On June 16th, Whatcom County Council voted to make no last-minute changes to language regarding land use at Cherry Point in Whatcom County’s 2025 Comprehensive Plan (or “Comp Plan”).
While taking no action may not seem like a big deal, the previous few months had seen a handful of hastily proposed changes to this hard-earned language — a move that threatened to undermine the careful and deliberate process that originally created it. This all emerged in the final months of the 10-year update to the County’s Comprehensive Plan; a long-term planning document that shapes the codes and regulations guiding growth in the County.
Xwe’chi’eXen, an area of immense cultural significance for Lummi Nation, also known as the Cherry Point Urban Growth Area (UGA), is the center of fossil fuel production and transport in Whatcom County. RE Sources has worked to help protect this area for decades, including taking a leadership role in the crafting and passing of the “Cherry Point Amendments” in 2021. The Amendments put a check on the fossil fuel industry’s expansion in this area in the wake of the Gateway Pacific Terminal fight and an increase in oil transport accidents.
But just when the finish line seemed within reach for the Comp Plan update — already more than a year behind schedule — a wrench was thrown in the process. A few initial proposed changes to Cherry Point language led to counter amendments, all of which then received extensive public comments. Environmental groups, industry labor groups, and industry representatives all weighed in. It felt like a can of worms that had just been opened. One thing was incredibly clear: no one was prepared for, or equipped to have, the intentional, unhurried, and meaningful conversations necessary to do this topic justice.
The reality is the process is just as important as the language. All of these proposed amendments were introduced too late to allow for the kind of meaningful stakeholder engagement and Tribal consultation that created the original Cherry Point Amendments — an arduous five-year-long deliberation process.
RE Sources advocated that Council retain the spirit of the original collaborative process that led to the Cherry Point Amendments and reject any 11th-hour changes to this section of the Comp Plan. A majority of the County Council felt this approach made sense. At that June 16th meeting, Councilmember Scanlon’s proposal to leave the Cherry Point Amendments in their original form passed 5-2. We expect that Council will vote to adopt this language along with the rest of the Comp Plan after a hearing on July 14th.
This was only the latest stage of a two-year process. RE Sources has been engaging alongside community members and partners to provide input throughout Whatcom County’s 2025 Comprehensive Plan update, focusing on key goals and policies included in the Environment, Climate, Resource Lands, Recreation, Utilities, and Land Use chapters of the plan.
In order to understand just how significant it is to make last-minute changes to the deliberately crafted language of the Cherry Point Comprehensive Plan and Land Use Code Amendments, we need to revisit their origins.
Rewind to 2016
Ten years ago, when Whatcom County was last updating its Comp Plan, concerns about local pollution, public health and safety, and impacts to Treaty-protected fisheries and ancestral lands were especially acute under the threat of the Georgia Pacific Terminal (GPT), proposed to be built on the shores of Xwe’chi’eXen (Cherry Point). The terminal, which would have been the largest coal export facility in North America, was met with extensive community pushback led by Lummi Nation. The Army Corps of Engineers eventually denied permits, ruling that the construction of the terminal would infringe on Tribal fishing rights.
At the same time, there was also a stark increase in traffic of dangerous oil trains transiting our region and the continent, culminating in 11 derailments between 2013 and 2016, including an explosion in Lac Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people. Public concern around these issues at a time when oil by rail was quickly expanding locally prompted Whatcom County decision-makers to have deeper conversations around allowed uses of the Cherry Point Industrial Urban Growth Area (UGA) as the County revisited the Comprehensive Plan.
What played out went far beyond the Comp Plan scope: a multi-year process of Tribal consultation, public hearings, planning commission and council meetings, and — eventually — direct stakeholder conversations. The goal was to find consensus and compromise around language, situated in the Comp Plan and County land use code, that would better address the foremost community and industry needs and concerns of the time. These discussions centered around community and worker safety related to increased crude oil transport by rail, concerns about new highly polluting fossil fuel projects such as coal, increased environmental assessment of expansion projects, and industry’s need to ensure efficient permitting of allowed projects.
Finally, in 2021, the Whatcom County Council voted 7-0 to approve the proposed changes put forth by stakeholders involved in these conversations. These updates to language in the Comp Plan, as well as in the county’s land use and environmental impact assessment codes, yielded Whatcom County’s novel Cherry Point Amendments.
Of Time and Place
RE Sources engaged in the original Cherry Point Amendments process to address the specific concerns of time and place, through a compromise-driven, focused approach to increase environmental review of expansion projects, cap the number of piers in the area, and prohibit new fossil fuel refineries and transhipment facilities as well as coal-fired power plants. As with any product of compromise, the Amendments are not perfect, nor are they all-encompassing. But RE Sources stands by the values and the spirit of the process that created them: an unprecedented coming together of community, industry, and environmental interests to discuss a shared vision and an acceptable path forward for us all.
If stakeholders decide there are more conversations to be had about land use regulations at Cherry Point, RE Sources will continue to be a staunch advocate for doing it right: through a clear process of Tribal consultation and stakeholder engagement that precedes the introduction of new amendment language. Only with this approach can we ensure adequate time for each involved party to articulate their priorities, engage one another, and find consensus.