The Vashon community has not had enough time to assess wastewater disposal and potential pollution of our ground- water by Bakkhos Holding.

I understand that the required process of amending King County’s Comprehensive Plan will take at least a year to complete, according to Ty Peterson, a commercial product line manager at DPER (King County’s Department of Permitting and Environmental Review).  Peterson also stated “you wouldn’t just amend the town plan for this purpose without an extensive process.”

Please see boards.cannabis.com/hydroponics/156247-hydroponic-waste water-disposal.html for a simple explanation of potential pollution resulting from hydroponic growing.

Bakkhos needs to submit to the King County Council a complete written plan for disposal of its wastewater. The Vashon community needs the year’s time stated above to examine the particulars of what safeguards exist for maintaining the purity of our groundwater, the amount of water to be used by the facility and the resulting effects on our water table. Bakkhos’ written plans need to be published for the community.

Please see research done by the Backbone Campaign (backbonecampaign.ccsend.com) regarding the failure of the former K2 to meet environmental standards.

Is Bakkhos committed to trucking its wastewater off-island should it not be able to commit to safeguarding our water supply?

Bakkhos also needs to inform the all of us regarding the method it uses to produce its most profitable yield: biolistics, agrobacterium, electroporation, gene knockout?

What is the source of Bakkhos’ seeds? Have the seeds been genetically modified, radiated and/or chlorinated?

We need to know whether the King County Council has thoroughly researched these concerns, and, if so, who did the research?

We need to prevent the council from giving the green light to Bakkos without addressing the potential pollution, high water use and its effect on our water system(s), and the Vashon Town Plan should not be amended until thorough publicly available assessments have been completed by a qualified company.

— Ellen Carleton