John Bielka

I support AI innovation, but data centers should not receive government grants or subsidies. These are large private businesses, and residents should not pay higher electrical rates so data centers can get cheap power. They need to pay their own power costs and the full cost of transmission, water, roads, emergency services, and other infrastructure needed to serve them.

Cooling must be addressed up front. I would require clear plans for water use, heat management, and conservation, including closed-loop cooling, dry cooling where feasible, recycled or reclaimed water, waste-heat reuse, and limits on using drinking water or stressing local aquifers.

I am also not endorsing the use of farmland for data centers. There are better options, including industrial land, brownfields, underused commercial sites, and locations near existing substations and transmission.

On AI, I support practical use in government, education, and permitting with human oversight, privacy, cybersecurity, and accountability. I am open to realistic electrification options, including small modular reactors if they are safe, cost-effective, and properly regulated.

KEYWORDS: accountability, infrastructure, affordability

My top environmental funding priorities are practical projects that reduce real risks for communities: flood control, stormwater improvements, culvert replacement, fish passage, drinking water protection, tree planting, forest health, wildfire prevention, and energy efficiency or electrification where it lowers long-term costs. In the 31st District, flood control and stormwater are not abstract environmental issues; they affect homes, farms, roads, bridges, utilities, and public safety.

I would use Climate Commitment Act funds for visible projects that protect people and improve the environment, not just studies that sit on a shelf. I also support applied research on water quality, salmon recovery, PFAS and emerging contaminants, heat islands, grid reliability, and cost-effective emissions reduction.

To set priorities, I would look at evidence, risk reduction, cost-benefit, project readiness, long-term maintenance, and whether funding helps small cities and rural communities that lack grant-writing capacity. Good environmental stewardship means measurable results: cleaner water, safer communities, healthier habitat, stronger infrastructure, and lower costs over time.

KEYWORDS: flood control, stewardship, accountability

Science literacy is too important to be treated as memorizing facts for a test. I have a civil engineering degree, and I believe science is important because it affects the roads we drive on, the water we drink, the bridges we cross, the energy we use, and the health decisions families make every day. Students need to understand evidence, data, cause and effect, uncertainty, and how science applies to real life.

As a CTE advisor for Chief Leschi Schools, I have seen how students engage when learning connects to careers, trades, technology, infrastructure, natural resources, health care, and the problems they see in their own communities.

K-12 standards should keep strong core science, but add more hands-on learning, lab work, engineering, environmental science, agriculture, energy, and data analysis. Students should learn how to read charts, question sources, understand risk, and separate evidence from opinion.

The goal is not to turn every student into a scientist. The goal is to help every student become a better citizen, worker, voter, and problem-solver.

KEYWORDS: CTE, evidence, problem-solving

I would use Climate Commitment Act money for fire risk reduction the same way I would use it for flood control: practical projects that reduce danger before the disaster happens. For example, CCA funds should help pay for fuel breaks around high-risk communities and evacuation routes, including forest thinning, brush removal, prescribed burning where appropriate, and defensible-space grants for homeowners, farms, tribes, and small cities.

I would also use CCA funds to harden power corridors by removing hazardous vegetation, improving utility access roads, upgrading lines where justified, and reducing the chance that electrical infrastructure starts or worsens a fire. Another practical use is improving rural water supply for firefighters, including cisterns, hydrants, pump stations, and access points.

Fire management should not just be studies and reports. Research is useful when it leads to action. The state should help local fire districts, counties, tribes, utilities, landowners, and communities do the work before fires start. That protects homes, forests, watersheds, roads, and firefighters.

KEYWORDS: prevention, CCA, resilience

Washington should fund fisheries work that produces measurable results. Specific examples include replacing fish-blocking culverts on salmon streams, reconnecting side channels and floodplains on the Puyallup, White, and Carbon River systems, planting riparian trees to cool water, and retrofitting urban stormwater outfalls with treatment systems before runoff reaches creeks and Puget Sound.

I would also prioritize wastewater upgrades where nutrients, temperature, or contaminants affect fish and shellfish habitat. Scientific monitoring should include stream temperature sensors, salmon return counts, ocean acidification buoys, dissolved oxygen testing, shellfish health monitoring, forage fish surveys, and eelgrass mapping. Those are the types of data that help managers act early instead of guessing after damage is done.

For communities, I would support grants and technical help for tribes, ports, shellfish growers, fishing families, farmers, and small cities to adapt to closures, habitat changes, flooding, and warmer water. Hatcheries have a role, but they must be managed carefully and based on science.

KEYWORDS: habitat, monitoring, accountability