PORT ANGELES — Clallam County is ramping up its work on a new game plan for land regulations around shorelines.
Three consultants from ESA Adolfson of Seattle met with county commissioners Monday for a status report on developing that plan.
The state requires all cities and counties to update their Shoreline Master Programs based on a “no net loss of ecological function” by 2014. Clallam County’s current shoreline plan has been in effect since 1976.
ESA representatives, county staff and the Olympic Natural Resource Center have launched a three-year effort to take an inventory of 800 miles of marine and freshwater shorelines in the county.
The consulting firm, which is working under a $599,930 agreement with the county, will incorporate public input and technical data to draft new regulations for shoreline uses.
New restrictions on development, such as buffer zones, will depend on a new designations in the shoreline update.
Margaret Clancy, ESA project manager, has helped other jurisdictions, including Jefferson County, update their own plans.
Clancy was joined by fellow consultants Jim Kramer and Ann Seiter in a half-hour discuss in the commissioners’ work session at the courthouse in Port Angeles. No action was taken.
After the county approves a shoreline update — based on the Shoreline Management Act — it will be sent to the state Department of Ecology for review.
Clancy said the goals of updates are to protect shoreline ecology, provide public access to shorelines and to “accommodate water-oriented uses of the shoreline.”
The federal Environmental Protection Agency is funding much of the work through a $1 million grant that the county received in August.
“Clallam County is unique in that the county was able to receive addition funds, federal funds from the EPA, to do what we believe and hope will be a more innovative and forward-thinking approach to a master program update, specifically focused on this idea of no net loss of shoreline ecological functions,” Clancy said.
“What does that mean? How do we achieve that?
“We’re going to try to do that in a more quantitative and specifically explicit way by actually going out and measuring the condition of the shoreline using these indicators.
“That will enable us to go back over time and judge how the shoreline is faring.”
Clallam County is administering the EPA grant on behalf of partners Jefferson County and the state Department of Ecology.
“Right now, we’re engaged in the process of selecting these ecological indicators,” Clancy said.
“We’re doing that in conjunction with our shoreline inventory where we take a comprehensive look at the shoreline. We’ve got to characterize the condition of the shoreline.
“We look at land use as well as shoreline ecology. That, in conjunction with our public outreach, will help up to form a strategic vision for the shoreline update.”
In the first quarter of next year, ESA will gather focus groups, hold four regional public forums, meet with commissioners and tribal councils and conduct further shoreline inventories.
Commissioners approved a public participation strategy for the update in March.
Public outreach will be a key element of the update, Kramer said. Some property owners in other jurisdictions have felt their rights were being infringed upon as shoreline laws become more stringent, he said.
The current timeline puts a draft update of the shoreline plan before the Clallam County Planning Commission in April 2012.
Commissioner Steve Tharinger, also a state representative-elect and member of the Puget Sound Partnership, said the EPA grant will help other jurisdictions around the Puget Sound basin to update their own shoreline plans.
“I’m think that’s exciting,” Tharinger said.
A $550,000 state grant for the project will expire in June 2012.
Tharinger said the grant deadlines may be extended if the funding for shoreline updates is cut in Olympia.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.