A big “Thank you!” to all who sent personal comments to the Thurston County Board of Commissioners about the request to rezone Beaver Creek Farm from Rural Resource (RR) to Rural Resources Industrial (RRI).
A real estate company bought the large former dairy farm, once owned by the Doehlman family, at 13333 Case Road SW, Olympia. Their proposal was to amend the Thurston County Comprehensive Plan for part of the property to be rezoned RRI to build a warehouse/distribution center.
Besides the loss of farmland, the BHAS alert to our members mentioned two environmental concerns: the importance of the wide east-west wildlife corridor/area from Capitol Forest to JBLM, with access under Interstate 5 at the Maytown exit, and impacts to Beaver Creek with its coho salmon that migrate upstream to spawn near West Rocky Prairie.
BHAS’s comments to the commissioners included these issues and a description of possible impacts from flooding and industrial pollution on the federal Critical Area for the threatened Oregon spotted frog. This Critical Area is a portion of Beaver Creek along the border of the rezone area, and within it.
Attached to BHAS’s comments was hydrogeologist Jim Mathieu’s thorough analysis of the impacts of warehouse development on the rezone area to the Beaver Creek recharge aquifer, with possible flooding downstream and contamination of neighbor’s private wells.
Our comments, and those by farmland preservationists, wildlife experts, and other hydrogeologists, made a difference. On Wednesday, March 24, the commissioners held a review of the rezone request and voted to place it as “low priority” on the ’20 -’21 docket. This will probably mean that the staff work will be done late in 2021, and the rezone request will return to the Board of County Commissioners in early 2022. So stay tuned for more developments!
