By Joe Scordino
Edmonds Environmental Council
Posted Thursday, December 25, 2025
Link to Edmonds Beacon article
We have a serious human health issue brewing in Edmonds at the Deer Creek CARA (Critical Aquifer Recharge Area), which provides drinking water to south Edmonds, Woodway, and Esperance. The issue is accommodating potential development instead of avoiding contaminating our drinking water with PFAS – a pervasive, forever chemical known to have serious human health effects.
Believe it or not, the City actually wants to allow new development to inject potentially toxic stormwater (containing forever chemicals, PFAS, carcinogenic pollutants, etc.) into the Deer Creek drinking water Aquifer.
And why?
It’s because the City doesn’t have stormwater pipes in parts of the Deer Creek CARA for developers to connect to. You’d think the situation would be the same as sewer pipes – if City pipes aren’t present, the developer has to pay to have them installed if they want to build at that site.
However, the City’s contract attorney is actually telling the City Council that if they don’t allow the injection of stormwater into the drinking water aquifer (regardless of the human safety risks), they might be sued by a developer who might claim such a critical area restriction might be a constitutional “taking.”
Sounds pretty speculative and uninformed to me, especially since the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute’s website on “takings” states: “Even if a regulation amounts to a taking, it may be upheld if it serves a valid public health or safety goal” (see law.cornell.edu/wex/takings).
I’d argue that state law is very clear that development can and should be restricted where necessary to protect public health and safety – and the City should not be making ‘bad’ decisions based on potential ‘frivolous’ developer lawsuit threats.
So now, since the City’s contract attorney is not providing appropriate legal advice and Public Works staff are avoiding the facts about stormwater filtering, the burden falls on us – the affected citizens – to educate our councilmembers on the facts, the science, and the law, including:
- Facts about PFAS in stormwater, and serious health impacts.
- Best available science (WAC Chapter 365-195) that must be used to decide necessary protections.
- WAC 365-196-830, that requires Edmonds to protect the Deer Creek CARA for “preservation of the functions and values of the natural environment, or to safeguard the public from hazards to health and safety.”
- The precautionary principle in state law (WAC 365-195-920) and what it prescribes when there is scientific uncertainty or need for more information (i.e., “development and land use activities are strictly limited” until additional best available science suggests otherwise).
Factual information about the Deer Creek CARA, stormwater, PFAS, state and federal standards, critical area regulations can be accessed at edmondsenvironmentalcouncil.org/deer-creek/ or at Olympic View Water and Sewer District’s website at olympicviewwater.com/pfas.
Also, to add insult to injury, the City now has another ploy to avoid restricting development in the Deer Creek CARA. They’re now claiming they need “additional best available” information and want to conduct a study before restricting development in this critical area.
However, that’s contrary to the precautionary principle cited above, and it is very doubtful that the City can contract (given their budget limitations) for a bona fide scientific study that would provide any new or different information that isn’t already available in scientific literature.
So, I’d conclude that there is no legal or scientific basis for retaining the prior CARA chapter – the purpose of the 10-year CAO update is to update the code based on existing best available Science – and that is what the City Council is obligated to do.
I encourage residents to email council@edmondswa.gov , mike.rosen@edmondswa.gov , and brad.shipley@edmondswa.gov before Dec. 31 so that your comments will be placed in the briefing material for the City Council’s Jan. 6 public hearing. You could also make verbal comments at the public hearing.
It will be important for councilmembers and the mayor to hear that the safety of human health is far more important than new development in an area (Deer Creek CARA) designated as a critical area – specifically to protect the drinking water it produces (i.e., bad place for the City to be encouraging new development since it is a “protected” drinking water aquifer).