Motion to approve minutes of Nov. 6, 2024 as written — moved (record: “I move that we accept the minutes as written”), seconded; voice vote in favor; outcome: approved.

Discussion versus decisions: the April 23 session was a public hearing and information session coupled with two routine procedural motions. No formal amendments to the comprehensive plan were adopted at this meeting; staff and the commission said they will consider public comments and return to the climate and environment/conservation elements at a future meeting for further edits and potential formal action.

Clarifying details captured from the hearing include that staff/consultant described a set of mainly text edits across CE goals and policies (examples noted in the packet and by Saunders: CE‑1 wording adjustment, removal of duplicated language in CE‑1.1 and CE‑2.1, removing “enhance” in CE‑3.1, moving some wildfire‑related language toward CE‑5.4, and simplifying CE‑6 language to focus on coordination with utilities rather than enumerating generation, transmission and storage). Members of the public identified proposed wording they said added “storage” to CE‑6 and CE‑8; the record shows both the consultant’s description of edits and the public comment objecting to storage language.

The commission and staff collected written comments submitted with and after the meeting packet and said all will be posted to the city website and reviewed before the next hearing. The commission set further review for May 14 and staff confirmed an overall goal of issuing an integrated draft plan in June for more public review and hearings.