Hundreds marched through Snoqualmie Sunday, one day before a developer is expected to file plans for a massive battery storage facility next to a neighborhood park.
SNOQUALMIE, Wash. — Hundreds of Snoqualmie residents marched through their neighborhood Sunday — one day before the developer behind a proposed lithium-ion battery storage facility is expected to file a permit application with King County.
The demonstration began outside Cascadia View Elementary School before winding about a mile to Fisher Creek Park. The proposed 45-acre facility would be located on parcels immediately south of the park.
Residents carried signs reading “Don’t BESS With Us” — BESS standing for Battery Energy Storage System — and chanted as they marched. Many brought their children, and some of those children took to the podium to address the crowd, echoing their parents’ concerns about the project. The protest marked a rapid escalation of community opposition. Residents say they only learned about the project roughly a month ago, despite planning being underway since at least 2023.
“In over a month, we went from a few concerned neighbors to hundreds and hundreds of people walking down the street together on a Sunday afternoon to talk about batteries,” said Danielle Wallace, president of Snoqualmie Valley for Responsible Energy, the community group that organized the march.
The group formed within days of residents learning about the project. Since then, members say they have knocked on more than 4,400 doors and spoken at multiple city council meetings. They have also retained legal counsel.
“It is very evident that we are going to need legal counsel in terms of taking a look at what this project is going to do to our environment, to our schools, to the health and safety of our families,” Wallace said.
The developer, Jupiter Power, held a public meeting in March that grew contentious.
“I think that was the passion and the energy and the concern of our residents,” Wallace said of the heated meeting. “Disbelief that we were waiting so long to engage with us when it’s clearly been two years in the making.”
Residents’ primary concern is the proximity of the facility to homes, schools and a regional hospital. Several pointed to battery storage fires in California that took months to clean up.
“We don’t want to be evacuated. We don’t want to have contamination in our area. It’s near our parks, it’s near our homes,” said Deanna Englund resident who came to the march with her daughter.
“Normally I wouldn’t do something like this,” she said, “but it affects our children.”
Snoqualmie Mayor Katherine Mayhew issued a statement last week saying the city shares community safety concerns and has retained outside legal and technical expertise to engage in King County’s process. She warned, however, that if the project is routed through Washington’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council — a state-level process — local decision-making authority would be significantly reduced.
Wallace expressed dissatisfaction by the mayor’s neutral posture.
“The city has remained neutral on this topic,” she said. “Comfort? No.”
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