Ann Foster: Clark County Climate Project Community Advisory Group Achieves its Mission!
With pride and satisfaction, on April 7th, 2025, the Clark County Climate Project Community Advisory Group (CAG) finished its year-and-a-half long mission to develop actionable policies to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and improve climate resilience in Clark County. Working collaboratively, we managed to produce 160 goals and policies covering just about all aspects of life and provide a responsible path forward as required by Washington State’s HB 1181, which created a Climate Element to the Growth Management Act (GMA) planning goals.
The 20-member CAG consisted of volunteers representing a full spectrum of the community to ensure the recommended policies spoke to housing needs, environmental responsibility, health and wellbeing, transportation, and resource lands. The process of getting there included a consensus-based strategy, which generated lots of discussion, strong opinions, and some controversy – but the CAG successfully reached a set of recommendations that the group supported.
FOCC’s Advocacy
FOCC followed the Clark County CAG processes closely and weighed in with suggested improvements once the policies started coming together. We collaborated with staff and CAG members, as well as generated public engagement around our requests. Our advocacy was successful! While the CAG produced most of these great recommendations on their own, we are proud to say we contributed to making them even better. Here are some of the improvements we won:
1) Goal 16 regarding managing water resources: Initially, the policy stated, “Manage water resources sustainably to meet the needs of the public, businesses, industry, and ecosystems under changing climate conditions.” We were concerned that industrial, potentially wasteful uses of water would take precedence over the needs of the ecosystems that we rely upon to live. We suggested that “businesses” and “industry” be removed, and the CAG agreed!
2) Goal 11, Policy 2 on tree preservation: We wanted more specificity regarding a tree preservation plan that protected tree loss from development, mining, and wildfire. While we did not get inclusion of mining (as that is addressed elsewhere in the Comp Plan), the CAG improved the policy greatly by developing requirements around what a tree preservation must look like, including: “…strategies to address tree loss from development and other site altering activities, extreme heat, drought, wildfire, extreme precipitation and storms, diseases, pathogens, pests, and other tree stressors. They also added, “Include sustainable strategies to build climate resilience, carbon sequestration, ecosystem and watershed health.” In summary, the CAG incorporated our suggestions AND went above and beyond them!
3) Goal 32 to effectively implement Climate Element policies: FOCC knows that passing policy is just the first step, and that implementation is where the rubber meets the road. These policies are a heavy lift that will require serious resources and effort. That is why we strongly emphasized to the Climate CAG the need for expanding staff capacity to effectively implement the climate policies, and again, the CAG went above and beyond by developing specificity around implementation to ensure true progress and accountability.
However, there are many more CAG policies that align with FOCC’s mission which we are eager to see through to fruition! We encourage you to review the goals and policies here.
What happens next?
The final recommendations of the CAG will be included in the Comprehensive Plan Update that goes before the Planning Commission for review and approval over the summer, then on to the Clark County Council for review and approval in October.
The completed and approved Comprehensive Plan Update is due to the Department of Commerce, per the requirements of the Growth Management Act, by December 31st, 2025.
For a closer look at the Clark County Climate Project, click HERE to read the information provided on the Clark County Community Planning webpage. FOCC will continue to see this critical policy work through to final approval and implementation, and let you know when and how to engage along the way.
Ann Foster, President
Friends of Clark County
Salmon Creek Farmers Market organizer
Climate Project Community Advisory Group member