Industrial Safety
Action Step #1
Why odor reports matter in the Marine Drive corridor
Smell something? Say something!🗣️
If you notice a strong varnish-like or chemical odor – at your home, at Little Squalicum Park, or along the Bay to Baker Trail – coming from heavy industry bordering our neighborhood, report it to the Northwest Clean Air Agency (NWCAA). Report online: nwcleanairwa.gov/resources/complaints/. Or call: 360-428-1617. Your report is not just a complaint. It is how an official record gets built. NWCAA tracks air-quality problems through resident reports. If no one reports, the NWCAA won’t know there is a problem.
How to make your report count
Report while it’s happening. A report filed during the odor is worth far more than one filed the next day. Tell the agency the odor is still present and where an inspector could encounter it. Odors reported during normal business hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) allow an NWCAA inspector to visit and confirm the odors, which is an important part of the process.
If you’re at home, say so and please give your address. Reports from residents at their own homes carry the most weight. If the odor reached you in the park or on the trail, report that too, and say exactly where you were.
Describe the odor and what it did. When it started, how strong it was, whether it came and went. Then the impacts: you closed your windows, went inside, left the park, cut a walk short, woke up at night. Concrete effects are what turn a smell into a record.
Provide your name and contact information. NWCAA does not act on anonymous odor complaints.
Report every time it happens. One report starts a file. A pattern of reports is what agencies act on.
If you see a visible plume, photograph it. Some odor episodes may come with a visible plume from the industrial area. If you see one, take a timestamped photo or video from the park, trail, or public right-of-way and note the date and time.
Why reports matter
The Marine Drive corridor is not an remote industrial strip. It is Heavy Impact Industrial land that sits at the southwest corner of the Birchwood and Alderwood neighborhoods — the only Heavy Impact Industrial corridor inside any city Urban Growth Area in Whatcom County. Homes sit across the street. Birchwood Elementary, Shuksan Middle School, Trinity Classical School, and Bellingham Technical College are not far away. Little Squalicum Park and the Bay to Baker Trail run along its south edge.
The corridor also carries a long legacy. A 27-acre site along Marine Drive has been a federal Superfund site since 1997. Contaminants remain on site, and long-term monitoring and maintenance continue under EPA oversight. EPA is conducting its fourth five-year review of the cleanup this year (2026).
The state’s own screening tool says this area deserves closer attention. The Washington Department of Health’s Environmental Health Disparities Map ranks the census tracts around the corridor among the highest-burden tiers in Washington, combining environmental exposures, environmental effects, socioeconomic factors, and population health measures. It is a cumulative-burden screen, not a finding about any one source. But it is exactly the kind of place where the state has said agencies should look harder — and where resident reports fill the gap between what monitors measure and what people actually experience.
While reporting odors is important now, the next question is what should happen here in the future.
Zone right, zone light
The Marine Drive industrial corridor is in unincorporated Whatcom County, inside Bellingham’s Urban Growth Area. Our neighborhood needs family-wage jobs, and we want more of them, closer to home. The question has never been whether this land stays industrial. The question is which kind of industrial use fits land that now sits across the street from residential homes and is near four schools, a public park, and a regional trail.
Whatcom County’s zoning code has two main industrial designations. Heavy Impact Industrial (HII) is the county’s most intensive category, written for uses that need distance from people. Light Impact Industrial (LII) covers manufacturing, fabrication, and trades designed to operate near other uses.
Here is why the corridor’s future should be Light Impact Industrial
Light industry is written for locations like this one. Machining, fabrication, assembly, food production, trades shops typically takes place inside enclosed buildings. This keeps noise, dust, and odor on the property instead of in the park, on the trail, and in our yards.
More jobs on the same land. Research has found that compared to light industry and business parks, heavy industy provides fewer jobs per acre of land. Given the scarcity of industrial land in Bellingham and Whatcom County, we should strive for getting the most employment out of every acre — not for reserving it for the least job-dense uses.
Lower long-term contamination risk and cleanup cost. This corridor already shows what decades of heavy industrial use can leave behind: a federal Superfund site whose monitoring continues today. Heavy industrial processes handle hazardous materials in volumes that lighter industry generally does not. When contamination happens, the costs — to health, to property values, and to taxpayers — can last for generations. Zoning is the tool that shapes that risk going forward.
It is important to note that existing operations would continue as legal nonconforming uses under the county’s standard mechanisms, the same way long-established businesses continue all over Washington. What we are advocating for is a study of the future of the land.
Where this stands
On July 28, 2026, the Whatcom County Council adopted the comprehensive plan update — including Policy 2U-11, which directs the county to coordinate with the City of Bellingham in evaluating whether Heavy Impact Industrial zoning still fits this corridor.
The policy did not rezone any property. It only committed the county to study the question. The Birchwood Neighborhood Association is advocating for the county to begin that study on a defined timeline. We will post updates here as the process moves.