Foresight helps county’s wetlands rules hold up

When Snohomish County adopted stricter rules to protect streams and wetlands last year, officials went out of their way to be different than King County.

That move allowed Snoho­mish County to avoid a setback in court. This week, the state Court of Appeals struck down part of King County’s controversial environmental protections.

The court held that King County went too far when it required rural property owners to set aside in some cases at least 50 percent of their land for the environment and as much as 65 percent or more in salmon watersheds.

A handful of property owners sued, but their lawsuit was tossed out in 2006 by Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Ron Castleberry.

On Monday, the Court of Appeals reversed that ruling.

Snohomish County chose the middle of the state Department of Ecology’s range for protective buffers around lakes, streams and wetlands.

“We definitely took a different approach from King County, particularly in the rural areas,” County Council Chairman Dave Somers said. “King County put in place a requirement that all rural properties retain 50 percent of their vegetation as natural. We don’t have anything like that. Our protections of streams and wetlands are specific to a project and a permit. King County’s was a blanket.”

Previous Snohomish County rules required at most 100-foot protections for wetlands and streams. Under rules in place since Oct. 1, some development must be kept at least 225 feet away from the most sensitive wetlands.

Salmon streams must be flanked by at least 150 feet of undisturbed land under the county’s rules. Some property owners near streams or wetlands might lose the ability to use some of their land. To ease that expected burden, county officials said the rules soften some requirements if wetland areas are protected with fencing.

Environmental groups challenged Snohomish County’s rules for allowing reductions in the widths of protective buffers.

This spring, the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board upheld Snohomish County’s rules. The board said the rules weren’t necessarily a model for cities and other counties but still were based on science and within state guidelines.

The development industry supported Snohomish County’s rules and helped defend them at the hearings board, said Mike Pattison of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties.

Snohomish County’s regulations were science-based and balanced the needs of property owners and growth management goals as well as possible, Pattison said. King County got in trouble by drawing a distinction between urban and rural regulations — something Snohomish County avoided, Pattison said.

Snohomish County’s protective wetland and stream buffers reduced possible development on properties, Pattison said, but officials took so many years to adopt the regulations that builders had time to apply under less restrictive rules.

The ruling against King County is disappointing, said Dan Cantrell, executive director of the environmental group Futurewise.

“We feel the court’s decision forbids counties from protecting habitat for listed species and safeguarding Puget Sound and critical areas,” Cantrell said.

The ruling doesn’t go into effect immediately, King County Executive Ron Sims said in a statement. The court did not strike down all of the county’s regulations and “did not dispute the science underlying the clearing limits.”

Those rules preserve trees and plants that soak up storm water that might otherwise carry pollution to Puget Sound, Sims said.

Officials are reviewing whether to take the issue to the state Supreme Court, Sims said.

Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.