On March 4 of this year, the Washington State Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments from Jennifer Godfrey, the head of a foundation called the Orca Nexus, a group of advocates for Seattle’s orcas. In an appeal to the city of Seattle on Feb. 13, 2025, they argued that the city’s “One Seattle Plan,” a development framework to add more homes in Seattle, failed to consider the potential impacts on the Southern Resident Orcas.
The proceeding court battle, now dubbed the “Orca Appeal,” has spent the past year making its way through the court system. The upcoming March 4 hearing in the Appellate Court is its final attempt, or the case will be dropped forever.
At the center of the issue is the One Seattle Plan itself—specifically the plan’s Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS. The plan seeks to create 120,000 new housing units within the city of Seattle and has changed zoning laws to allow for the creation of duplexes, quadplexes and more, almost anywhere citywide. The Orca Appeal argues that the EIS, whose job it is to consider the impacts of all the new housing, fails to do so, nor does it consider alternative solutions.
The Appeal’s major defense is that of “impermeable surfaces.” New housing means new driveways and patios, and thus more concrete, with fewer parks, fields and trees. Without these natural “sinks,” more pollutants flow into the sound, harming orcas. More specifically, the chemical 6PPD-Quinone, which commonly erodes off car brake pads, is highly toxic to the salmon upon which the orcas feed. At its core, the issue is urban sprawl. Building out, instead of up, will be worse for the orcas, at least according to the Appeal.
Instead of building multifamily homes, the Appeal instead advocates for apartments. Building apartment complexes that each cover an entire city block in nothing but solid concrete would also create considerable increases in nonpermeable surfaces. Where multifamily homes could at least have a few trees and a front or back yard, an apartment block would have nothing of the sort. Apartments and high-rise buildings create larger heat islands, trapping chemicals in the air and furthering pollution. By the Orca Appeal’s own logic, apartments would be just as detrimental to Seattle’s orcas.
No matter what kind of development is chosen, the orcas will be harmed in one way or another. Human interaction with nature is rarely positive, whether it’s on the scale of factories spewing out toxic metals or people feeding ducks bread, which overfills their stomachs. A city of 800,000 people will inevitably negatively impact the surrounding environment.
Because of this, the invocation of the orcas to try to stop the creation of multi-family homes suddenly falls flat. One could just as well invoke the orcas to try to prevent the creation of apartments, or any other development. The harm done to the orcas is an inevitability regardless of how Seattle develops. This unfortunate truth reframes the situation. Instead of it being an “orca problem,” it is an urban development one. How can Seattle grow in a way that minimizes the inevitable harm done to the environment as a whole, orcas included?
The first thing to do is not wrongfully invoke orcas as a buzzword to garner public attention. But to condemn the entire Orca Appeal would be too harsh. In anticipation of the changes that came with the One Seattle Plan, an organization known as the Master Builders Association lobbied the Seattle City Council to allow for the removal of any-sized tree of any age. The Council also passed a new ordinance, which will reduce the required number of parks within the city by counting hardtop surfaces as green space. There is no need to invoke the orcas here; these policies alone are directly detrimental to Seattle citizens, let alone orcas. Fewer trees and parks exacerbate the creation of heat islands, just as apartments will, not to mention the fact that cities without greenery are not pleasant to be in. Bringing these issues to the public eye is an important and necessary undertaking, even if the rationale underpinning the actions is faulty.
Of course, none of this is black-and-white. In reality, healthy development will include the entire spectrum, from single-family homes, duplexes and midrise apartments, and high-rises, not only multifamily or onlyapartments. What matters is that the development happens safely and in a way that minimizes the damage to the environment while maximizing the utility for Seattleites. It remains to be seen what will come of the Orca Appeal, along with the Southern Resident Orcas it seeks to protect.
If you would like to know more about how to help protect the Southern Residents, you can visit NOAA’s webpage on the topic to learn more.
