Yelm Planning Commission hears consultants’ climate-planning review; public questions data and costs

The Yelm Planning Commission held a public town-hall-style session on the city’s new climate planning element on Feb. 10, where Confluence Environmental consultants presented a climate vulnerability assessment and a community greenhouse gas inventory required under recent state changes to the Growth Management Act.

Consultant Phil Block, identified in the meeting as a senior biologist with Confluence, summarized the work: “There needs to be a climate component as well as a greenhouse gas inventory,” and outlined two reports posted on the city website — a climate vulnerability assessment and a greenhouse-gas inventory — that will inform draft policies. Mark Wolf, a project biologist at Confluence, said the vulnerability assessment examines assets and adaptive capacity across categories such as development and land use, buildings and transportation, utilities and water, ecosystems, human health and emergency management, and cultural resources.

The presentation described two main outputs: an assessment of how climate change could affect Yelm’s assets and services, and an inventory of greenhouse-gas emissions for the…