Experts disagree over wetland extent at Silverview site after county-ordered peer review

Experts who visited the Silverview property in Silverdale gave sharply different accounts this week of whether meadow areas meet the three legal parameters for wetlands — hydrology, hydrophytic vegetation and hydric soil — and how large any regulatory wetland is.

A peer reviewer retained by Kitsap County, Christopher Wright of Radke Associates, testified that his team opened six test pits and found hydric soil meeting the A-11 indicator at one location (their Sample Plot 2) but not at five others. Wright said some pits were dug during a dry period and that the agency with jurisdiction, the Washington Department of Ecology, had earlier accepted a smaller mapped wetland for the site.

The split matters because the Hearing Examiner ordered a remand limited in part to a focused review of soil indicators. Why it matters: wetland boundaries determine which areas are subject to county code controls and whether the project would require mitigation or avoidance.

Wright described standard field practice: when a prior pit is obvious or disturbed, a reviewer opens a new, undisturbed hole “in close proximity” (he said…