PORT ANGELES — Clallam County will call upon a Seattle-based consulting firm to assist with the state-mandated update to its shoreline planning document.
Commissioners Mike Doherty, Steve Tharinger and Mike Chapman today will consider approving a $599,930 agreement with ESA Adolphson, an environmental consulting firm.
The county received a $999,915 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency in August to integrate the concept of “no net loss of ecological functions” to its update of an 18-year-old plan.
ESA will help county staff take an inventory, characterize and integrate no net loss — a requirement of the state Department of Ecology — for marine and freshwater shorelines along the Strait of Juan de Fuca or the rivers that feed it.
“ESA would do the heavy lifting for essentially that portion of Clallam County that’s in WRIA [Water Resource Inventory Area] 17, 18 and 19,” Clallam County Planning Manager Steve Gray told the commissioners on Monday.
“Some of their work they will be doing on no net loss will be useful to us in WRIA 20 [the West End], but as you recall, we have the Olympic Natural Resource Center doing the work at this point out there.”
A panel made up of county, city of Forks and Lower Elwha Klallam tribal representatives unanimously selected ESA Adolphson out of two bids.
“We felt they were the strongest team with the most experience, particularly experience here in Clallam County,” Gray said.
Expertise, time factors
“We don’t have that audit expertise in house, and there’s a time factor.”
Shoreline programs are a requirement of the 1972 Shoreline Management Act, which is intended to “prevent the inherent harm in an uncoordinated and piecemeal development of the state’s shorelines,” Ecology officials say.
Ecology, which must approve the updates, requires all incorporated cities and all 39 counties in the state to update their shoreline programs by 2014.
“We were hoping to be able to do more, but given the time, and some of the new things with Shoreline Master Program — the so-called no net loss and be able to defend your work — we simply really don’t have the expertise there to put the county in the best position,” Gray said.
“I think it’s certainly going to be a team effort between the consultant and county staff, but we need some assistance to get this done right.”
ESA was a consultant for Jefferson County in its recently adopted shoreline update.
A public participation strategy for the shoreline update was approved by Clallam County lawmakers in March.
The strategy includes focus groups, forums and meeting with advisory groups.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
