SEQUIM — Changes to Clallam County’s agricultural standards, which are intended to ensure viable farming and protection of the area’s critical areas, are underway.
County officials are editing the critical areas exemption for existing and ongoing agriculture and have proposed to add a section, “Best Management Practices on Agricultural Lands,” to the county’s critical areas code in response to a legal challenge sparked by Protect the Peninsula’s Future more than 20 years ago.
Unlike new agricultural activity, the exemption has allowed qualified ongoing agriculture that began prior to the adoption of the interim Critical Areas Ordinance in 1992 to be excused from the full provisions of the code and buffer requirements intended to protect critical areas, such as wetlands and streams.
“We’re not trying to eliminate the exemption that was challenged, but we’re trying to put some more performance standards, monitoring provisions and commitment on the county to ensure that the existing and ongoing agriculture is not further degrading critical areas,” said Steve Gray, Clallam County Department of Community Development deputy director and planning manager.
“The key intent is to continue to allow qualified existing agriculture to continue.”
Open house
An open house to discuss agriculture and critical areas issues, including a presentation on agriculture-related activity in relation to wetlands and streams, is planned at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Dungeness Schoolhouse, 2781 Towne Road.
About 800 notices have been mailed to Clallam County properties in the agricultural taxing program and the Agricultural Retention Zoning District.
The notices provide information on the proposed updates and details of the upcoming workshops where the Clallam County Department of Community Development and the Clallam Conservation District will present information.
A public hearing before the Clallam County Planning Commission on the proposed update to the county’s critical areas code is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 15, at the Clallam County Courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles.
Proposed updates
The proposed updates apply to existing and ongoing agriculture that is located within wetlands, near streams or associated buffers and which meet the following criteria:
■ Has been in agriculture since June 16, 1992.
■ Enrolled in the farm and agriculture land open space taxation program.
■ Located within the Agriculture Retention Zoning District.
■ Has not ceased the agricultural activity for more than five years.
The updated exemption and associated best management practices likely apply to dairy farms like Maple View Farm in Sequim with Bell Creek running through it, but “larger, commercial farms are typically already doing these things and working through other agencies for that,” Gray said.
Thus, the update and newly outlined best management practices will tend to target smaller farms.
“The meat of the changes is to expand upon what are the best management practices that we’re looking for and encourage existing and ongoing farmers to continue to use those practices so they continue to farm in these critical area buffers like they have been,” he said.
Peninsula’s future
Protect the Peninsula’s Future — a nonprofit dedicated to environmental protection to enhance the quality of life for present and future citizens of the North Olympic Peninsula — petitioned the Growth Management Hearing Board shortly after Clallam County adopted its interim Critical Areas Ordinance.
“It’s been since 1995 that this issue has been up,” said Eloise Kailin, Protect the Peninsula’s Future corresponding secretary.
“It’s been decades, but at last” efforts to address the county’s critical area exemption for existing and ongoing agriculture is going in the “right direction,” Kailin said.
Following years of litigations and judicial decisions between the county, nonprofit and state, the Growth Management Hearing Board found the county’s critical areas exemption for existing and ongoing agriculture noncompliant with the state Growth Management Act.
The board issued a compliance schedule last July allowing the county six months to resolve the issue.
The board has issued the county two 90-day extensions and a third one will be sought, according to county officials.
A third extension sets a July 4 deadline for updating the critical areas code to address the critical areas exemption for existing and ongoing agriculture.
“We have a dual goal here to protect,” Kailin said.
“We have to protect agriculture, but there are places where that rubs up against the need to protect streams for anadromous fish.”
To achieve both aspects of the goal there needs to be a Critical Areas Ordinance that’s “fair to fish and fair to farmers,” she said.
Attempting to protect farming rights and the health of the environment, the county’s proposed updates encompass a new definition for existing and on-going agriculture, edits to the definition of agriculture and a new section with required Best Management Practices for existing and on-going agriculture.
“We’re looking forward to working with them [county officials] on the plan and its language,” Kailin said.
“We would like to see it written in a flexible manner so that we’re matching ongoing realities.”
In other words, Kailin explained, there needs to be a way to know if there’s a problem associated with exempt agricultural activity in or near critical areas.
Consistent with Protect the Peninsula’s Future, part of the county’s update is to monitor in collaboration with existing organizations, such as Streamkeepers and the state Department of Ecology.
Gray also anticipates connecting farmers in need of adaptive management strategies with agencies such as the Clallam Conservation District.
For more information, contact Greg Ballard, Clallam County senior planner, at 360-565-2616.
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Alana Linderoth is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at alinderoth@sequimgazette.com.
