There are 5 days left before the record closes to submit public comment on the Addendum to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) we appealed. Please consider sending an email before the record closes. Here is a customizable template to use and share.

We are responding to the City's reply brief in the Court of Appeals which alleged that the Appellant has 'suffered no harm because the City has yet to act.' This environmental challenge was never about the Appellant suffering; it was asking the City to perform correct environmental review. We are still fighting the unjust dismissal, for the public right to challenge a faulty EIS, and for the environment. Please consider making a tax deductible donation to the legal fund via our fiscal sponsor, Orca Conservancy *choose ORCA NEXUS from the drop down menu for funds to go toward legal expenses. 

 The 20 year Comprehensive Plan Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Addendum failed to cover the citywide impacts of:

• increased impervious (hard) surfaces on storm water;
• increased tree removals on storm water;
• the more than doubling the number of housing units added after the EIS was completed rendering it invalid;
• stormwater pollution on the endangered orcas, salmon, other endangered species, and their habitat.

The EIS Addendum does not address the deficiencies of the EIS. This will likely have adverse impacts on fish, fish habitat, and the critically endangered orcas who rely on them.
CB121093 (SEPA Categorical Exemption Thresholds) uses the grossly inadequate Comp Plan Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to replace SEPA review at a time when city environmental codes are in flux. 

We request the City:

• Analyze the impacts of increased impervious surfaces and tree removals on stormwater and aquatic life in the biggest Environmental Impact Statement before removing nearly all SEPA review for the next 20 years. CB 121093 relies on the Comp Plan EIS as the "environmental guardrail" for the next 20 years.
• Assess the adequacy of mitigation in the EIS and Addendum;
• Provide analysis of application of SEPA for impervious (hard) surfaces increases for CB121093. This was not adequately assessed in the Comp Plan Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or Addendum.
• Reject CB 121093 or provide an analysis of the capacity of SDCI and other regulatory agencies to sufficiently enforce equivalent protections as SEPA.
• Protect public environmental input. Do not dismantle SEPA while environmental regulations updates are ongoing. Ensure adequate protections for endangered species like the last 74 endangered SRKWs and the water filtering and cooling trees/greenspace that protect salmon, water, humans, and orcas.
• Ensure enforcement of post-construction private owner stormwater system maintenance to prevent overflow into public stormdrains. These require frequent maintenance which is not addressed in the EIS or Addendum.
• Follow the Comp Plan guidance of Rep Gerry Pollet that was ignored.
• Reject CB 121093 or protect cultural resources during construction - documented and undocumented in with Tribal oversight;
• Reject CB 121093 or remove the 90 space parking lots and 30,000sf retail exemptions to align with the allowances of RCW 43.21C.229(3)
• Reject CB 121093 or restore the 50% floor area housing back from just (1) unit of housing in the proposed bill;

How Seattle goes beyond SB5412 in CB 121093 by exempting:

• More than doubled parking lot spaces from 40 to 90;
• Double the amount of dirt that can be removed from a site from 500 to 1,000 cubic yards;
• Reduced required housing units from 50% floor area down to one housing unit, and;
• Retail buildings up to 30,000 ft. even though SB5412 doesn't mention retail buildings.

    The City claims the environmental review is already covered by other codes yet they are currently trying to increase impervious surfaces in the Stormwater Code, the Critical Areas Ordinance, and Resolutions. The Comp Plan EIS and Addendum did not adequately assess these impacts - and they want to use it in place of SEPA review for the next 20 years. 

    What would be lost without SEPA?

• No mitigation can be added with SEPA authority to condition a proposal and the applicable regulations only apply (mostly SDCI). SDCI struggles to enforce current code. 
• Protections for cultural resources found during construction removing early warning and other protections for Tribes.*
• Development has the potential to cause significant adverse environmental impacts. The core purpose of SEPA is to identify and mitigate those impacts OR to at least acknowledge when there will be unmitigated significant adverse impacts. 
• A key point of SEPA is to measure effectiveness of mitigation. The GMA says to use the “best available science”, which requires monitoring and adaptive management in the “climate resilience” element of the Comp Plan. The City has failed to comply with this requirement.
     
      *"Project proponents would often not be required to identify previously undocumented cultural resources within their project areas or assess their projects for impacts to previously undocumented historic properties, unless triggered by exceptional criteria"
      "As identified in the FEIS for the Preferred Alternative, higher SEPA thresholds would remove some proactive, project-level environmental review designed to identify previously undocumented historic properties and to potentially require measures to avoid or mitigate adverse impacts to them before development begins."
      2-32 "The rule change requires Tribal consultation and the consideration of broader cultural perspectives and proposed inadvertent discovery procedures are clear. However, under the proposed raised SEPA thresholds, it is possible that additional survey and inventory may not be required and project proponents may not identify previously unrecorded...”
      "both the FEIS Preferred Alternative Plan and the Revised Proposal have the potential to affect historic and cultural resources through development/redevelopment in historically marginalized neighborhoods citywide. With raised SEPA thresholds and possibly fewer opportunities to investigate possible impacts on cultural resources within these areas ... the character of culturally significant spaces and neighborhoods could be at greater risk."
      "Like the FEIS Preferred Alternative, the Revised Proposal haves the potential for significant adverse impacts to cultural resources citywide."
     ~ Source: Addendum to the Comp Plan EIS

The FEIS does not provide sufficient data or analyses to demonstrate that implementation of the OSP will have minimal impact to aquatic life and fish habitat. One of the most blatant false statements in the FEIS is in Section 3.3 (p. 18-19) and states “Stormwater contaminants that enter Puget Sound and other marine areas are almost immediately diluted to concentrations too low to have any discernible effects on species in that environment”. This statement is absolutely false and I am shocked that the City would publish a document with such clearly incorrect scientific information. It is very well established that stormwater is the primary source of contaminants to Puget Sound (and the surrounding watershed) and has significant effects on aquatic life including endangered salmon and orca."
~ Source: Water Toxicologist