Opinion ID: 2623642
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mandatory Buffers

Text: ¶ 22 We next consider whether, as the Tribe contends, the GMA requires the county to establish mandatory buffers along streams and rivers on the upland strip of land. Buffers are strips of land contiguous to a watercourse, usually containing indigenous shrubs and trees. They are generally not used for agricultural purposes. See, e.g., Am. Br. of Swinomish Indian Tribal Cmty. at 5-6. The Tribe argued to the Board that because a provision of the GMA, RCW 36.70A. 172(1), requires the county to use BAS in developing protections for critical areas and because BAS supports requiring mandatory riparian buffers, then the GMA requires the county to establish such buffers. The Board held that BAS, and by extension the GMA, does not require the county to establish mandatory riparian buffers. Again, we agree with the Board. ¶ 23 In reaching this determination, we began by reviewing how the GMA instructs local governments to employ BAS. The legislature has expressly delegated to counties and cities the function of developing the specific means for protecting critical areas. See RCW 36.70A.3201. Under the GMA, counties and cities `have broad discretion in developing . . . [development regulations] tailored to local circumstances.' King County, 142 Wash.2d at 561, 14 P.3d 133 (alteration in original) (quoting Diehl v. Mason County, 94 Wash.App. 645, 651, 972 P.2d 543 (1999)). Moreover, the GMA does not require the county to follow BAS; rather, it is required to include BAS in its record. RCW 36.70A.172(1). Thus, the county may depart from BAS if it provides a reasoned justification for such a departure. See Ferry County v. Concerned Friends, 155 Wash.2d 824, 837-38, 123 P.3d 102 (2005); WAC 365-195-915(1)(c)(i)-(iii). Here, the county justified its decision to not require mandatory riparian buffers on the basis that doing so would impos[e] requirements to restore habitat functions and values that no longer exist. Resp't Skagit County's Resp. Br. at 44. This was based on a recognition of the fact that the vegetation that had made up the riparian buffers along streams and rivers was cleared long before there was a legal impediment to doing so. ¶ 24 If the omission of mandatory buffers from the county's critical areas ordinance is a departure from BAS, it is a justified departure of the kind that is tolerated by the GMA. As we have noted above, the GMA's requirement to protect does not impose a corresponding requirement to enhance. That holding guides us here. A requirement to develop buffers would impose an obligation on farmers to replant areas that were lawfully cleared in the past, which is the equivalent of enhancement. Without a duty to enhance being imposed by the GMA, however, we cannot require farmers within Skagit County to replant what was long ago plucked up. The county need not impose a requirement that farmers establish riparian buffers.