This week, Standing for Washington appeared before the Snohomish County Charter Review Commission to advocate for the creation of an Office of the Watershed Advocate — a charter-level, independent guardian for the Snohomish River Watershed.
The Charter Review Commission meets once every ten years. It is one of the most consequential — and least watched — processes in local government. What gets written into a county charter shapes governance for a decade. We believed the Snohomish River Watershed deserved a seat at that table. So we showed up.
Why We’re Here
In November 2024, 24,000 Everett residents voted to give legal rights to the Snohomish River Watershed through Initiative 24-03. That democratic choice is still being challenged by a developer-funded lawsuit. But the vote sent an unmistakable message: this community values its watershed, and it expects its government to protect it.
The Charter Review Commission offered us a rare opportunity to turn that mandate into something structural and lasting.
The Case for a Watershed Advocate
No single entity in Snohomish County today has both the independence and the authority to monitor what is actually happening to our watershed as a whole.
The State Department of Ecology spans hundreds of jurisdictions and cannot provide sustained local focus. The county’s Surface Water Management division covers only unincorporated areas. The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources does essential work but cannot independently scrutinize decisions made by cities, developers, or other parts of county government. Industrial actors self-report environmental compliance with minimal external verification, and those reports are rarely accessible to the public.
The consequences of this gap are not abstract. On November 11, 2025, a blueberry farmer near Lowell Snohomish Road noticed an oily sheen in a drainage ditch and called BP. That is how Snohomish County learned that the Olympic Pipeline — just 2,000 feet from the Snohomish River — was leaking. Not BP’s monitoring systems. Not a county official. A farmer.
This is the same pipeline that exploded in Bellingham in 1999, killing three people. The same pipeline that has caused 21 spills since then. Senator Cantwell wrote to BP demanding answers. The full Washington congressional delegation followed. Their first question: how many gallons actually spilled? More than four months later, there is still no public answer.
No county official is assigned to follow that. We are asking the Charter Review Commission to change that.
We proposed the creation of an Office of the Watershed Advocate as a new section of the Snohomish County Charter — modeled directly on the Office of the Public Advocate that this same commission established in 2016. Like that office, it would be embedded in the Charter to ensure independence from political pressure, protection from budget cuts, and formal authority to act across all jurisdictions in the county. A county-level guardian with the authority to follow threats across every city boundary, every permit, and every jurisdiction.
What We Encountered
We also encountered something that the public deserves to know about.
The firm that organized and funded the primary opposition to Initiative 24-03 — Toyer Strategic Advisors, led by David Toyer — has a cousin sitting on this Charter Review Commission, and a firm employee was appointed as the Commission’s coordinator. The NAACP Snohomish County, the League of Women Voters, Snohomish County Indivisible, and UNIDOS Snohomish County raised ethics concerns about this appointment. Two sitting commissioners raised conflict of interest concerns directly. The ethics complaint was dismissed.
As NAACP Executive Director Janice Greene said: “Sometimes something could be perfectly legal and completely wrong. The system looked at it as no violation. I’ve said from the beginning, this is not about breaking the rules. It’s about the structure that was built to produce a result.”
We raise this not to relitigate a dismissed complaint, but because the public has a right to understand who shapes these processes — and why an independent, charter-protected Watershed Advocate matters all the more when developer influence runs this deep.
What Comes Next
The Commission has until mid-May to decide what goes on the November 2026 ballot. We have submitted a formal proposal including draft charter language and ballot measure language. We will continue to engage the commission, build public support, and ensure the voices of the 24,000 Everett residents who voted for watershed protection are heard at every step of this process.
San Juan County has already embedded ecological values in its charter preamble. Snohomish County can go further — not just values on paper, but an official with the authority to act on them.
The Snohomish River still needs a guardian. This commission has a once-in-a-decade opportunity to create one. We intend to make sure they know the public is watching.
You can help:
- Read our full proposal and draft charter language at standingforwashington.org
- Contact the Charter Review Commission directly at snohomishcountywa.gov/3520/Charter-Review-Commission
- Share this post and help us build public pressure before the May deadline
Standing for Washington is a Washington State nonprofit dedicated to securing legal protections for the natural world. Contact us at info@standingforwashington.org