Issuu

2023 WI NTE R I S SUE

Our Pick for Governor: Bob Ferguson

Collaboration, not Competition, Nature’s Norm

Why We Work With Partners

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Washington Conservation Action Ilays Aden, Co-founder of Nour Village/Eat With Muslims Christina Billingsley, Senior Program Manager, Environmental Engagement Justin Camarata, Treasurer, Civic Leader and Startup Manager

TABLE OF CONTENTS 2

2024 governor endorsement

WCA chronicles stories from our past

In nature, collaboration is the norm

Our work centers partners

Nurturing frontline connections

How to support our work

Why we support Yakama Nation

Our board has evolved

Working with the LGBTQIA+ community

Quiz and cozy recipe

WCA CEO Honored

2024 legislative preview

WCA happenings

New staff

Sharon Chen, Citizen Activist and Engineer Julie Colehour, Partner, C+C Maggie Coon, Conservationist Josh Friedmann, Lawyer, Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson, P.S. Peter Goldman, Founder, Washington Forest Law Center Dr. Vernon Damani Johnson, Former Faculty, Department of Political Science, Western Washington University Ken Lederman, Board Chair, McCullough Hill Leary Jessa Lewis, Founder of Blue Collar Fund, Activist Joel Moffett, Director of Environmental & Special Projects, Native Americans in Philanthropy Paulo Palugod, Senior Associate Attorney, Northwest Office, EarthJustice Preeti Shridhar, Deputy Public Affairs Administrator, City of Renton Oskar Zambrano Méndez, Secretary, Founder, Somos Más

Washington Conservation Action Education Fund Christina Billingsley, Vice Chair, Senior Program Manager, Environmental Engagement Julie Colehour, Partner, C+C Josh Friedmann, Lawyer, Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson, P.S. Peter Goldman, Treasurer, Founder, Washington Forest Law Center Eliseo (EJ) Juárez, Director of Equity and Environmental Justice, Washington State Department of Natural Resources Ken Lederman, Board Chair, McCullough Hill Leary Jaime Martin, Executive Director of Governmental Affairs & Special Projects, Snoqualmie Tribe Jameson Morrell, Director of Sustainability, PACCAR Justin Parker, Executive Director, NW Indian Fisheries Commission Katie Ross, Director, Carbon Reduction Strategy & Market Development, Microsoft Melissa Schutten, Equity and Environmental Justice Manager, Puget Sound Partnership Amy Scott, Associate Director, Planned Giving at University of Washington April Sims, President, Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO Caroline Traube, Engineering Director, Decarbonization, McKinstry Oskar Zambrano Méndez, Secretary, Founder, Somos Más Community Strategies

cover composite photography by Mallori Pryse, with background image courtesy Ohenze.

Writing & Editing Heather Millar Visual Design Mallori Pryse Coordination & Management Zachary Pullin

View from Mailbox Peak. Image by Rein Attemann.

WHY THIS ISSUE’S THEME IS COLLABORATION Thoughts from our CEO

It’ukdi wigwa! Qngi mait’a? (Good day. How are you?) Since Washington Environmental Council’s founding in 1967, collaboration and a collective spirit have been the very foundation of how we do our work. It was also a core value of Washington Conservation Voters since 1981, too. Collaboration does and will continue to be a critical pillar of Washington Conservation Action—our unified name of Washington Environmental Council and Washington Conservation Voters. Just because we’ve changed our name doesn’t mean collaboration goes away. We summon the same values and principles from the organizations that preceded this new name. Every single person across Washington still deserves access to clean air and water, healthy forests and lands, abundant habitat for nature and its creatures, and a thriving democracy. To maintain this in the present and for future generations requires us to continue to work with each other to tackle our states biggest environmental challenges. The very same ingredients that have created all life in the universe, created us too. We too are nature. We are related to every living thing. And in order to deepen our work to create the world we deserve, we can’t forget our fundamental connection to everything. And that connection should invite us to collaborate—the challenges ahead are much too big to go it alone.

I invite you to read through this issue with the spirit of the season upon us. Being with each other, loving your community and the environment that sustains us. When you read through this issue, you’ll learn about nature’s fundamental principle of collaboration, how Washington Conservation Action embodies this principle in our organizing and policy work, and an interview with Attorney General Bob Ferguson—our 2024 endorsed candidate for Governor. We’re also sharing more about our work in Central Washington collaborating with the Yakama Nation to oppose and stop the Goldendale Pumped Storage project, a feature story on frontline communities we’re engaging with, a little bit of our history and a bunch more of what’s been happening at our organization since our last issue. I hope you feel inspired and motivated to take action with us in the coming months. We’re doing such great work together—let’s keep going! Alqalma ayamglglaya, (see you later)

Alyssa Macy (she/her)

CEO, Washington Conservation Action

Photo courtesy Bob Ferguson.

In October, Washington Conservation Action endorsed state Attorney General Bob Ferguson for governor in 2024. WCA believes Ferguson is the candidate most likely to seek out and continue collaboration with Washington Conservation Action (WCA) and the environmental community. He fiercely holds corporate polluters accountable and seeks the racial justice that is a precondition of environmental justice. The governor’s office has an essential role in guiding our environmental priorities, and decisions made at state and local level have a profound impact on the planet. It is up to environmental organizations like Washington Conservation Action to help voters understand which candidate will be a better fit when it comes to our environment—for protecting people and nature as one. As Attorney General, Ferguson created the Environmental Protection Division, which pursues civil and criminal litigation to protect Washington’s diverse and beautiful ecosystems. In the last 13 years, the division has won 50 criminal convictions including prosecuting Monsanto for pollution from PCBs, which are banned and dangerous to people’s health and to the environment. The Attorney General also has prioritized racial justice and working with Washington’s Tribes. He formed the Wing Luke Civil Rights Division and rolled out an environmental justice initiative— even before passage of the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act in 2021. He is also endorsed by four Tribal Nations (Kalispell, Puyallup, Tulalip, and Snoqualmie) and two preeminent Tribal leaders, National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) President and Vice Chair of the Quinault Tribe Fawn Sharp and Samish Indian Nation Chair Tom Wooten. In November, Ferguson took the time to personally answer a few questions for Convene:

What do you most value about nature? Colleen and I are lifelong backpackers. Family vacations with our twins have always revolved around national parks and monuments, being outdoors, and observing wildlife. My son Jack is working on climbing the 100 highest peaks in Washington State, and we have done ten of those together—each one a memorable experience. What do I value most about nature? That’s a little hard to answer. But I know that I feel more at peace when I am in nature. I love its beauty. I appreciate the complete break from my work and the city. And I feel my conversations with companions seem to go a bit deeper when we are on a trail, at a campsite or relaxing on a summit after a hard climb. Standing up to powerful interests is more important than ever and something you have a lot of experience with as Attorney General. What do you want the public—especially those frontline communities most impacted by environmental harm—to know about how you will stand up for them and push back against corporate polluters? I want the public to know we’re just getting started! Before I became Attorney General in 2013, our office did not use its independent authority to bring environmental cases on behalf of the people. That made no sense to me. I decided to change that culture. Our office now has a division of attorneys and professional staff dedicated to enforcing our civil and criminal environmental laws. In other words, these are cases filed by the Attorney General, not the Department of Ecology. My environmental enforcement team does incredible work. We’ve had some big wins, including forcing Monsanto to pay $95M for contaminating our waterways, enforcing the Clean Water Act against a gold mining company in Okanogan County, and obtaining the largest environmental criminal penalty in Washington State history.

And my team is doing more than bringing big cases. For example, we hosted an Environmental Justice Summit to address impacts on frontline communities affected by environmental harm. We must disrupt the historical pattern of biased and harmful decision-making that has repeatedly overburdened disadvantaged communities. As Governor, I look forward to continuing my work on that. Finally, I want the public to know that I am the only candidate in this race, Democrat or Republican, who doesn’t accept money from large corporations or corporate PACs. I know who I’m fighting for. Sovereign Tribal nations have been here since time immemorial and have deep knowledge and expertise on the natural world. What are you eager to do, as Governor, to learn from and apply that knowledge? I’ve had the privilege of working closely with Tribes on many issues and am committed to supporting and respecting Tribal sovereignty and working to facilitate strong government-to-government relationships with sovereign Tribal nations.

Let me offer an example of what that looks like. At the suggestion of Tribal leaders, I was the first Attorney General in the country to adopt a Free Prior and Informed Consent policy, which requires consent from Tribes before taking action (other than litigation) that affects Tribes. This policy also requires consultation prior to filing litigation. As of the date of this writing, I am the only candidate who has earned the endorsement from a Washington Tribal government. It is an honor to have the support of the Puyallup Tribe, the Tulalip Tribes, the Kalispel Tribe, Samish Indian Nation, the Snoqualmie Tribe, and Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe. Additionally, I have the endorsement of National Congress of American Indians President Fawn Sharp, Samish Indian Nation Chair Tom Wooten and all three members of federally recognized tribes serving in the Washington Legislature: Senator Claudia Kauffman, Representative Debra Lekanoff, and Representative Chris Stearns. By partnering with Washington Tribes on a government-to-government basis, we can accomplish big things for our environment and improve the lives of all Washingtonians. I will: • Embrace the HEAL Act and meaningfully engage with Tribes on all government actions that have the capacity to impact tribal lands and rights. • Ensure every cabinet agency has a Tribal liaison in its leadership structure who is a part of the agency’s decision-making process. • Take the state’s obligation to consult with Tribes seriously—this will not be a box-checking exercise but an opportunity to strengthen relationships and improve government. • Take critical steps to protect sacred sites and culturally modified trees. As Governor, I will also continue to visit Tribes and maintain personal relationships with Tribal leaders. If you were to write a note to your future children/grandchildren about your work on the environment as Governor, what would it say? Great question!

Bob and his son Jack on summit of Courtney Peak—Jack’s first summit of the 100 highest peaks in Washington. Image courtesy Bob Ferguson.

Dear Jack and Katie, We didn’t wait. We acted with urgency and purpose. We did everything we could to protect the air, water, forests, biodiversity, and climate that you and your grandchildren deserve. And remember to do your part!

WCA CHRONICLES Stories from nearly six decades of environmental advocacy

Collaboration over time results in bold policy that better serves people and nature Collaboration can be a balancing act. It’s important to discern why we work together, in what context, and toward what goal. Building relationships and moving forward after failures can lead to victory in the end. In 2021, it became clear that the Climate Commitment Act (CCA), a groundbreaking carbon pricing law, had a good chance of passing in the legislature. It had been a long road. For several years prior to that, we had been evolving to see environmental problems more holistically, to address the economic, historical and racial injustices that also create pollution, damage ecosystems and hurt people. We risked criticism and outrage in 2016 by deciding not to back Initiative 732, which would have created a state carbon tax and used it to fund tax refunds. Based on our conversations with partners, we did not believe that that initiative addressed racial equity. Nor did it provide for a just transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry. After that initiative failed, we started to build more authentic, respectful, and collaborative relationships with Tribes, unions and other groups. We began to expand our relationships with organizations led by people of color. Together, we collaborated to craft another climate ballot proposal in 2018: Initiative 1631. This would have levied a carbon tax and used the money to fund clean air and green energy projects. After oil companies put up millions of dollars to fight it, that initiative also failed.

But we kept working, building new bridges to a wide variety of organizations, working to elect environmental champions. We worked to make the process of voting more accessible. We showed up in communities most affected by pollution and climate change. Momentum grew. When our team realized that the Climate Commitment Act could succeed, we reached out to legislators, Tribes, partners, and community leaders. We lobbied for language that would center environmental justice in this cap-and-trade measure. We made public statements. With hard work, and the efforts of many, many others, the CCA passed and we had the strongest program in the country to reduce dangerous climate pollution. We are just ending the first year of CCA implementation. Already, the auction of carbon credits has generated more than $2 billion from polluters. This will help fund our transition to clean energy and help to address the harms created by our continued burning of dirty fossil fuels. Under the law, a large percentage of these monies will go to those most affected by a changing climate: low-to-moderate income communities, Tribal Nations, and people of color. Over time, pollution will be reduced, a new clean energy economy will emerge, and our communities will be safer for current and future generations. The collaboration that shaped CCA will also show the rest of the world what’s possible when we work together. Yes on 1631 signature turn-in press conference in Olympia on July 2, 2018

IN NATURE, COLLABORATION IS THE NORM 6

If you look out the window, get outside, or visit a park, a forest or a beach, what dynamic do you imagine drives the natural world that you see? If you answer, “competition,” that’s fair. This notion has been embedded in western culture for nearly two centuries, often amplified by problematic voices: the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “nature red in tooth and claw (1833),” the “survival of the fittest” (1859) often attributed to Charles Darwin (he didn’t coin the term), and more recently, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins’ notion of The Selfish Gene, the title of his bestselling 1976 book. Even today, a subset of scientific discourse considers “biological markets,” in which the whole of life is conceived as some sort of giant stock exchange, a zero-sum arena where one being’s gain always comes at the expense of another: the invasive purple loosestrife crowding out the native reeds, the European green crab grabbing habitat from the Dungeness, the quagga mussels crowding out other animals and plants in Southeast Washington’s Snake River. And, of course, that is part of nature’s story. We all eat to live, for instance. But it is not the whole story. The larger narrative unfolds in other ways both beautiful and mysterious. Indigenous peoples have long understood this in a practical and intimate manner. If your community occupies a landscape for millennia, your people come to know the value and the purpose of hundreds of species. You understand how different habitats complement each other, you don’t see land as simply a range for animals or a plot for agriculture—but as a living relative. For instance, a 2019 United Nations report found that Indigenous gardens preserve biodiversity by combining hundreds of wild and domestic species, letting them work together. A growing body of western scientific research is beginning to rediscover that living things work together far more often than they compete. This idea was first proposed in the late 19th century but fell into disfavor in the West because it didn’t sit well with the laissez-faire capitalist enthusiasms of that time. It also didn’t help that some of the early scientists backing the idea were also anarchists, or that early 20th century papers on the topic came from Soviet scientific academies in Russia. In the last four decades or so, the idea has regained strength in the West, helped along by DNA analysis, better imaging methods and ever-faster computing power. The developing understanding of this complexity of collaboration now influences everything from machine learning to industrial management.

It turns out, these studies show, that teamwork is a deep and crucial aspect of the natural world. In fact, collaboration is the norm in nature, not the exception. These academic studies confirm what the traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous cultures has centered since time immemorial: Things depend on each other. Every being, every animal, every plant, every fungus has a role and works together within a larger system. Rather than a vicious fight to the death, life turns out to be a profuse, dizzying dance of relationships and partnerships and mutualisms: small fish that groom big fish, fungal networks that allow trees of different species to trade water and carbon and information, legions of microbes that make it possible for cows and pandas and humans to digest food. This makes sense if you think about it. Life seeks to create conditions that nurture life. Life generally avoids direct competition—except for the wild and colorful displays of mating season—because it’s risky. A throw-down is potentially dangerous, even life-ending. Why take on your neighbor when it’s safer to mind your own business, even cooperate? Life forms don’t join forces out of some breezy idealistic notion of friendship or everlasting peace. The vast majority of beings that collaborate are microbes that don’t even have brains to conceive of such things. Rather, they work together because cooperation confers benefits. That’s also true of larger, more complex life. The balance of these advantages is always in flux, always subject to change in complex systems that often extend beyond two partners, to three, even five or more. So coral trout recruit moray eels to hunt together. And Columbian lesserback tarantulas keep dotted humming frogs in their burrows to protect them. The frogs eat any bugs that might attack when the spiders molt; the spiders scare off predators that might eat the frogs. Pistol shrimp dig burrows to share with small fish called gobies; in return, the gobies alert the shrimp, who have poor eyesight, when there’s a threat. In Washington’s Puget Sound, many types of anemones, such as the buried green anemone (Anthopleura artemisia) team up with zooxanthellae, tiny plant cells that live in/on the anemones’ tentacles. The zooxanthellae use the carbon dioxide from the anemone’s respiration. The anemone use oxygen and glucose produced by their tiny plant partners. How are such weird and varied partnerships even possible? Well, all life on the planet shares the same genetic code, DNA. And cooperation got started early.

Rather than a vicious fight to the death, life turns out to be a profuse, dizzying dance of relationships.

This yellow orange maritime sunburst lichen (Xanthoria parietina) and Hypogymnia physodes growing on a dry tree branch are not single organisms. Rather, these lichens result from the intertwining of fungi and algae. Recent studies have found that some lichens may consist of five or more partners. Image by Lubo Ivanko.

You would not be here to read this essay, nor would there be much to write about, were it not for cellular collaboration at the very beginning of complex life on this planet. Life appeared in Earth’s oceans about 3.8 billion years ago, at least that’s how old the oldest fossils are. It was a world without much oxygen and high in methane, not a hospitable place for animals. For about 2 billion years, estimates vary, that life consisted of single-celled organisms like bacteria and archaea floating around. Then, one bacterium engulfed another and created something completely different: a cell with a nucleus, a structure, and different “organelles” with various functions. This kind of cell is called a “eukaryote.” The bacterium that was absorbed became the cell’s “mitochondria,” providing energy for the cell. Every cell in your body has these mitochondria, so you are profoundly connected to this first biological collaboration. Then, not long after eukaryotes emerged—again, estimates vary—a eukaryotic cell swallowed a photosynthetic bacterium, what is commonly called bluegreen algae. It took about 200 million more years for that absorbed algae to gradually become fully integrated into the partnership: ultimately losing most of its DNA, except for the genes giving it the ability to turn light into carbohydrates and energy. It became the “chloroplast” that is the basis of all complex plant life. At this point, as you probably know, most all life lived in water and did so for about another billion years. The land was dry and barren, though some posit that it might have supported a thin crust of microbes. Then, about 600 million years ago, green algae started to move from shallow fresh water onto land. But the land was a much harsher environment in those days, and the algae didn’t have the tools to mine nutrients from the rocks. What to do? Team up with fungi, which had been evolving within ocean sediment. Fungi served as root systems for plants for tens of millions of years, supporting plants until they could evolve their own roots. This collaboration between plants and fungi marked a pivotal moment in the history of life. It set the stage for everything that we know today. Simple plants would eventually create soil that could support more complex plants that had flowers and fruit. As these spread around the world, their photosynthesis took in carbon dioxide and pushed out Trees are never alone. Through collaboration with fungal filaments, they form complex networks with other trees and plants of varying species, what some have dubbed the “wood wide web.” Image by Petra Richli.

This collaboration between plants and fungi marked a pivotal moment in the history of life. It set the stage for everything that we know today.

oxygen. Gradually, an oxygen-rich atmosphere more hospitable to animals developed. Fast forward a few hundred million years and this partnership has made possible the biosphere as we know it today. And that biosphere thrums to the complicated music of countless collaborations. In some cases, organisms help each other in ways that look almost like the parallel play of very young children, who at first play side by side, enjoying proximity, before interacting directly with each other. In other situations, each partner brings something to the table, a mutual give and take that might involve two parties, or five, or many more. And in the most intimate of collaborations, beings twine together, mixing their physiology to the point that it blurs the notion of life forms as individuals. Some of these relationships will be familiar: ant colonies that keep aphids for the honeydew they produce, the fluorescent dance of mutualities between flowers, insects and birds, the coral polyps and algae that team up to create beautiful underwater reefs, the flocks of African oxpecker birds that feed off the ticks and other pests that bother herds of large mammals like zebra and impalas, the lichens growing in the North Cascades that are actually a combination of fungi and algae, the teamwork of sea anemones and clownfish featured in the Disney movie Finding Nemo. But many others are lesser known, and weirdly wonderful. Until recently, it has been very difficult to study the metabolisms of the ocean’s microbes, but new methods of oceanwide sampling and computer-aided DNA analysis of plankton communities shows that photosynthesizing phytoplankton and tiny algae like diatoms actively trade nutrients back and forth. Each one gains what they cannot produce. Carpenter ants that dominate the canopies of tropical forests carry a symbiont called Blochmannia that allows them to survive on a largely vegetarian

diet. Without this bacterial partner, the ants could not live in the trees. And at the opposite end of the biosphere, far below near the sulfurous vents of the abyssal sea such as those discovered in 2020 on the Juan de Fuca ridge off Washington’s coast, giant tube worms thrive in profusion because of bacteria in their tissues that take the sulfur pouring out of the vents and turn it into energy. These bacteria in the tube worms rely upon chemosynthesis, using chemistry rather than light to fix carbon and feed life. It turns out that there are clams, worms and armored snails across the deep seas that rely upon similar partnerships. Some of the most interesting work of the last couple decades has focused on plants and their fungal partners in our Northwest woods. While plants did eventually evolve their own roots, they never really severed their connections to fungi who had served this function when the first algae migrated to land. Approximately 90 percent of plants still have relationships with threadlike filaments of fungi called mycorrhizae, from the Greek myco for “fungus” and rhizae for “root.” The mycorrhizae increase a plant’s reach by orders of magnitude, giving access to water, minerals and information that would otherwise be unattainable. Plants and mycorrhizae combine and connect promiscuously. Many fungi can partner with a single plant. Many plants can be connected to each other in a single network. Some of the pioneering work in this area has been done by Suzanne Simard at the University of British Columbia, who chronicled her life and career in the bestselling 2021 book, Finding the Mother Tree. In her first groundbreaking experiment, for her Ph.D. more than 30 years ago, Simard showed that trees connected and helped each other through mycorrhizal channels. When birches leafed out in summer and shaded firs that had a hard time photosynthesizing,

the birches shared some of their life-giving carbon with fir. Early in spring, and later in fall, when the birches had no leaves, some of fir’s carbon flowed to birch. Simard’s findings at first caused an uproar in the field but have since been replicated dozens of times. Simard and other researchers have since shown that trees share water, nutrients, and chemical signals that warn of disease or plant-munching predators. And these networks of cooperation can be deep and wide. In one of her more recent studies, Simard showed that a single, ancient tree was connected to more than 47 other trees of varying species and ages. This study only tracked two tree species, and a few fungal partners. Since the forest has many kinds of trees and hundreds of mycorrhizal varieties, the elder tree’s connections are likely much more complex, possibly connecting to hundreds of other plants through dozens of fungal networks. So while the dominant culture would have us believe that we are all desperate, selfish individuals scrapping it out in some global iteration of The Hunger Games, it turns out that the reality is more cooperative, more achingly beautiful and so complex that knowing all of its contours is probably impossible. Each of us is a whole world, a cooperative ecosystem. Scientists have now documented that just about every complex plant, fungus and animal hosts a dynamic assemblage of bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa, and other microorganisms. These beings

that live in us, and on us, are essential to our health. We are essential to theirs. There are roughly as many of these fellow travelers in your body as there are human cells, a bit more actually. They help digest our food, releasing nutrients we could not access otherwise. They produce vitamins and minerals missing from our diet. They break down toxins. They help us fight off disease by crowding out invaders or producing targeted chemicals to kill them. And we are not special by any means. Studies show that mutualistic networks are not random, but nested. These webs of connection reach up and down in scale. Bacteria have their own microbiome and web of mutualisms. Viruses contain still smaller viruses. Or, moving toward the macro, each animal, plant or fungus is held in the embrace of its own ecosystem. That ecosystem is, in turn, is held within larger patterns of connection and cooperation. These, in turn, are part of still larger patterns, going up and up until they are planetary in scale. Some studies have shown that “high nestedness” of mutual collaborations has benefits. For instance, in plant-pollinator communities, highly nested networks seem to make the system more robust. In these highly cooperative communities, extinction is less likely. Collaboration also creates benefits in human interactions. For example, during the 2008 economic downturn, companies that were more collaborative actually grew during that financial crisis. Even in our own work at WCA, we work in collaboration - in highly cooperative fashion - as our theory of change. It’s the only way we’ve known to move toward victory since our organization’s inception in 1967. We might not always realize it, but we all depend upon the survival of billions of organisms, all of us embedded in these matrices of give, take and cooperation. Collaboration feeds life.

In many ways, collaboration is life.

If you’re interested in learning more about collaboration in nature, check out these books: Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake, Random House, 2020. Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard, Vintage, 2021. Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World by Kristen Ohlsen, Patagonia, 2022.

Trees of different species work together. In the summer, when birch leaves shade fir, the birch trees share carbon with fir. In the winter, when birch has no leaves, fir returns the favor and shares carbon with birch. Image by Stanley Zimny.

I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong, Ecco/ Harper Collins, 2016.

OUR WORK MIMICS NATURE

Collaboration with partners makes us stronger as an organization, it connects us to each other and to this amazing planet on which we live. It’s a key part of our theory of change. Since Washington Conservation Action started nearly 60 years ago, collaboration has been the central value driving the work—from bringing people together to create the Department of Ecology to banning new fossil fuel terminals in Vancouver and Whatcom County. Our work is done by literally hundreds of teams: teams of individuals, teams of partners, and teams that include all of these plus donors, volunteers and activists. Over time, we have learned that taking the time to consult with others, developing relationships with

groups that have on-the-ground knowledge, and simply being in community with each other makes our work more effective. It makes us stronger as an organization. It connects us to each other and to this amazing planet upon which we live. It brings us closer to the ideal of solving problems without creating new ones. It helps us to see intersections between environmental challenges, racial and economic injustices, and historical inequities. Our collaborations inspire us to envision concrete ways to protect people and nature as one.

Staff form a ‘cinnamon roll hug’ during summer staff retreat 2023. Image by Mallori Pryse.

Here are a few of the major collaborations in which we’re involved:

Voting Justice Coalition

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who don’t drive by removing a driver’s license as a requirement of online registration. Strengthened the existing 2018 Washington Voting Rights Act, providing funding to make it possible for communities of color to challenge discriminatory election practices.

Washington Conservation Action collaborates with more than 30 organizations across the state that work to improve access to voting. The work is Working with County non-partisan. The coalition operates from the belief Commissioners that our communities are better off when more people participate in our democracy. The coalition Sometimes, collaboration means reaching out to has its own lobbyist and works to pass legislation in leaders one by one. This is what our forest team does Olympia. Since 2017, the coalition has helped to pass with our partners, to help county commissioners changes such as mail-in voting and restoring the vote decide whether they want to apply for funds to preto people who were formerly incarcerated. serve carbon-dense forests in their local jurisdictions. “Quite simply, there’s no environmental justice Last July, in response to a lawsuit filed by Washwithout voting justice,” says Tony Ivey, WCA’s politiington Conservation Action, Conservation Northcal and civic engagement manager. “Of the people in west, Olympic Forest Coalition, and eight individuals, Washington who are eligible to vote, 20 percent do the state Supreme Court confirmed, in a unanimous not, for a variety of reasons. With that kind of gap, decision, that the D epartment of Natural Resources you have leaders who don’t reflect the values of the (DNR) has the authority tomanage public lands for people they represent. many benefits, not just maximizing timber revenue. “Polls show that most This ruling invites the devoters, regardless of party, partment to model innovative support climate change and forest management on our environmental legislation. But public state lands. It has the those laws are still difficult potential to inspire an overdue to pass because of barriers to evolution in how we manage voting. If more people vote, state lands—modernizing a we’ll have more legislators who system developed when Washare supportive of environmenington was granted statehood tal action.” 133 years ago. So far, DNR has Ivey says that speaking not acted on this expanded with one voice makes everydiscretion on how it manages one in the coalition stronger. It more than 2 million acres of gets the attention of state legstate trust lands. islators, many of whom bring In the absence of action their ideas for new voting laws from DNR, Washington Conto the coalition. With a stateservation Action and the conwide membership, and annual servation community secured listening sessions with voters, $83 million from Climate Comthe coalition has developed mitment Act funds to cona keen sense of conditions in serve 2,000 acres of mature, Free The Vote mural event in Tacoma organized various communities. carbon-dense forests. The by Washington Voting Justice. Image by Tony Ivey. “Sometimes a lawmaker will money will be used to purmeet with us and ask, “Is this a chase working timber lands to good idea?” And we’ll say, “No, because we’re aware of replace those that are set aside. Counties must “optwhat the barriers might be in real life,” Ivey explains. in” to apply for a portion of these funds by sending a Recent successes: •

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Upgraded automatic voter registration, not only prompting people to register when they go to the DMV, but also registering any voter who presents proof of citizenship. Removed confusing and unenforceable “advisory votes” from Washington ballots. Made voter registration accessible to people

letter of interest to DNR. Because state budgets are complex and address hundreds, if not thousands, of priorities, not all county leaders were aware of this opportunity. Rachel Baker, WCA’s forest program director, and Bryan Pelach, WCA’s state forestlands program manager, scheduled a series of informational meetings with commissioners and staff in the counties most likely to have appropriate parcels.

“When they heard of this opportunity, many counties were interested, but they also had questions,” explains Pelach. “How will the lands be identified? What would the criteria be? How will the lands be managed once they are set aside? Will the lands be purely protected, or will recreational use be allowed? What if the county wants to build a trail on the conserved acres? Will small amounts of harvest be possible in such a case?” In partnership with Conservation NW, RE Sources and the Center for Responsible Forestry, WCA helped to answer these questions and developed some criteria for identifying parcels to be preserved. The ideal forest is a mixture of species and ages, with skips and breaks in the canopy, not a plantation. Some of our partners enlisted volunteers who were able to visit various sites, take pictures and gather on-theground data. “We know that at least six counties have sent letters to DNR: King, Jefferson, Whatcom, Snohomish, Pierce, and Thurston,” says Baker. “We should know next steps on selection of mature forests by the end of the year.” In tandem with this work to conserve carbon-dense forests, the state is already making progress on purchasing working forest acres to replace them. On November 7th, the Board of Natural Resources approved DNR’s acquisition of 9,115 acres of timberland in Wahkiakum County, using part of the $83 million in Climate Commitment Act funds that WCA and others worked to secure. These private forestlands will be become part of state lands managed by DNR for ongoing timber harvest, benefitting local communities and providing continued revenue to counties.

Environmental Priorities Coalition In the early 2000s, Washington’s environmental advocates decided that they would be more successful if they joined forces to push legislative progress. “The heart of it was that we hadn’t been collaborating well as an environmental community. Some of our opponents played games, trying to play us against each other,” explains Darcy Nonemacher,

“We have the most success when relationships between all the groups are strong.” - Darcy Nonemacher, WCA government affairs director

Rachel Baker, our forest program director, checking out an old growth stand in Seward Park in Seattle. Baker, and Bryan Pelach, our state forestlands program manager, are working with local county commissioners to conserve mature forests.

WCA’s government affairs director. “We realized that if we wanted to have power, we needed to work as a collective.” In 2003, Washington Conservation Action, then the Washington Environmental Council, teamed up with Washington Conservation Voters and more than 20 major statewide environmental groups to form the Environmental Priorities Coalition (EPC). Each year, the group decides upon two to four priorities that it seeks to advance during the state legislative session. The coalition also lobbies for its priorities as the biennial budget is written in long session years. By focusing on budgets, the aim is two-fold: secure needed money for important environmental programs and projects, and to keep building momentum on pressing environmental issues. Over decades, the coalition has secured billions of dollars for salmon recovery, healthy forests, conservation, toxics reduction, and climate action. The EPC has achieved dozens of successes over the years, including numerous bills to help clean up pollution in Puget Sound, the 2005 Clean Cars bill to reduce tailpipe pollution, the 2007 elimination of toxic flame retardants known as PBDEs, E-waste recycling, the 2011 Coal Free Washington campaign that will lead to the retirement of the state’s last coal-fired power plant next year. Since 2019, the EPC passed 100% clean energy in Washington, a plastic bag ban, a clean fuels standard, and the greenest transportation package in 2022. The benefits of collaboration have been many: Pooled resources have allowed campaigns to succeed when they may not have otherwise. A shared vision

Working on shared priorities amplifies our collective voice. — Caitlin Krenn, WCA climate and clean energy campaign senior manager

and communications strategy has kept goals clear. This, in turn, gives legislators the ability to confidently champion environmental goals without being overwhelmed by the varied expectations of various organizations. Organizing over multiple years has resulted in systemic change. The EPC is now in the process of developing a multi-year strategic plan and searching for a consultant to help incorporate issues such as racial equity and Tribal sovereignty into the group’s operations and its goals. “It’s a way of re-grounding and re-committing to this work,” Nonemacher says. 2023 wins: •

• •

Incorporating climate change considerations into the Growth Management Act, the suite of state statutes that govern Washington’s urban planning structure. Securing more than $400 million for salmon protection and habitat restoration in the latest capital budget. Making sure that the funds generated by the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) are invested wisely, prioritizing racial and economic justice goals. In its first year of implementation, the CCA has brought in more than a billion dollars.

Emerald Cities Collaborative Often, WCA takes the lead in collaborations, but it’s also important to play a supporting role when appropriate, to help our partners and to amplify their work. Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC) is a nationwide nonprofit organization that bridges the gap between high-level policies and programs that reach people directly. With the passage of the federal Inflation Reduction Act, and the state’sClimate Commitment Act, billions of dollars will become available in the coming years to help Washingtonians make their homes and businesses more energy efficient, healthier,and less polluting. While that idea is simple, actually accessing those dollars is not. “Historically, only a very small percentage of the money from these sorts of initiatives has reached those who need it the most: people of color who live

and work in low to moderate income communities,” says Dewi Ali, community engagement manager for the northwest chapter of ECC. “We saw a need to help people navigate the complex landscape of all the various opportunities.” Ali and the staff at ECC took the lead working with Rep. Alex Ramel (D-40th) to craft a bill that would create such a resource. “Our role was to help coordinate, support and lift up,” explains Caitlin Krenn, WCA’s climate and clean energy campaign senior manager. We worked w ith many partners and within Shift Zero, Washington’s zero-carbon buildings alliance, to make sure that HB 1391 was a legislative priority. The bill hasn’t been passed yet but will be in play in next year’s legislative session. In the meantime, a budget proviso provides$250,000to reach out to communities and to plan out how the program might work. “Working on shared priorities amplifies our collective voice,” Krenn says.

Climate Smart Wood Group In construction and development circles, interest in green building and low-carbon materials has been growing. Wood is seen as a potential “green” material, but how climate-smart wood is defined, verified, and distinguished from other wood products is far from clear. “How different forests are managed matters,” explains Rachel Baker, WCA’s forest program director. “There needs to be recognition and incentives for landowners to manage in a more climate-smart way: such as managing for a diversity of tree sizes, ages and species, longer periods between harvests, selective thinning, protection of high conservation value forest, or protecting water quality with riparian buffers. There needs to be guidance for the project teams who write the specs for projects. There need to be bridges between the builders and those who produce and mill the wood.” These ideas spurred the creation of the Climate Smart Wood Group (CSWG), a coalition of environmental organizations, builders, architects, engineers, and forestry professionals, of which WCA is a co-founder and a member of the leadership council.

Climate bills signing rally in Seattle, May 7, 2019. Image courtesy of Legislative Support Services.

What gives the group credibility, Baker says, is the variety of its collaborators. CSWG represents both experts from across the supply chain: from forestry to manufacturing and building with what’s produced. “There’s been this sense that when you source wood, it’s all the same, as long as you meet standards for quality and appearance. That’s what industry associations and large corporations promote,” Baker explains. “But all wood is not the same. The impacts of wood products span the decades during which the wood is grown, and have environmental and social impacts from local to global. “There are a huge range of practices and multiple pathways to climate smart wood. We’re trying to provide tools and information and expertise so that people can make informed decisions. What are your values? What are you trying to source? How can we get you the information you need to ask the right questions and match you with the right supplier?” CSWG launched its website last year and has hired a director. It launched procurement guidance describing considerations for transparency, different

stages of project design, and procurement options for climate-smart wood. The group has brought new members into its leadership council and has begun to recruit members from across the country and from the private sector. The dynamic approximates the way you might get to know producers at a farmers’ market. CSWG serves as a knowledge hub and a connector. They collect information and tools that will be useful in gauging carbon stocks and carbon impacts. In the future, Baker says, they hope to drive recognition and rewards to landowners who are innovating in ways that store more carbon. “We won’t be certifying wood,” Baker explains. “But we’re working to help different sectors communicate. They don’t always speak the same language. For instance, we help builders write specs and gather information to source wood that has a positive climate impact on forests. We help forest managers understand what the market is seeking. That’s only possible when you collaborate in a group like this.”

Chelan is one of many wildlandurban interface communities in Washington. Image by Cord Pryse.

CONNECTING ON THE

ENVIRONMENTAL FRONTLINES Before we develop lasting solutions, we must know those affected by the problem

Washington Conservation Action has its roots in policy expertise. Our founding organizations— Washington Environmental Council and Washington Conservation Voters—fielded teams of everyday concerned citizens, organizers, and experts who knew their way around legislation and budgets and campaigns. We became accustomed to writing policy and formulating strategy and then asking others to join us. In the last decade, as we have actively engaged in anti-racism work, we have become convinced that our earlier approach, while well-meaning, had things backwards: It’s not effective to come up with a solution before you consult those who have the problem. Now, we reach out to communities and

other organizations first. We research, listen, meet, build relationships, and form teams before we start drafting anything. Why? Because it results in better policy and more meaningful impacts on people and the environment. The data clearly show that the impacts of climate change, of pollution, and of extractive forestry fall disproportionately on the communities with the least resources to respond: low-to-moderate income areas, Tribal Nations, people of color. How can we know the contours of these challenges, how can we craft potential solutions without talking to these communities and to the leaders who are grappling with the issues?

“We play complimentary roles. WA Fire Adapted Communities fosters on-the-ground relationships with community leaders. We have relationships with elected leaders and policy makers.” — Katie Fields, WCA forests and communities program manager WCA collaborates with many organizations working on these front lines. Here are a few examples:

Washington Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network In the last several decades, development has pushed into what’s called the “wildland-urban interface (WUI).” That is, subdivisions and other buildings have pushed further and further into wild expanses, so that neighborhoods now border undeveloped areas like state or national forests, or wetlands. As a century of fire suppression and unchecked planet-warming pollution have created the conditions for megafires, these not-quite-rural, not-quite-urban zones often find themselves on the front of fire lines. “There are a number of equity issues,” explains Katie Fields, WCA’s forests and communities program manager. “Often these areas will have some very wealthy people who have second homes there. And there are many others who live in these areas because it’s more affordable. Renters and people who work outdoors face unique challenges. Some community members may not always have access to transportation. Many communities also have large numbers of visitors who don’t live in the area but may be affected by wildfire during their visit. “When there’s a fire, evacuation can be really challenging. It’s so important for these communities to have a plan and to ensure everyone in the community receives clear, accessible information in the languages they speak and read.” WCA began to engage more deeply on this issue beginning in 2021, partnering with the Washington Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network (WAFAC), Washington Prescribed Fire Council, and Sustainable Northwest. WAFAC, a program of the Washington Resource Conservation and Development Council, facilitates peer-to-peer learning and collaboration between community organizations and state and federal agencies who are working to better live with wildfire. One of the ways WAFAC brings its members together is through hosting monthly “coffee breaks”, open to all 110-plus members from around the state.

“Not all 110 sign on in any given month, but it’s great to have direct conversations with representatives of local community groups from all over the state, to hear where they’re succeeding and where they’re struggling,” explains Fields. Many communities around the state, from Pacific County to Spokane, are developing community wildfire protection plans (CWPP) or updating existing plans. CWPPs can feed into broader Natural Hazard Mitigation Plans often funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). These Hazard Mitigation Plans, in turn, can meet some of the climate requirements recently added to the Growth Management Act for fast-growing counties and cities as they create new comprehensive plans. Informed by exchanges within WAFAC, WCA has helped to draft guidelines to support cities and counties updating their comprehensive plans, outlining what development specifically works in the face of wildfire in the wildland-urban interface. “We play complementary roles,” says Fields. “WAFAC fosters on-the-ground relationships with community leaders. We have relationships with elected officials and policy makers.”

Department of Ecology Stakeholder and Tribal Advisory Group This group of stakeholders and representatives of Tribal interest advises Ecology on the update of the Model Toxics Control Act, the state law that governs the cleanup of the more than 14,000 known toxic sites across the state. This influences which sites get attention first, and exactly how they are cleaned up. Within the group, WCA collaborates closely with three other organizations: the Duwamish River Community Coalition (DRCC) which monitors the clean up of the Duwamish River and seeks to create a healthy environment for the communities that border it; RE Sources, a Bellingham-based non-profit that works to protect the ecosystems and communities in and around the Salish Sea; and Communities for a Healthy Bay, which brings people together in Tacoma to clean up Commencement Bay. Last spring, when Ecology released a draft cleanup

rule for public comment, staff from WCA sat down with experts from the other groups to discuss and formulate a plan. “The strength of working together is that everyone brings different skills and experiences to the table,” explains Katie Byrnes, WCA’s toxics and stormwater policy manager. “The people from RE Sources and Communities for a Healthy Bay have worked hard on cleanups and have deep knowledge about toxicology. Our partner at DRCC has legal expertise, as well as knowledge of the health impacts of pollution because that is a big issue for people living along the Duwamish. We at WCA bring science and policy expertise and experience working with Tribes.” Byrnes says that at first the group bounces ideas off each other, then they divide up the various sections of the rule and begin to draft comments. “It’s been difficult to get environmental justice incorporated. Jamie Hearn from DRCC had facts and figures from a cumulative health impacts analysis that we wove throughout the comment letter,” Byrnes says. “For instance, people who live in Georgetown and South Seattle have a life expectancy that is eight years shorter than the overall average for King County. The average person who lives in Seattle along the Duwamish has access to only 40 square feet of green space. The average for Seattle as a whole is 387 square feet of green space. It’s so important to have that kind of information, and that point of view included.”

Health Weatherization Plus Study after study has found that low-to-moderate income households and people of color are mostly likely to suffer from the worst impacts of a climate changing due to planet-warming pollution: rising temperatures and sea levels, poor air quality, rising energy costs and more. Hundreds of thousands face challenges like those of Gary Renshaw, and his roommate, Kelly Parks, who share an older mobile home in Cle Elum in Kittitas County. Renshaw and Kelly put up with drafts and leaks which made the home unhealthy and unsafe. The wood stove and outdated furnace were expensive to use. Funding to help low-income households weatherize their homes is a “must-do” step as we work to meet the challenges of climate change, according to the 2021 State Energy Strategy. That strategy set a goal to help 10 percent of eligible households each year. Weatherization Plus Health, a program managed by the state Department of Commerce, delivers these essential structural repairs, energy efficiency upgrades and health and safety improvements to households that otherwise could not afford them. Implemented by a network of 27 community action

agencies, as well as city, county and Tribal housing authorities, the program increases energy efficiency while also halting the decline of the state’s affordable housing stock and preventing homelessness in every Washington county and seven Tribal Nations. Renshaw and Kelly in Cle Elum got connected to Weatherization Plus Health through a local agency. Through the program, they were able to add new insulation, improve ventilation, repair roof and window leaks, replace the old furnace with an energy efficient heat pump, and build a ramp for easier access to the home. They also replaced old carpeting and installed new flooring for better indoor air quality. “My roommate and I both suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” says Renshaw. “Now our home just feels better, more comfortable.” Yet, because of limited funds, these kinds of happy endings aren’t as common as they might be. The program has only been able to reach 1 percent of the 375,000 eligible households each year. That’s far short of the 10 percent goal in the state’s strategy. In the 2023 legislative session, Washington Conservation Action joined a coalition convened by the Northwest office of Emerald Cities Collaborative, a national nonprofit dedicated to creating both a thriving environment and just and inclusive economies for all. This broad-based group came together to urge legislators to invest a minimum of $46 million in Weatherization Plus Health for the 2023-25 biennium. “Hundreds of thousands of residents are not being served,” explains Steve Gelb, the Northwest regional director for Emerald Cities Collaborative. “If we’re going to hit our climate goals, everyone needs improved housing.” Caitlin Krenn, WCA’s climate and clean energy campaign senior manager says that being part of a large coalition like this strengthens the case for increased funding. “If you can show wide support from a variety of organizations, you can use that to make your case with the governor’s office,” Krenn says. Gelb of Emerald Cities says it helps in the legislature as well. “This group has been multidisciplinary from the start. Some of us focus on policy and the big picture of climate change. Others emphasize local communities. Still others deliver services or focus on the barriers that keep these upgrades from happening,” Gelb says. “When you have a diverse group, you press more buttons. I think that gets a lot of legislators on board for different reasons.” In the last legislative session, collaboration worked. The coalition won $46 million to help low-to-moderate income people like Renshaw and Kelly to upgrade their homes. To learn more about Weatherization Plus Health Services in your area, reach out to your local community action agency: wapartnership.org/agencies/

Sunrise over Cowiche Canyon, near Yakima where WCA collaborates with many local groups. Image by Kat Holmes.

WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED A LOT TOGETHER

HELP US CONTINUE THE WORK The end of the year is here and you’re thinking about how you can support our important work to protect Washington’s people and nature as one… You have several options to make a gift today. And—if you’re planning on donating from your Individual Retirement Account (IRA)—you must meet minimum age requirements. Washington Conservation Action (WCA) focuses on our political work as a 501c4. This includes our lobbying efforts, and our successful work to elect environmental champions. Donations to WCA are not tax-deductible, but they do help us elect leaders who will fight for our land, air, and water, protect communities on the frontlines, uphold the inherent rights of Tribal Nations, and much more. If you want to make a tax-deductible donation, make your gift to the Washington Conservation Action Education Fund, our 501c3/charitable organization. The Education Fund includes our programs to protect state forests and Puget Sound, our efforts to mitigate climate change and to fight fossil fuel expansion, to fight for environmental justice, and so much more. As noted above, if you’re looking to make a tax-deductible gift from your IRA, you need to be 70.5 years old or older. You can learn more about this special type of gift on our website at: wcactionef.org/planned-gifts.

To make an online gift to Washington Conservation Action or Washington Conservation Action Education Fund, check out the links below. You can also mail your gift to us at our Seattle office (see the back cover of this issue). If you have questions about donations, please contact Paul Balle at paul@waconservationaction.org. Thank you for your support! Donate to Washington Conservation Action: waconservationaction.org/giving Donate to Washington Conservation Action Education Fund: wcactionef.org/donate

If you want to donate by mail, use the remit envelope in this issue of Convene and send it back to us! We thank you for your support.

WHY WE STAND WITH

YAKAMA NATION Clean energy projects must consider both environmental and cultural impacts

From the top of a ridge above the Columbia River and the John Day hydroelectric dam, you can see for miles and miles. The highest summit around, this place offers commanding views of the Columbia River Gorge: the hillside plummets sharply toward the widening river and the dam below. This landscape occupies a central place in Yakama Nation’s religion and ceremony. The plants that grow there are used by the Tribes to treat illness in the body and spirit. For countless generations, these plants have served as poultice, tea, bandages, pacifiers, drums, needles, rope, nets, and food. But the area could be desecrated and destroyed by a stored energy project proposed by an East Coast company in partnership with Danish investors. The site proposed for this enterprise is called “Push-pum” by The Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The Yakama know this area as “mother of all roots,” a natural seed bank and a source of sustenance for countless generations. The proposed facility eight miles south of the town of Goldendale in south-central Washington would destroy a large swath of this sacred land, including archaeological, ceremonial, petroglyph, monumental and ancestral sites. Yakama Nation has opposed this project from the beginning. For more than a year, Washington Conservation Action, as part of a coalition of other environmental groups including Columbia Riverkeeper, American Rivers, Sierra Club and Friends of White Salmon River, has been working with the Tribe. Here is background on why we are using our unique set of skills and power to stand with the Yakama Nation in asserting that this is a dangerous and harmful project: Why are we taking this stand? This proposal destroys Tribal cultural and religious resources. Environmental advocacy must uphold Tribal sovereignty and address environmental

Parade at Yakama Nation Treaty Days 2023. Image by Kat Holmes.

A clean energy future must uphold the inherent rights of Tribal Nations, federal trust and treaty obligations that consider the cultural and health impacts of new projects on sacred sites like Push-pum. injustice. As a society, we must differentiate clean energy proposals from proposals that continue to put the burden on Tribal Nations and others most impacted by our climate crisis. Simply put, we were asked to oppose this project and we understood the importance of doing so. Why is this so important now? We urgently need to transition away from dirty fossil fuels. Investing in a clean energy economy will create a more equitable and thriving society. We know that we need a wide variety of projects—wind, solar, hydrogen, energy storage and more—to make this transition. As an organization, we work on clean energy policies and opportunities every single day. As we do this, the details matter: Where are these projects? Who is leading them? What are the impacts? What are the benefits? How does each project address our climate crisis? It is our shared responsibility to ensure that the clean energy projects that are built improve the lives of all Washingtonians. We must not make the same mistakes over again, such as failing to consult those most affected by a project, and valuing profit over people. That kind of business as usual created many of the social and environmental problems we now face. Exactly what is proposed? At first glance, the proposal for the Goldendale Stored Energy Project appears to be the stuff of the new clean-energy economy: two reservoirs near the John Day hydropower complex in the Columbia River Gorge that would store energy from renewable sources and then push that energy back into the power grid when night falls on solar panels or breezes stop turning windmill turbines. Boston-based company Rye Development, on behalf of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, wants to build a facility that would act like a giant physical battery: When solar and wind energy is flowing into the grid, that power would be used to pump millions of gallons of water from one reservoir near the Columbia River more than 2,000 feet up to another reservoir atop a bluff above. Then, when power isn’t coming into the grid, the water that was pumped uphill could be released into

concrete or steel-lined tunnels drilled into the hillside: The water would flow down through turbines connected to transmission lines, and then back to the lower elevation reservoir where it began. If built, the project could be the largest of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. Promoters even claim that the project could supply about 20 percent of Washington’s needed storage. It would also destroy lands sacred to the Yakama Nation. What is the status of the project? In December 2022, the state Department of Ecology issued an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that found the project would cause significant and irreparable harm to Tribes. In March 2023, a draft EIS from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that the project would inevitably destroy important cultural sites. In May 2023, the state Department of Ecology approved the water quality certification, one of more than a dozen permits necessary before construction can begin. Why do Tribes oppose the project? Yakama Nation “ceded” the lands proposed for the pumped storage project in an 1855 treaty with the United States government. In doing so, the Tribe reserved the right to continue to use that ceded landscape for religious and ceremonial purposes, and to fish, hunt and gather in their usual and accustomed manner and places. These rights are not a “nice to have” feature. They are essential, prerogatives guaranteed by an agreement between two sovereign nations: the United States and Yakama Nation. In 2021, Yakama Nation Tribal Council passed a resolution regarding the Goldendale project saying, “The proposed pump storage development violates the Yakama Nation’s inherent sovereignty and Treaty-reserved rights through direct, permanent, and adverse destruction of nine Traditional Cultural Properties of religious and ceremonial significance.” In the past, treaty rights like these often have been ignored: Consider the thousands of dams and culverts around the state that have decimated populations of salmon, a staple of Native peoples. It’s not even 70 years since the Army Corps of Engineers built a dam

at the Dalles and inundated Celilo Falls, a series of Columbia River rapids where thousands of people from the Yakama and many other Tribal Nations annually gathered and fished for millennia. A clean-energy future must uphold the inherent rights of Tribal Nations, federal trust and treaty obligations that consider the cultural and health impacts of new projects on sacred sites like Push-pum. We must not repeat mistakes like Celilo Falls. How is opposition growing? The work to stop this project continues to evolve. While the Yakama Nation are leading the opposition, there are many involved in working together to stop the project. Tribal nations including the Confederated Bands and Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Nez Perce Tribe,

Suquamish Tribe, Lummi Nation, Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and Tulalip Tribes have joined Yakama Nation in opposing the project. The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians issued a resolution opposing the project and called for permit denial. The National Congress of American Indians also passed a resolution and called for the protection of Traditional Cultural Properties. We are working with a growing coalition of advocacy groups to oppose the project, including Columbia Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, American Rivers, Friends of White Salmon River and others. Public messaging continues to grow as well. Yakama Nation have created a public website on the project and its impacts. In June, WCA CEO Alyssa Macy published an op-ed in the Yakima Herald Republic explaining why our organization opposes the project. Legal action is necessary and may change over time. Our organization, along with Columbia Riverkeeper and American Rivers, filed a lawsuit in June to appeal the Department of Ecology decision to issue a water quality certification for the project. We are represented by Western Environmental Law Center. Yakama Nation also appealed this decision. Our lawsuits now have been combined. While our shared appeal moves forward, we expect a Final federal EIS to be released and additional permit decisions to be issued over the next year. Join us in taking a stand for a just and equitable clean energy transition by opposing this project. The environmental problems that we face, in our state and around the world, are directly linked to racial, historic, and economic injustices. All these things are connected. As we work to create a better world for people and nature, we must keep these connections in mind. If it hurts Tribes, it’s not clean energy.

Point your phone camera at the QR code image, click the link that pops up, then voice your support in opposition of the Goldendale Pumped Storage project.

The view from the top of the lands the Yakama call Pushpum is panoramic. This landscape encompasses many sacred and cultural sites. Image courtesy Yakama Nation.

Board members and CEO Alyssa Macy at autumn 2022 UNITE event

WCA BOARD CHANGES THE PARADIGM On a Tuesday evening in September 2023, approximately 25 people sign onto a bimonthly Zoom meeting. They’re leaders in their own right from all over the state, from many walks of life, of many races and backgrounds and opinions. As the Washington Conservation Action (WCA) board, all their work involves collaboration. They’ve gathered virtually to talk about political endorsements and budgets, fundraising and wildfire, new hires and legislative redistricting. About two-thirds of the way through the board’s business, board member Eliseo “EJ” Juarez shares an experience. “I work in communities across the state in various roles,” says Juarez, who also serves as the director of equity and environmental justice for the state Department of Natural Resources. “People often don’t know I’m on the WCA board, but in my work in Yakima and in communities in Eastern Washington, WCA has come up for praise three separate times. I’m just so encouraged by that. I’m so proud of the statewide work we’re doing and the authentic relationships being built for lasting wins with frontline communities.”

It’s a comment that would have been extremely unlikely not long ago. “When I joined the board 10 years ago, it was almost entirely white. Almost everyone was from King County, and we focused on fundraising,” explains Ken Lederman, the WCA board president. “We’ve gone through a profound evolution. We’re now much more diverse in every way.” “It was really important for us to push hard on diversifying the board,” says Alyssa Macy, WCA’s CEO. “In order for us to evolve into a truly statewide organization, we need people from different parts of the state, with different life experiences, who exist in contexts that are unique, different from the Seattle metro area.” You might take it for granted that boards take charge of everything from museums to schools to big companies in America, but how did we end up with a board of trustees or directors as the norm? After all, there are other ways to organize a joint enterprise like a business or a nonprofit, such as various kinds of partnerships or limited liability corporations. For

“Who your board members are, how they identify, how they lead, where they live, the networks they have built throughout their lives, you can’t monetize that,” says Macy. “In fact, it’s priceless.”

millennia, Indigenous peoples in the Americas traded everything from copper to whale oil to flint without coalescing into corporations with boards. Though they may not have been called trustees or directors at the time, this convention has deep roots in the beginnings of British international trade, colonialism, and empire. In the 13th century, Edward I of England wanted to encourage all wool exports through one port in Belgium and so he organized an assembly of merchants to be governed by a charter and managed by a “mayor.” Over the centuries, as British trade and power grew, this embryonic board structure gradually changed: Groups of investors ran the powerful trading groups such as the English East India Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company in the 16th and 17th centuries. Charters directed assemblies and governors to manage America’s first colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. Eventually, Alexander Hamilton’s 1811 first general incorporation statute in New York set out that American companies should be governed by an elected board of directors. No doubt the reach of English and American power in the last two centuries has spread this practice around the globe. A whole spectrum of management styles is possible with a board: from very involved in running the enterprise, to hands off, to everything in between. For instance, the WCA board used to be a “working board,” helping to draft legislation, to lobby elected officials and more. In the last decade or so, it has evolved into a governing board, helping the staff with insights, connections, and ideas, fiduciary management and fundraising to support the mission and strategic vision of the organization. One thing most boards share is a focus on money. It’s just reality: After all, without funds, neither a company nor a non-profit can survive in our current system. In the non-profit world that Washington Conservation Action inhabits, this traditionally has meant a “get-give” model. In other words, each board member is expected either to get others to donate substantial gifts, or to give substantially themselves. In practice,

this usually skews memberships on boards toward particular loci of power: white, urban, affluent. “We used to have a firm give-get. That was par for the course at the time,” says Lederman. “We’ve moved away from that,” Lederman continues. “Of course, we want board members to donate, but all we ask now is that the gift is personally meaningful to them. Instead, we’re prioritizing the quality of engagement: How do board members champion issues? How do they support their communities and environmental and social justice? That kind of action and leadership means more than dollars.” “Who your board members are, how they identify, how they lead, where they live, the networks they have built throughout their lives, you can’t monetize that,” says Macy. “In fact, it’s priceless.” Before Macy joined WCA as the chief executive officer in 2020, the board was already talking about broadening its membership racially, economically, and geographically. That was part of racial equity work that began more than a decade ago, and that has led WCA to emphasize the relationship between ecological progress and environmental and racial justice. “Those linkages and ideas rocketed forward after Alyssa came on board,” Lederman says. “She helped to draft a strategic framework that puts justice at the core of everything we do. If we’re not looking at things through the lens of justice, we risk being irrelevant.” The WCA board is now more than 50 percent people of color. Members hail from all over the state: from Seattle of course, but also from Spokane to Bellingham, from Tacoma to Methow Valley, from Suquamish to Yakima. The board now has a BIPOC affinity caucus, to make sure that diverse voices get heard. There’s also a white allies caucus. The board is trying to develop a culture that pushes back against the perfectionism and urgency of white supremacy culture. Members seek to give grace when mistakes are made, to listen to constructive criticism, to take the time to build the meaningful relationships that make groups more effective. “The broad representation has changed how we

The WCA board and senior staff come from all over the state for periodic, in-person retreats. Last summer, they gathered in Yakima, where WCA is expanding its work.

approach our work,” Lederman says. “The different voices keep us from being siloed with other whiteled environmental groups. Being involved with groups like Black Lives Matter and Latino Community Fund is just as important as our other, more traditional alliances. “We’re prioritizing really getting to the root causes of the environmental issues that we have always centered. Why did these problems arise in the first place? How can we address them? We want to make sure that we never forget that the economy has an environmental impact.” For instance, during the 2021 debate over the Climate Commitment Act, Washington’s new capand-invest carbon pricing law, controversy erupted in the environmental community over whether the legislation reflected racial equity principles. “We got through that, and it resulted in legislation that’s more forward thinking on environmental justice than any

other law in the country,” Lederman says. This commitment to justice has led the organization to deepen its long-term work in Vancouver in the southwest, and initiatives in Yakima, Tri-Cities, and in the eastern part of the state. It is central to WCA’s decision to back the Yakama Nation’s opposition to the Goldendale Energy Storage Project, which is proposed for land sacred to the Yakama people. (See story page 20.) “We are moving in a new direction: evolving from a traditional, white-led organization into one that centers the links between environmental progress and racial equity, environmental justice and Tribal sovereignty,” says Macy. “We need people at the board level who believe in that, who are ready to make that journey with us, who realize that it’s going to be hard, and who know that it’s well worth the effort.”

Photos on this page are from Tacoma Earth Gay. Photos on page 23 are from Burien Earth Gay. Images taken by WCA staff.

Queer people have historically been marginalized and their rights and liberties continue to be attacked across the country. Marginalized groups within the LGBTQIA+ community, such as black and brown trans people, are disproportionately affected by polluted air and water because of their closer proximity, statistically, to polluted highways, fewer green spaces, and polluted waterways. Prejudice and economic oppression often force people to live in areas near factories or busy roads, where the risk of cancer, heart disease and respiratory issues is higher. Queer ecology and conservation seeks to heal this. Nature, after all, is not nearly as binary as some think. As many as 1,500 species have been observed to engage in same sex behavior, everything from damselflies to dolphins. Many species in nature call into question the either/or binary way of viewing gender. For instance, male cuttlefish and male marsh harriers camouflage themselves in female markings to avoid being attacked by other males. Certain orchids, which don’t all make nectar to attract pollinators, trick male insects into visiting their flowers by mimicking the shape of female insects. “With all the divisiveness out in the world, it can sometimes be scary for members of the LGBTQIA+

community to be out in remote or rural areas,” says Kat Holmes, WCA’s field director. “At Earth Gay, we can be in community outside and help to make the world a better place.” This year, Washington Conservation Action, in collaboration with our queer conservation group Queers4Conservation, sponsored three Earth Gay events: In June, we hosted an Earth Gay Seattle weekend. On Saturday, we organized a hike with QPOC Hikers followed by a litter pickup and Drag Brunch in Capitol Hill, Seattle’s Gayborhood. In July, Tacoma Pride month, our Earth Gay event sold out: 70 people teamed up to spread mulch, remove invasive species and pick up litter at Dickman Mill Park, on the Tacoma waterfront. Then, in September, several dozen people showed up for the first Burien Earth Gay event. People gathered at Salmon Creek Ravine for a plant identification walk and a “bird sit” (bird watching while seated). They also picked up litter and removed invasive species like ivy and blackberry. During the 2023 General Election season, WCA and Queers4Conservation hosted a “Queer the Vote” text bank, a party to help people turn in their ballots.

TEST YOUR WCA KNOWLEDGE

What are the three elements of Washington Conservation Action’s new logo?

2 3 4

What two organizations are now represented by the WCA brand?

What is WCA’s tagline? What are the full names of these three transformational laws, MTCA, GMA, CCA, that WCA worked to pass? flip over for answers

WINTER TEA TO BRIGHTEN DARK DAYS This recipe comes from Kady Titus, senior organizer for Native Vote Washington based in eastern Washington. Titus is Koyukon Athabascan and grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska. She learned the recipe from an Inuit friend in Nome, Alaska. “I love this tea because it’s cozy, but light, especially during the dark winter months,” Titus says. Makes one cup To make a pot, multiply by 5 2 tablespoons dried chamomile 1 tablespoon dried lemon balm 1 ½ teaspoons dried lavender flower 1 ½ teaspoons dried rose petals Image by Jonathan De Guzman.

Combine herbs in a cup or a teapot. Pour boiling water over herbs. Steep for five minutes. Enjoy!

Here are some places to order herbs, or to learn more about traditional foods and medicine: Mountain Rose Herbs: www.mountainroseherbs.com Seattle Indian Health Board Traditional Food and Plant Medicine Online Classes www.sihb.org/services-andprograms/traditional-health/ traditional-food-and-plantmedicine-online-classes/

ANSWERS 1

Salmon. Connects sea and land, mountains and plains, people and planet. Alder leaf. Modest but scrappy and essential to forest health. Occurs statewide. Human hand. We all must reach out to protect communities and ecosystems.

2 3 4

Washington Conservation Voters, now Washington Conservation Action. Washington Environmental Council, now Washington Conservation Action Education Fund.

“Protecting People and Nature as One.” Because people and nature ARE one.

Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA). 1980. Taxes industry to clean up the more than 14,000 toxic sites in our state. Growth Management Act (GMA). 1990. Series of statutes that require fast growing cities and counties to adopt comprehensive development plans. 2023. WCA helped pass changes to the GMA, requiring cities and counties to take climate change into account in their plans. Climate Commitment Act (CCA). 2021. The nation’s most ambitious cap and trade law to put a price on carbon pollution. In 2023, the CCA’s first year of implementation, it has already generated more than $2 billion for climate projects.

CEO ALYSSA MACY HONORED

WITH AWARD FOR INDIGENOUS LEADERSHIP 30

Left, Alyssa Macy, back row third from left with other Ecotrust Indigenous Leadership Award winners. Right, Macy shared a few remarks at the awards ceremony. Images by Jason Hill.

Washington Conservation Action CEO Alyssa Macy traveled to Portland, Oregon on October 18 to accept a coveted 2023 Ecotrust Indigenous Leadership Award. Ecotrust is a nonprofit organization that works to advance economic, social and environmental progress in the Pacific Northwest. On October 18, 2023, Macy shared a few remarks at the awards ceremony in Portland: “The organization has almost been around for almost 100 years collectively, and I went to the organization and said, ‘I have this idea that I learned – it’s not my idea – it’s just the culmination of so many conversations that I’ve had with Indigenous peoples and Tribal leaders from all around the world. We as Native people know what to do to steward the land and we’ve been doing that for generations and generations. We’ve lived, we’ve survived, and we’ve thrived. “I didn’t know I could take this vision to an organization and they’d accept it. This vision is to engage with Tribal Nations—the original stewards of this lands, to center Tribal people and Tribal Nations, and bring other impacted communities to the front to lead with the solutions that we know will work.” Here are some highlights from the story by Jackleen de la Harpe, which accompanied the Ecotrust announcement of Macy’s award: The old story goes like this. There are people, and there is nature, one in control of the other. Alyssa Macy tells another story, the Indigenous story, the one that majority culture forgot, she said. We are nature. “If there is anyone in the Pacific Northwest who has been fighting for water, salmon, lands, it’s Indian people,” she said. “This is Indian Country. These are truly Native lands. The tribes here lead. I’d like to see what I can do to help Tribal nations continue to advance strong environmental protections.” As CEO for Washington Conservation Action (WCA), this vision fuels her work to organize, negotiate, and collaborate to protect the environment while safeguarding Tribal sovereignty and treaty rights. “I like to do hard things,” she said, laughing, describing her “crazy idea” to indigenize WCA by

focusing on the relationships to the natural world that are central to Indigenous people and salmon. Salmon are a multimillion-dollar industry in the Pacific Northwest, she said, but for Indigenous people, they are necessary for survival, providing nutrients to every part of nature—the ground, water, trees—to us. Macy is honored with a 2023 Indigenous Leadership Award for her efforts to build strong Indigenous government-to-government relationships, advocating for salmon protection, and her leadership in Washington state’s environmental community. She has earned a reputation as a tenacious and committed leader who builds strong alliances between sovereign Tribal Nations and environmental conservation groups. In 2021, under Macy’s leadership, WCA was instrumental in guiding the effort to pass the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) into law, the strongest carbon pricing policy in the U.S. CCA will cap and reduce climate pollution and create revenue for climate investments intended to accelerate the transition to a clean energy infrastructure and economy. As the first Indigenous leader of WCA in its 56-year history, Macy has also committed the nonprofit to the long-term and difficult work of supporting the removal of four dams from the lower Snake River to save salmon in the Snake and Columbia Rivers. It will be one of the biggest fights for WCA in the years to come. Macy, a citizen of the Confederated of Warm Springs Tribes and the former Chief Operating Officer for the Tribe, has been deeply involved in social justice, grassroots community organizing, and running political campaigns much of her life. Her foundational work began with the International Indian Treaty Council in 2003, an international nonprofit affiliated with the United Nations and born out of the American Indian Movement that works to recognize and protect Indigenous rights, treaties, traditional cultures, and sacred lands. Elevating Tribal nations to nation state status is a value that underpins everything she does.

PROGRESS IS A COLLECTIVE PURSUIT:

LOOKING AHEAD TO THE 2024 LEGISLATIVE SESSION The 2024 legislative session begins January 8, and Washington Conservation Action teams have been preparing for months, identifying issues and outlining strategies, analyzing policies and building relationships. The Environmental Priorities Coalition, a group of more than 25 statewide environmental organizations of which WCA is a member and convener, has identified three priorities for the upcoming short, 60-day session. We’ll be working to pass the following legislation:

100% Clean School Buses

On June 17, 2019, Gov. Inslee attended the ribboncutting ceremony for the first electric school bus in Washington at Franklin Pierce High School in Tacoma. Image courtesy Legislative Support Services.

All school kids should be able to get a healthy and safe ride to school, but almost all school buses in our state currently run on diesel. If you’ve stood next to an idling bus, you know it creates pollution. Research shows that air pollution inside the bus can be more than four times worse than outside, meaning kids are especially exposed once they’re on board. There are over 10,000 diesel school buses currently transporting kids in Washington. With many models of electric school buses available, five other states have set a date in law by which new school buses must be 100% clean. Our Washington legislators can pass such a law and support our kids and school districts in this critical transition.

The Washington Recycling and Packaging Act (The WRAP Act) In this state, more than 50 percent of our consumer packaging and paper goes to landfills, rather than being recycled. Across the planet, plastic waste litters our shorelines and open spaces. It is time to modernize our recycling system, to reduce packaging and to decrease plastic pollution. The WRAP Act tackles these problems by creating a set of graduated fees on packaging manufacturers based on the recyclability/ sustainability of their packaging. The funding generated from this fee will then be used to fund our recycling system in Washington, including improvements in infrastructure, uniform access to recycling for residents across the state, and a harmonized list of what people can recycle. Recycling and reuse targets will be set. This bill will have the added benefit of shifting the costs for the recycling system from ratepayers to the manufacturers that have created the problem. Learn more about the EPC on page 12

Volunteer cleans up trash along shoreline during Earth Gay Tacoma event. Image by Mallori Pryse.

Hold Oil Companies Accountable We all need affordable ways to get around, but oil companies are price gouging anyone fueling up a vehicle with gas. While we struggled through the pandemic and inflation, oil companies made over $200 billion in profits in 2022 alone and then tried to blame climate policy for high prices at the pump to deflect attention from their profits. Instead of investing in clean energy, they are pursuing oil and gas expansion and spending money on lobbying and misleading ads to fight cleaner options. We need transparency around how oil companies set their prices as well as accountability to stop their greenwashing and price gouging. Our legislators need to protect Washingtonians by requiring oil industry transparency and accountability.

In addition to these EPC Priorities, our government and field teams will also work to ensure that the money generated by the historic Climate Commitment Act (CCA), the state’s carbon pricing law of which we led passage of in 2021, is spent appropriately on projects to slow climate change, and to address the problems that carbon pollution is already creating, particularly in vulnerable communities. Since biennial budgets are negotiated during long session years, short sessions don’t normally involve a lot of budget issues. However, the first two CCA carbon credit auctions generated more than $1.5 billion to help Washington transition to a clean energy economy. Not only this, but those aligned with the dirty fossil fuel industry are exploring ways to weaken or repeal the CCA. We must make sure that legislators don’t lose focus, that they protect this law and use CCA funds for the purpose for which they are intended. We will also be working on “Buy Clean, Buy Fair,” legislation that would require the state to source building materials from producers that honor fair labor practices and clean, climate-friendly processes. Our local and digital activists help us to make legislative progress for both people and nature. Sign up for SMS updates to get involved in the 2024 Legislative Session. Text EPC to 52886 to opt in. Disclaimer: Message and data rates may apply. 4 msgs/ month. Reply HELP for help and STOP to cancel at any time.

WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING AT

WASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION WCA held its 7th annual Carbon Friendly Forestry Conference in November, showcasing analysis, ideas, and projects related to the management of West Coast forests for carbon as well as for other ecological and social benefits. This year, the conference was held virtually over three days and generated dialog between more than 170 attendees.

Autumn 2023 Staff Retreat at Sea Mar Museum of Chicano/a Latino/a Culture in Seattle.

In September, we published our 8th annual State of our Forests and Public Lands Report. The report evaluates the progress of the Commissioner of Public Lands and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) over the prior 12 months. We provide analysis and recommendations to DNR, and ensure Washingtonians have credible information about the elected official representing them.

WCA and partners begin a new 5-year project to build a climate smart wood economy in the Pacific Northwest. Through this partnership, we will connect landowners taking action to improve forest health, climate resilience, and carbon storage with green builders who are increasingly demanding this material. WCA’s work will focus on Pierce County, in partnership with Pierce Conservation District, and is supported by USDA. Work under this agreement is a collaboration of Sustainable Northwest, Climate Smart Wood Group, Ecotrust, Northwest Natural Resource Group, Pierce Conservation District, Trout Mountain Forestry, Vibrant Planet Data Commons, Vibrant Planet Public Benefit Corporation, and Washington Conservation Action. Forestry team members on a recent field trip to Mt. Adams Community Forest.

Together with the Squaxin Island Tribe and Suquamish Tribe, WCA supports the state’s decision to require the modernization of plants that discharge sewage to Puget Sound. The Department of Ecology now requires plants to remove more pollution using new technologies. We submitted an amicus brief to the Court of Appeals where dischargers, such as Pierce County and King County, are fighting against these requirements. We will continue to engage as the question goes to the Washington State Supreme Court.

A step toward science-based forest practices rules for forested buffers on perennial steams: In August, the Forest Practices Board voted to advance rulemaking for buffers along non-fish bearing perennial (Type N) streams. WCA represents the conservation community at the multi-stakeholder policy table that develops recommendations. A workgroup, including WCA, has now begun to craft the draft rule-making language.

Heidi Cody and Clark Co. activists turn in petition signatures in Vancouver.

SW Washington WCA organizer Heidi Cody submitted more than 1,000 signatures from local community members to ensure that Clark County Council includes the climate in their local climate action plan due to our work to update the state’s Growth Management Act.

Our Tribal Nations team attended a Lower Snake River Campaign meeting with Tribal leaders and staff. We’re continuing to explore ways to work together on related work like the siting of clean energy projects.

As a result of legislation that we helped pass in 2022, the Department of Ecology is creating a new rule that ensures that the owners and operators of oil handling facilities and pipelines have adequate financial resources to pay cleanup and damage costs arising from an oil spill. Ecology is required to adopt a rule that “demonstrates financial responsibility in an amount as necessary to compensate affected federally recognized Indian tribes….”. Stay tuned. There will be a public comment period in early 2024. We’ll need your voices! Summer 2023 Staff Retreat at Owen Beach in Tacoma.

WCA co-hosted an “Electoral Justice in King County” event, in coordination with Washington for Equitable Representation (WER) and More Equitable Democracy (MED). More than 70 people attended the gathering, which featured a presentation on MED’s electoral justice report card, informing voters, candidates and advocates on voting solutions like ranked choice voting.

Our political team endorsed in 46 races around the state, supporting environmental champions who more broadly represent their communities. We are proud to have endorsed in critical local elections and to have increased BIPOC political power, including Jamika Scott in Tacoma, Maggie Sanders in Olympia and Jorge Barón in King County.

WCA Political and Civic Engagement Director Joy Stanford with winning Tacoma City Council candidate Jamika Scott (right).

The Voting Justice Coalition, of which WCA is a member, sponsored “Free the Vote” mural installations in Spokane, Yakima and Tacoma. Community members helped paint the murals, which featured images of voting and spread the word about new voting rights restoration laws.

The new Tribal Nations Program continues to improve coordination with the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI). Our team helped with the planning and facilitation of a Project Success Stories panel at the Tribal Energy Summit in June. At the ATNI convention in September, we shared details about WCA’s upcoming forestry work and how to get engaged in that work.

Native Vote and WCA staff attend Native Grassroots Democracy Project conference in California.

We Are Puget Sound special exhibit at The Burke Museum at the University of Washington runs until December 2023. Don’t miss out. This show brings Puget Sound stories to life with stunning photography, video testimonials from Suquamish Tribal Chair Leonard Forsman and from young environment activist Aria Erickson, new insights, and the Burke Museum’s expansive collections. Our goal is to inspire people to act. Since June, the interactive exhibit has inspired 3,300 action pledges.

Our political team held four Environmental Champion Learning Labs. We hosted four exclusive virtual meetings for 2023 candidates endorsed by WCA. These sessions offered insider discussions on the state’s most pressing environmental issues. We also helped candidates develop key environmental talking points.

Native Vote staff attend the Seafair Indian Days Powwow in Seattle.

Native Vote Washington hit the road to Tribal communities across the state. We participated in events like Yakama Treaty Days, Paddle to Muckleshoot, Seafair Indian Days Powwow, and the Puyallup Labor Day Powwow. This fall we partnered with Lummi Nation for a Get Out the Native Vote Rally at the Silver Reef Casino and Lummi Nation’s Trunk or Treat. Native Vote WA also participated in Spokane’s American Indian Community Centers Annual Trunk or Treat event. Native Vote has a monthly newsletter. Subscribe at nativevotewashington.org 35

WCA WELCOMES NEW FAC AND EXPERIENCE TO OUR Keith Curl-Dove (he/him)

Stephanie Masterman (she/her)

Before joining WCA, Keith worked as a pastor in North Carolina, leading congregations in environmental stewardship and the prevention of gun violence. Feeling a pull into the environmental nonprofit world, Keith is excited to focus his energy on building a healthy and just future for all. He holds bachelor’s degrees in music education and religious studies from the University of Central Arkansas and a Master of Divinity from Duke University. He also is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). An avid fly fisher, Keith’s environmental justice journey began in graduate school when he fell in love with the Southern Appalachian Brook Trout. Outside of work, you can find Keith carving wooden spoons and bowls, playing banjo, singing along with Willie Nelson, or standing in a stream with his wife Leigh.

Stephanie is Tlingit and an enrolled member of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. She was born and raised in the greater Seattle area, currently lives in North Seattle, and will be in the office regularly. Before joining WCA, she worked her way up to project management for Eighth Generation (a Seattle based art and lifestyle brand owned by the Snoqualmie Tribe). Stephanie has a bachelor’s degree in American Indian Studies with a minor in Arctic Studies from the University of Washington. She brings to our growing Tribal nations work, experience and expertise in MMIP and environmental advocacy and nuanced understanding around relationship building and navigating tribal communities. She currently serves as an elected delegate for Tlingit & Haida’s Tribal Assembly, representing the Washington Chapter of tribal citizens. Outside of work, Stephanie creates art, practices martial arts, and enjoys spending time with her two wild dogs (Atlas & Zeus) in nature.

Fossil Fuel Campaign Manager

Julia Lilly (she/her)

WCA Administrative Associate Born and raised in the greater Seattle area, she graduated from Seattle University with a double major in Environmental Studies and Public Affairs, as well as a minor in French. Julia’s professional background involves community engagement, project management, and digital communications, most notably with the Seattle Department of Transportation. Her career goals involve fostering equitable access to Washington’s public lands, and helping to craft legislation that centers Indigenous voices in the environmental justice moment. Outside of the office, Julia is an avid ballet/contemporary dancer, and enjoys hiking, reading, and spending time with her two dogs: Miles and Lucy!

Tribal Nations Senior Manager

Karina Solorio (she/her/ella) Yakima Community Organizer

Karina first began organizing and working in the political field while attending Central Washington University where she graduated with a BA in Political Science and a minor in Women Gender and Sexuality Studies. She worked with organizations such as Planned Parenthood Generation Action, Young Democrats of Washington, and Environment Washington. She previously served as the Sustainability Fellow for the City of Yakima. She was born in Bellingham but spent her childhood in Northern California before returning to Washington. She has lived in Yakima County since 2021 and enjoys attending music shows with her partner, doing arts and crafts like paper mâché, and reading books about academic/philosophical books about topics such as feminist theory and political theory.

CES R STAFF Ava Stone (she/her)

Climate Smart Wood Supply Chain Manager Ava serves as the Climate Smart Wood Supply Chain manager for WCA. Prior to joining WCA, Ava worked with the Kulshan Carbon Trust to increase community access to biochar, agroforestry, and other natural climate solutions in NW Washington. She holds an M.A. in Environmental Studies from Western Washington University, and a B.S. in Biology and Terrestrial Resource Management from the University of Washington. In her free time, she enjoys trying new recipes, trail running, and exploring the mountains near her home in Bellingham.

Christina Wong (she/her) Vice President of Programs

Christina will be working with and managing the policy teams including communications, Tribal nations, forestry, Puget Sound, and climate and fossil fuel programs. She grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and currently lives in South Seattle (Beacon Hill) with her partner, John, and her two kids, Charlie (12) and Fiona (9). She received her bachelors (English Literature) and master’s degree (Social Service Administration) from the University of Chicago and a law degree from the University of Washington. Christina has worked as a social justice advocate including for survivors of interpersonal violence, people with disabilities, immigration reform, and for the last 12 years on food justice and economic justice for Northwest Harvest as the Director of Public Policy & Advocacy where she developed the organization’s approach to defining and advocating for state and federal legislative priorities, centering the experiences and expertise of people with first person experiences of hunger and systemic racism. Outside of work, Christina loves to cook, bake, camp, and knit.

WCA STAFF Aida Amirul, Digital Communications Associate Rein Attemann, Puget Sound Campaigns Manager Rachel Baker, Forest Program Director Paul Balle, Donor Relations Director Lennon Bronsema, Vice President of Campaigns Katie Byrnes, Toxics & Stormwater Policy Manager Heidi Cody, Southwest Washington Community Organizer Keith Curl-Dove, Fossil Fuel Campaign Manager Katie Fields, Forests & Communities Program Manager Mikayla Flores, Native Vote WA Digital Field Organizer Julie Gonzales-Corbin, Human Resources Director David Gorton, Vice President of Development Adri Hennessey, HR & Administrative Manager Sonia Hitchcock, Digital Field Organizer Kat Holmes, Field Director Tony Ivey, Political & Civic Engagement Manager Caitlin Krenn, Climate & Clean Energy Campaign Senior Manager Julia Lilly, WCA Administrative Associate Robinson Low, Habitat Policy Manager Alyssa Macy, Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Masterman, Tribal Nations Senior Manager Heather Millar, Content Manager Tina Montgomery, Business Relations & Events Manager Ellie Morgan, WCA Education Fund Administrative Associate Mariah Morr, Salesforce Admin & Data Manager Darcy Nonemacher, Government Affairs Director Jody Olney, Tribal Nations Director Bryan Pelach, State Forestlands Program Manager Sean Pender, Vice President of Administration Mallori Pryse, Visual Communications Manager Zachary Pullin, Communications Director Mindy Roberts, Puget Sound Program Director Griffin Smith, Development Director Karina Solorio, Yakima Community Organizer Joy Stanford, Political & Civic Engagement Director Ava Stone, Climate Smart Wood Supply Chain Manager Lauren Tamboer, Foundations Manager Kady Titus, Native Vote WA Senior Organizer Rico Vinh, Forest & Fish Project Manager Christina Wong, Vice President of Programs Halleli Zacher, Events & Outreach Associate

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Washington Conservation Action, in partnership with Washington Conservation Action Education Fund, is committed to environmental justice by advancing bold progress for people and the environment for more than 50 years. We celebrate the policy and political success we have accomplished together with people like you.

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