Skagit farmland is some of the world’s best, but we’ve lost tens of thousands of acres over the last few decades, mostly to development.   

The Skagit’s farmland is uniquely positioned to remain productive even as climate change impacts farmland across the planet. Accordingly, protecting Skagit farmland and a viable farming economy is one of the most important climate adaptation strategies we can pursue. 

Our community has sacrificed for generations to protect Skagit farmland, adopting some of the nation’s strictest farmland zoning. By reducing Skagit farmland’s development potential, it helps keep farmland relatively affordable for new and historically disadvantaged farmers.  

But that creates a new problem: seeing relatively cheap land, outside corporate entities sought to buy up Skagit farmland as an inexpensive way to offset their environmental impacts occurring elsewhere.  

In 2022, with broad community support, the Board of County Commissioners unanimously passed a law banning offsite compensatory mitigation. It’s a critical piece of our commitment to protect Skagit farmland, and I’m proud of my role in making it happen.  

The fact that outside corporate entities were making big plans for Skagit farmland highlighted the need for a locally-led, long-term plan that centers Skagit local and tribal governments in addressing our shared interests.  

It is important to keep in mind that the Skagit was originally granted by Skagit tribes on the condition that strong salmon runs remain, a right reserved by national Treaty. We must ensure that Treaty rights are protected, and we must meet our regulatory obligations under the Endangered Species Act and other laws. Strong salmons runs in the Skagit are good for our entire community, providing food, recreation, and ecological benefits.

As we do so, it’s important that we pursue habitat projects and other actions that actually help salmon, improve infrastructure, minimize farmland loss, and help provide regulatory certainty for local government. We have to get all of this right.   

On top of these challenges, we are required to plan long-term for sea level rise and climate change. As we update Skagit County’s Comprehensive Plan and Shoreline Plan, these issues are at the forefront of our minds.

That’s why we’ve been working with all three Skagit Treaty tribes, natural resource agencies, and Skagit dike/drainage districts to create a Skagit/Samish Delta Integrated Plan. This will allow Skagit tribal and local governments to collaboratively plan for sea level rise, farmland preservation, infrastructure resilience, and habitat enhancement, centering the Skagit and our community in the decisions we make.

The Skagit is a special place. I believe that local and indigenous knowledge, working together in good faith, is the only way we will successfully protect the Skagit for future generations.