Opinion ID: 2623642
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Background to the 2003 and 2005 Board Decisions

Text: ¶ 10 The GMA was enacted largely `in response to public concerns about rapid population growth and increasing development pressures in the state.' Quadrant Corp. v. Growth Mgmt. Hr'gs Bd., 154 Wash.2d 224, 232, 110 P.3d 1132 (2005) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Cent. Puget Sound Hr'gs Bd., 142 Wash.2d at 546, 14 P.3d 133). As we have already noted, one of the central requirements of the GMA is that counties and cities, which plan under it, must protect critical areas. RCW 36.70A.060(2). But the GMA places additional, and sometimes competing, obligations on local governments. For example, it lists as planning goals to both [m]aintain and enhance natural resource-based industries, including productive timber, agricultural, and fisheries industries and [e]ncourage the conservation of . . . productive agricultural lands, and discourage incompatible uses. RCW 36.70A.020(8). Local governments are not, however, given much direction by that statute as to whether protection of critical areas or the maintaining of agricultural lands is a priority. In fact, the GMA explicitly eschews establishing priorities: The [GMA's planning] goals are not listed in order of priority and shall be used exclusively for the purpose of guiding the development of comprehensive plans and development regulations. RCW 36.70A.020. ¶ 11 The lack of priority in the planning goals becomes especially problematic when local governments are faced with land that qualifies as both agricultural land and as a critical area (for example, a parcel of agricultural land that abuts a water source). Skagit County, in particular, had to confront this tension between maintaining agricultural land and protecting critical areas. This was necessary because the county contains approximately 115,000 acres of agricultural land that have been designated under the GMA as agricultural lands of long-term commercial significance. Furthermore, a significant portion of these lands are located in areas that, although historically part of the Skagit and Samish River deltas and/or floodplains, have been cleared, diked, and drained to make them suitable for agricultural production. Some of this activity occurred as long ago as 100 years. Thus, present day agricultural production in the area depends, in part, upon this network of well established drains and dikes. ¶ 12 At the same time, the State has identified the Skagit and Samish Rivers watershed as the most significant watershed in Puget Sound in terms of salmon recovery. Admin. R. (AR) at 4074. It is home to at least six species of salmon and two fish species that are listed under the Endangered Species Act. [2] As the county acknowledges, [t]he anadromous fish stocks in the Skagit and Samish River systems are another valuable Skagit County natural resource. Resp't Skagit County's Resp. Br. at 9. The resource is also of economic significance because just as farmers depend on agricultural land for their livelihood, persons involved in the fishing industry and belonging to the Tribe depend upon healthy rivers for theirs. ¶ 13 Despite the explicit lack of a prioritization in the planning goals section of the GMA, the legislature has provided some guidance for determining GMA priorities. Specifically, in 1995, the legislature amended the GMA to strengthen protection of critical areas: In designating and protecting critical areas under this chapter, counties and cities shall include the best available science in developing policies and development regulations to protect the functions and values of critical areas. In addition, counties and cities shall give special consideration to conservation or protection measures necessary to preserve or enhance anadromous fisheries. RCW 36.70A.172(1) (emphasis added). The GMA was amended again in 1997 to provide that growth management hearings boards should grant deference to counties and cities in how they plan for growth, consistent with the requirements and goals of this chapter and that [l]ocal comprehensive plans and development regulations require counties and cities to balance priorities and options for action in full consideration of local circumstances. RCW 36.70A.3201. But these amendments add little in the way of guidance. For example, the requirements to be guided by the best available science (BAS) in developing critical areas regulations and to give special consideration to protecting anadromous fisheries arguably conflict with the legislature's directive that growth management hearings boards defer to local balancing of local circumstances, if that local balancing is not in favor of critical areas. Id. It is with these numerous tensions in mind that we must decide whether Skagit County's critical areas ordinance complies with the GMA.