Critical areas ordinances

Cities and counties around Puget Sound are updating their Critical Areas Ordinances (CAOs). These ordinances ensure that land use and development do not harm wetlands, fish and wildlife habitat, and drinking supplies, or cause flooding, erosion, and landslides.

We are pushing for strong marine shoreline protections in these CAOs.

In July 2004 People For Puget Sound and other conservation groups won an important victory for Puget Sound shorelines when the Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board concluded this past that Pierce County failed to comply with the Growth Management Act. The Board sent the ordinance back to the county to be amended by January 12, 2006.

People for Puget Sound worked with environmental partners and County staff to obtain stronger protections for marine shorelines. The revised ordinance, adopted November 15, 2005, requires vegetated buffers along marine shorelines that provide critical habitat for salmon.

Shoreline protections are strong when they protect important shoreline habitats, such as estuaries and marine wetlands, including tidal marshes, feeder bluffs, kelp and eelgrass beds, and forage fish spawning areas, as well as those areas needed by threatened and endangered species to feed, rest, and grow. Strong protections also include preserving the natural processes that create and maintain these habitats, such as waves, streams, landslides, erosion, and the movement of sand and sediment along the shore.

Irresponsible development threatens our shorelines. A good CAO provides standards for development occurring within or next to critical areas like shorelines. Examples of good development standards include proper set back from shorelines for clearing and development, as well as making sure new piers, docks, and floats don't negatively impact critical habitat areas.

Kudos go to the Whatcom County Council for developing a strong CAO. Next for them will be an important update to their shoreline master program. We'll be working on that too, not only in Whatcom County, but all around the Sound.

Regulations are controversial and technical, but absolutely essential to the future of the Sound. With a million more people expected here soon, we must get a handle on shoreline development practices now. Puget Sound's health depends on