On pristine, remote Vashon Island it is often easy to feel removed from the enormity of the global ecological crisis. After all, the island has maintained efforts over the years to resist development pressures, especially through successfully resisting the construction of a bridge that would surely spell the end of its still largely rural character.
Vashon boasts the highest number of organic farms per capita in the state of Washington, and has conscientiously sought to protect the health of the remaining forests by means of the Vashon-Maury Land Trust and Forest Stewards. Local opposition to Glacier Northwest’s plan to build a 193-acre gravel strip mine and industrial barge-loading pier on the scenic shore of Maury Island has been robust, though the outcome remains uncertain.
Many citizens of Vashon are, thanks to the work of dedicated staff and volunteers at island non-profit organizations, becoming aware of the significance of increasing environmentally-related problems within the island community. Toxic groundwater runoff fed by damaged septic systems has polluted Quartermaster Harbor and rendered shellfish caught there unsafe for consumption. In many cases, island residents do not feel able to afford to repair faulty septic systems. Energy costs are rising by 20% per year.
Though a study by the Vashon-based Institute for Environmental Research and Education showed that 70% of the energy could be saved by means of weatherization and energy efficient technology, Vashon residents recently voted down the proposed Public Utility District that would implement these energy and cost-saving measures. The PUD was likely defeated by fears of increasing taxation—a mainstay of conservative arguments over the past decades. The same relatively influential individuals on Vashon that sounded the taxation alarm with regard to the PUD are now proposing a privatized route for providing conservation and energy services. This does not appear to be a promising route, however: it has proved difficult for non-profits involved in weatherization programs in the State of Washington to obtain adequate funding; plus generation and sales of renewable energy is illegal in the state.
Widening economic polarization is also affecting Vashon more and more. Million-dollar plus houses are increasingly common, while groups like Vashon Household struggle to develop affordable housing fast enough to meet community needs. With increasing frequency, long-time working-class residents are unable to afford to live here.
What is urgently needed is an educational project aimed at both the global and the local community that links an understanding of social and environmental problems with a radical and comprehensive vision of their potential resolution within a truly ecological society. This vision needs to be made concrete, practical and compelling through an interweaving of demonstration projects so that the local community can seed global transformation. Within this program, students recruited nationally as well as locally will learn and intern intensively and then translate their active learning to the soil of their home communities, as well as within various movements for social and ecological change.
