MoNA group told collaboration key in climate change actions

Collaboration was the buzz word of the day when scientists, Skagit County politicians and a Puget Sound Energy staff person shared a panel titled “government and resiliency” at the Museum of Northwest Art Saturday, as part of the exhibition “Surge: Mapping Transition, Displacement, and Agency in Times of Climate Change.”

Skagit County Commissioner Peter Browning at the start named the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, the Upper Skagit and the Sauk-Suiattle Indian tribes, pledging listening and working collaboratively and in cooperation on a host of issues citing ensuring the local food supply, threatened more by sea level rise than by river flooding.

With NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicting one-and-a-half feet of sea level rise by 2050, he said, collaboration with the county government, tribes and dike and drainage districts on estuary projects was critical.

Heather Spore, a biologist with the Swinomish, told of changed food web dynamics in rivers and the ocean as evidence of rising river temperatures that are threatening coastal communities.

Mount Vernon City Councilmember Richard Brocksmith, also a fish biologist, ticked off the climate related environmental effects on water quality, emphasizing the public health dangers, not only being safe from flooding, but the urban problem of combined storm water overflows washing sewage into the Skagit River. He championed density-based planning for “a future our communities can embrace and build up together.

Utility representatives Ronda Strauch, the climate change research and adaptation advisor for Seattle City Light, and Karlee Deatherage, senior community affairs representative for Puget Sound Energy work for, Strauch said, “a climate dependent agency and business. We are affected by climate change in myriad ways,” from changes in water levels behind their hydroelectric dams to increased demand for air conditioning – thus electricity – with prolonged heat waves. The two agreed that implementing individual and corporate conservation practices will make a difference.

Browning agreed with Brocksmith that urban density living is critical, that “we have to keep people in the cities.” He pledged the commissioners were against fully contained communities in Skagit County.

Dave Peterson a professor of forest biology at the University of Washington and a local forest landowner, moderated.

The “Surge” exhibit shows through Jan. 21, 2024. Several programs, workshops and classes are scheduled.