Jimmy Wen
Professor: Laurie Brinklow
Assignment: Case Study
IST 6010
Green Economy on San Juan Islands
According to the guest speakers talking about green and blue energy, for those small, less
populated and non-tourism-oriented islands, they are sometimes struggling about economy
development and standard of living improvement. Without a mass amount of tourists coming in,
the islands can lose one of the topmost profitable industries worldwide, and the islanders must be
creative and inspirational on island development. The governments of non-tourism -oriented
islands must make their own way to prosperity without harming environment. The examples of
islands facing the challenges are many, San Juan Islands (Washington, US), Anticosti Islands
(Quebec, Canada), Aleutian Islands (Alaska, US) and Kuril Islands (Russia) etc., all of them
have similarities. San Juan Islands, as they are gradually coming into public’s view because of
their green economy, will be the topic of this case study.
Due to the fact there are some important ports in Great Seattle Metro area and a border
between the US and Canada nearby, San Juan Islands have their unique economic and
geopolitical status in the state of Washington. Usually there are a few ferries connecting with
main islands and Seattle urban area. San Juan County, as part of the Washington states’ “Fossil-
Fuel Free Future” plan, is on their way to replace its traditional energy resources with greener
ones (Barnuevo, 2020). In this trend, these islands will also on their way to have a greener
economy, where the environmental risks and ecological scarcities will reduce to an extremely
low level. It may be achieved without sacrificing efficiency.
San Juan Islands are an archipelago consisted of major four islands: Orcas, San Juan,
Shaw and Lopez Island, and about 121 tinier and non-vehicular islands and rocks surround these
main three islands. The total land area is 450 square kilometers, and its population is around 17,
492 (Anonymous, 2020) with an annual growth rate of 1.1%. By far, Washingtonians have not
yet put any sort of heavy or light Industries on them. The island tourism, sea kayaking and Orca
whale-watching become the islands’ major three state-incomes. The fisheries are usually
seasonal, and the main species are five different salmons: King, Sockeye, Silver, Pink and Chum.
There are around 6,043 total jobs with a payroll of $ 230.6 million USD (Vance, 2020). The
average annual wage on islands is $38,163, which is only slightly higher than half of the
statewide average wage of $ 69, 615.
The Green economy means that the society is targeting on reducing environment risks
and ecological scarcities (Anonymous, 2016). In this mode, the development is always
sustainable without degrading the environment. Meanwhile, the economy development is and
should be very efficient. Use Hawaii Islands as an example, the Hawaii State Energy Office has
set a goal of switching to entirely green energies by 2045 (Energy Office, 2018). While in the
transition to a cleaner world, the economy may not be stagnated because green development can
bring vitality.
When a government is looking for ways to keep the economy growing greenly, they will
always take reducing environmental risks at the forefront. Sometimes, the transition to green
economy may cause sacrifice but it may only be temporary. Just like the experienced workers in
fossil-fuel power stations are worrying about being laid-offs when the governments shut down
departments in those old factories, while their experiences there will absolutely have their
positions in the newer energy-generation sites. Usually, the processes that different energy
resources transfer to electricity are in similar ways, so this will not be any problem if the workers
are trained again and they can do maintenance, inspection of the machines and other jobs on new
sites. Therefore, it may not cause massive unemployment if government can think about some
subsequent measures.
Besides renewable energy, there are some other sectors in green economy. In summary,
the other five sectors are green buildings, sustainable transport, water management, waste
management and land management (Meera, 2020), these concepts are made also by Karl Burkart.
Green buildings are regarding to construction aspects, when the projects are on the way, the
materials, plans, engineering vehicles, machines and even noise level will also be taken into
consideration. Sustainable transport is about the inter-islands and continents-islands
transportation, pollution and greenhouse gas emission from ferries, amount of automobiles and
airways will be measured. Water management means how much sewage can be collected,
recycled then reused in some circumstance, also how the state acquires, purifies and distributes
drinkable water greenly is one of the aspects. Waste management is about handling residential
and business wastes in environment-friendly ways. Land management is the plans of how to use
each area efficiently and greenly (anonymous, 2020).
On small islands, because of their unique geographic features, blue and green economy is
playing an increasingly important role. Just like Cyrus said in his article Small States and the
Green and Blue Economy, he said “The ecosystems of many small island states are under strain.
The case from Fiji showed that if marine and terrestrial resources are viewed as a new
development space for the blue and green economy, then natural resources must be carefully
managed and restored” (Rustomjee, 2016). Fiji Islands are some islands in the nowhere but
ocean, so the green development is vital and determines its future. In this mode, overfishing is
not a good method on island sustainability, it can be regard as a nonrenewable resource. The role
of business is more likely to bring solutions to global challenges (Rustomjee, 2016). Therefore,
the islanders are ascendingly in need of green economy concepts.
On San Juan Islands, the situation is not so urgent like most of the pacific islands do as
the latter ones are on the forefront of global warming, but these offshore islands do need to have
a long-term plan. On the green energy side, San Juan Islands have let a rural cooperative called
Orcas Power and Light Cooperative (In abbreviation OPALCO) to promote energy upgrades
among households (Miguel, 2020). The organization Environmental and Energy Study Institute
is there helping the locals as well. Both are working together to give residents stable and cheap
electricity supply. The OPALCO mentioned that the program provides a way for customers to
finance efficient heat pumps (for both space and water heating) and the removal of their fossil
fuel-powered counterparts—without making customers take on debt (Miguel, 2020). In this way,
residents are more willing to choose the newer versions. In program associate Miguel Yanez’s
book On-Bill Financing: Expanding Access to Energy Efficiency, Clean Energy Adoption, and
Electrification for Everyone, He examines how well-designed on-bill financing programs
provide expanded and more equitable access to clean energy upgrades for all. When designed
correctly, the approach works for both renters and owners, regardless of income or credit score
(Miguel, 2020).
When we use Hawaii as a reference, there are similar approaches but they have been
running for a longer time, and federal state government has involved in. The program is called
solar tax credit. Everyone in Hawaii can grab the US federal solar tax credit equal to 26% of the
costs to go solar (Anonymous, 2020). In this motivation, residents will be more likely to switch
to solar energy due to the tax deduction. Besides that, Hawaii also has a program called GEMS
Loam Program, which focuses on low-income groups, who are the customers making 140%
lower than the median income. The program grants people the ability to install solar for $0 down
with a special loan they repay on your HECO electric bill automatically. The system must
provide enough power that even after the loan that have 10% savings over what the person were
paying previous to his/her solar installation (Anonymous, 2020). These measures do encourage
residents to use cleaner energy on a law/policy base. Therefore, San Juan Islands may learn from
this way.
In the aspect of green buildings, San Juan Islands started with hotel houses. Even this
island chain is never a tourism hotspot, but there are still visitors coming to spend some quality
time and enjoying beautiful wood and coast sceneries (Anonymous, 2021). There are some
hotels on major islands like San Juan Island. One architect has started unique ecosystem friendly
design: The 2,505-square-foot contemporary home embraces the outdoors with its abundance of
glazing, an expansive green roof and the predominate use of timber and stone (Wang, 2018). On
these green rooves, that is an entire sunken area that soil is in it, and then people can grow
different vegetations on the roof. It is recognized as not environment friendly when people start
cutting down trees for houses on the island, but when plants can grow on the roof, it is just a
higher flat ground.
In the area of sustainable transport, San Juan also have done a satisfied job so far. There
are not such a grand project of building bridges or tunnels connecting the urban Seattle with
major islands. Instead, the frequent ferries are operating between the big islands and ports in
Seattle, for both passengers and vehicles. It has a range of six to nine classes on weekdays for the
ferries to commute between different islands, and most of the classes are during peak hours, of
which frequency are acceptable for both islanders and mainlanders to commute on their work
(Anonymous, 2021). Without building bridges, the carbon emission can be maintained at a low
level, while it can reduce the potential traffic congestion. What’s more important, as those
islands are keeping water around it and set some sort of barriers to the outside world, they kept
their islands uniqueness. After study the Godfrey, it is wise to maintain islands’ uniqueness as
they keep large numbers of outsiders from coming easily, This literal/ littoral boundary is
“nature’s emphatic and unambiguous way of telling Islanders that they are a separate group of
people (Baldacchino, 2018).
For the criteria of water management, San Juan has a bit way to go, because they are still
dependent mainly on rain falls, in another word, they are using precipitated water (Sato, 2021).
However, this way to get fresh water is usually very unstable and sometimes costly. the water
feeding wells in the San Juan Islands came from a large undersea aquifer reaching to Mount
Baker (Sato, 2021). As the population in San Juan County quadrupled in last half century, the
water demands are growing while the collection is unchanged, which can result in water shortage
especially during the dry summer season. The Pacific north-west region does have a long and
heavy raining season, but the volume of rainwater is not guaranteed when climate change has a
rising influence there. The government is trying other ways to acquire fresh water. Several
desalinization systems already serve shoreline dwellings in the islands, including a subdivision
on San Juan Island. Rainwater catchment systems are allowed for single-family dwellings
throughout the islands (Swope, 2008). Reverse Osmois is one of the systems that can desalinize
the sea water into fresh one. the average daily production of potable water from RO plants in SJC
is 23,528 gpd, or 19% of the total treatment capacity of 124,900 gpd (Mayo, 2009). This is a
good start, and the cost needs yet to be reduced.
Then it is the time to look at the waste management. On San Juan Islands, the related
department has already made some steps ahead. The program called The San Juan County Solid
Waste Program has been established, and they have two objectives: Establish and continue to
improve goals for waste reduction, reuse, and recycling (especially those relating to organic
materials) that are based on economic, environmental and human health criteria; And develop,
promote and manage programs that are effective at managing local waste streams, meet the
needs of residents, and reduce the volume and toxicity of waste (PublicWorks, 2018). The
islands are collecting waste exercise tax and then fund the activities like providing staff for
administrative and coordination duties; conducting annual household/business hazardous waste
collection and disposal events; landfill monitoring and final closure; and providing community
outreach and education for waste reduction, reuse and recycling (PublicWorks, 2018). Besides
this program, SJC has also started a beach clean up plan, whose goal is educating children about
the damage that plastic waste causes and helping local businesses reduce their use of plastic
(PublicWorks, 2018).
The last part is the land management. Generally speaking, land management is the day-
to-day management and administration of reserve lands, environment, and resources (Meera,
2020). For the most area on San Juan Islands, they are perfect farming and foresting lands in
Pacific Northwest. In the County, approximately seventy percent of the land cover is considered
to be overstocked second growth forests (San Juan Conservation District, personal
communication) (Gao, 2016). The soil on the islands has amazing level of nutrition which can
support various categories of crops, and the biochar is a pivotal substance there. In the study
conducted by Gao, he addressed that by producing biochar from local timber harvest residues
and applying them in neighboring agricultural soils, an overall positive benefit of an integrated
agronomic and a local forest management strategy can be found (Gao, 2016). What’s more
interesting, biochar produced from local fuel reduction treatments and applied alone or when
“charged” with poultry litter has the potential to improve potentially mineralizable N, and P
availability, increase nutrient retention, and increase dry bean nutrient concentrations (Gao,
2016). As the science research on the soil in SJC is going really deep, it is clear that the unique
ingredients in the soil can facilitate its unique agriculture style.
Besides the research on the soils, SJC is also trying the best to maintain the urban-forest
balance, where the government keeps almost all small and sporadic islands vehicle and human
unreached. They just let residents exploit mainly the four major islands and make laws limiting
residents to urbanize new islands. Those remote islands without human activities can keep their
ecology system at their maximized level. If human beings start their activities in a particular
remote place, then it will certainly somehow disturb the ecosystem there. In the whole 121
islands of SJC, there are only 16 of them have human inhabitation (Anonymous, 2000), which
means the county has kept 87% of the number away from being exploited by human beings. In
this direction, many bird species like bald eagles, great blue herons, peregrine falcons and black
oystercatchers and a lot of mammal species like Columbia black-tailed deer and river otters can
be seen among these islands (Smith, 2016). And thanks to the current management focusing on
environment protection, it is still available for visitors to enjoy the Orcas whale swinging by in
the straits between March and October, and there are a few whare watching sites and trips among
the islands.
Based on the six sectors (renewable energy, green buildings, sustainable transport, water
management, waste management and land management) of green economy made by the
professor Karl Burkart, we can rate San Juan Islands’ level. They are doing excellent in waste
and land management, and slightly fall behind in sustainable transport and renewable energy,
while they have not done too much in green buildings and water management. Because some
green designs for hotel buildings and desalination program is only in the test stage, it does have
longer way to go. So, in future, if they want to keep up the pace to Green economy, it is wise to
pay more attention to the last two sections.
In conclusion, the six sections of green economy are a direct way in measuring how much
green concepts islanders have, but it cannot reflect everything in green economy. There may be
more sections that have not been included yet. When San Juan Islands are targeted as our case
study, we can easily see how greenly and efficiently this island chain is maintaining now.
However, having a green operation is not only the visible part. Like when the government is
passing a law or a project, it is about how quick they can react on whether this new movement
will damage the environment or waste a lot of natural resources. There is a “thinking greenly”
which will be deeply rooted in their system and become conceptual.
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