Defending our Shorelines

Land Use

Water

Endangered Species

Recent Actions

In 1990, the Washington State legislature passed the Growth Management Act (GMA), a law requiring cities and counties to create land use plans that manage development and protect natural resources.  The GMA requires specific protections for five critical areas: wetlands; fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas; critical aquifer recharge areas; geologically hazardous areas; and frequently flooded areas.

San Juan County responded to the GMA by creating protections for each of the five critical areas, at that time called Environmentally Sensitive Areas.  In 2002, the legislature amended the GMA to require counties to perform periodic, 7-year reviews of what are now called Critical Areas Ordinances (CAO).  The amendments also established a 2005 deadline for San Juan County to complete its CAO update, a deadline that has come and gone without compliance by the County.

The state does not mandate a single approach to critical areas protection; instead, the GMA allows each county or city to develop protections that meet their unique needs.  Counties may protect identified critical areas and their buffer zones by non-regulatory means (conservation easements, public education, etc.) and regulatory means (subdivision codes, clearing and grading ordinances, zoning, critical areas regulations, etc.).  However, to meet the goal of the GMA, critical areas must be managed in such a way that their values are preserved with no net loss of ecological function.

To ensure that a CAO will achieve no net loss, local jurisdictions must employ the best available science. In other words, critical areas regulations must be formulated in light of documented research.  In the absence of existing scientific data, counties must either limit development or use adaptive management--regulating the critical area and evaluating results scientifically in an ongoing experiment to determine the possible negative effects of development.

Wetlands come in various guisesswamps, marshes, bogs, ponds, and fields, to name a fewand perform invaluable services such as modulating the hydrogeologic cycle, filtering toxins from runoff, and providing prime habitat.  When rain pounds down, wetlands act to capture, store, and then gently release that rainwater into aquifers and streams.  Wetlands also moderate the sometimes fierce interface between winter waves and dry land, stabilizing shorelines and protecting both wildlife habitat and human activities on land.  Wetlands are ubiquitous; they can be small or large, in forests or along the shore.  Wetlands are rated and regulated according to their sensitivity to disturbance, rarity, irreplaceability, and the functions and values they provide.

San Juan Countys forested uplands, beaches, and nearshore waters are nurseries and refuges for countless species.  GMA guidelines require protection of the habitats of endangered species and of species of local importance.  Critical areas provide their benefits through a delicate balance perfected by the earth over eons.

If that functioning system is destroyed, it is extremely difficultor impossibleto recreate.  Restoration is expensive and inadequate; preservation takes foresight and commitment to our own well-being and to the future of the San Juan Islands.

Aquifers are water-bearing layers of rock and soil that store water underground.  In San Juan County, more than half the population taps these aquifers for drinking water. In 2008, after significant hydrogeological evaluation, San Juan County adopted an ordinance designating all county lands as critical aquifer recharge areas (CARAs).

A CARA is defined as an area where the land contributes significantly to the replenishment of groundwater or where it is highly susceptible to contamination by pollutants from the surface.  Typical pollutants include petroleum products from automobiles and other machinery, fertilizers, and inadequately treated animal and human wastes.  San Juan County also faces the possibility of seawater intrusion into fresh water aquifers.

Geological hazards take a variety of forms: abandoned mines that could cave in, emit noxious gases, or contaminate groundwater with poisonous metals; filled wetlands whose soils would be unstable in a seismic event; coastal bluffs and other slopes subject to landslides or erosion; or tsunami-prone lowlands and inlets. For the sake of human welfare and safety, the state requires that such areas be identified and that development therein be regulated or prohibited.

Streams overflow; rivers slow, broaden, and create new channels as they reach their mouths; storm waves surge over coastal areas.  Flood-prone areas constitute a hazard to property and sometimes to human life. However, some frequently flooded areas also serve a valuable function as part of a natural hydrological process by which flood waters are slowed and distributed over the land allowing aquifers to be recharged.

Be alert and be concerned.  Support regulations that recognize the irreplaceable benefits of the earths natural processes. Comment at public hearings.  Write letters to the editor.  Inform neighbors.  For updated information please call the FRIENDS office, 360-378-2319.