PORT ANGELES — After 17 years of court challenges and appeals, a state hearings board has lifted an order of invalidity against Clallam County’s critical areas code for existing, ongoing agriculture.
The Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board issued Friday an order rescinding invalidity, saying the county’s new regulations for agricultural uses in critical areas is consistent with the state Growth Management Act.
County commissioners last November passed an ordinance amending critical areas code to regulate agricultural activities in environmentally and geologically sensitive areas such as wetlands and landslide zones.
The innovative ordinance includes a risk assessment table for low-, moderate- and high-risk agricultural activities.
It lays out a process for farmers who have been operating since 1992 to continue to farm in critical areas through an alternate standards program.
“This is an alternate way of regulating, or protecting, critical areas while allowing farmers to continue their good practices,” Clallam County Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Alvarez said Friday.
“If you meet these strict requirements,” Alvarez added, “you are offered this product.”
A one-page risk assessment table lists specific criteria for vegetative buffers around streams and wetlands, manure application rates, manure storage and livestock use.
For example, a 50-foot vegetated buffer around a stream is classified as low risk, a 35- to 50-foot buffer is considered a moderate risk and a smaller buffer is a high risk.
Low- and moderate-risk agricultural activity is deemed compliant under the ordinance.
A farm conservation plan must be prepared and submitted to the county if any of the six criteria receive a high-risk rating.
Clallam County’s critical areas code was first challenged by Protect the Peninsula’s Future and the Washington Environmental Council in 1999, according to the order rescinding invalidity.
A state Growth Management Act hearings board dismissed the original challenge. That dismissal was appealed by Protect the Peninsula’s Future, a nonprofit environmental group.
A court found that the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board had erred because the county did not enter into a voluntary stewardship program that was offered to counties in 2011.
Clallam County planners went back to the drawing board and developed a user-friendly risk assessment model based on a similar scheme used by the Clallam Conservation District.
“We did a lot of public outreach and came up with something that everybody seems to be happy with,” said Clallam County Senior Planner Greg Ballard, who worked on the update.
“Our initial stuff was kind of complicated.”
Representatives of Protect the Peninsula’s Future testified in support of county Ordinance 915 before it was adopted by commissioners Nov. 22.
In its Friday ruling, the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board found that Clallam County used best-available science to craft its ordinance and addressed previous deficiencies.
Presiding Officer William Roehl and hearings board member Nina Carter noted in the nine-page ruling that counsel for Protect the Peninsula’s Future and the Washington Environmental Council agreed that the order of invalidity should be lifted.
“In fact, the petitioner’s council, Gerald Steel, opined that Ordinance 915 may be the most comprehensive, highest quality regulatory scheme applicable to existing, on-going agriculture in the state,” the authors said in a footnote.
A hearing on the compliance order will occur June 15, Alvarez said an in email to county commissioners.
The Clallam County Department of Community Development will implement the alternate standards program.
For information on agriculture in Clallam County critical areas, click on www.clallam.net/LandUse/AGinCA.html.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
