Whidbey Island Conservation District seeks candidate for board vacancy

The Whidbey Island Conservation District is seeking candidates for a mid-term elected board seat that runs through May 2027, a small office with a direct say over water, farmland and habitat decisions across Island County.

The district’s board is part of a statewide structure that gives local conservation districts real governing power. Washington conservation districts are run by five-member boards of supervisors, with three elected locally and two appointed by the Washington State Conservation Commission. State rules define a supervisor as an elected or appointed member of a local conservation district governing board. The Whidbey district says all board positions are voluntary, last three years and are filled through annual elections by mail. The board meets monthly, oversees district finances and activities, and helps set the priorities that staff carry out.

That matters on an island where the district says water resource management is of “paramount importance.” Its water page points to safe drinking water, groundwater and aquifer recharge, stormwater, drainage challenges, erosion and steep-slope stabilization as recurring concerns. The district’s role also reaches into shoreline health and habitat work. State salmon strategy materials say only coho salmon are known to spawn in streams on South Whidbey Island, while juvenile chinook from several Puget Sound river systems likely use Island County nearshore habitats before moving offshore.

The district’s FY2027 work plan, covering July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027, says its vision is to be a valued community partner and resource for a sustainable Whidbey Island through practical, science-based solutions to clean air, water and healthy soils. It uses the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Nine Step Conservation Planning Process, a watershed-based approach that ties together runoff, drainage, erosion and habitat work. In earlier planning documents, the district also flagged farmland loss as a continuing problem, saying agricultural lands were being removed from current use at an average annual rate of 3 percent and that 20 percent had been removed since 2010.

Conservation districts were created in 1939, and on Whidbey that history still plays out in a board seat that shapes outreach, grant support and conservation priorities. For landowners, farmers, gardeners and shoreline residents, the vacancy is less about a vacant chair than about who will help guide the next year of decisions on water, habitat and working land.