COMEDY OF ERRORS

The nearly $6 million sewer expansion to serve East Blaine residential development was a waste, given the Blaine voters decision to remove 573 acres of the East Blaine Urban Growth Area from the city last November. These 573 acres, located over the Critical Aquifer Recharge Area (CARA) for Blaine and Birch Bay's drinking water, would require approximately $14 million for pipeline and pumping infrastructure, making it economically unviable.

Allowing private wells and septic systems over the CARA, however, could lead to contamination of our drinking water. Pollution removal from an aquifer can cost well over $100 million, leading to astronomical utility bills for Blaine and Birch Bay customers.

An alternative to this comedy of errors is for Whatcom County to establish a CARA Protection District, placing this property in public hands, for public benefit. Seattle allows no development in its drinking watershed, saving utility customers and protecting public health. For some reason, Whatcom County is unable to grasp this concept.

The City of Blaine never held a single Growth Management orientation for the community to participate in setting priorities for development, Critical Aquifer Recharge Area and wetlands protection, or the proposed expansion of the city at Birch Point. Instead, the city met behind closed doors with developers to come up with their vision, and after they passed ordinances enacting the developers vision, they sold it to the public. 

Part of that sales job was by Ocean Farms LLC, the Birch Point developer who pushed for expanding the Blaine city limits at Birch Point so he could develop under the city's environmental standards, which are significantly lower than those of Whatcom County. Ocean Farms LLC paid for the public relations campaign to influence Blaine voters to de-annex part of East Blaine, in order to justify to Whatcom County Blaine's desired expansion at Birch Point. 

That campaign stated that de-annexation would protect Blaine's drinking water CARA, which it does not. Allowing wells and septic systems over the CARA is problematic. In October 2025, Whatcom County rejected Blaine's Ocean Farms annexation plans at Birch Point, and the city then asked the county if Blaine could switch residential land in the extensive wetlands along Pipeline Road to industrial use, which the county planning commission just rejected on economic grounds.

Meanwhile, Blaine utility customers just paid around $3 million for a sewer pumping station to service Birch Point development by Ocean Farms LLC.