Expert says wetland ratings and mitigation fall short; warns project risks 'no net loss'

Rachel Hyland, an associate principal and managing senior environmental scientist at Soundview Consultants (part of Trinity Consultants), told the hearing examiner she found multiple technical problems in the project's wetland and critical-area documentation that, taken together, mean the record does not demonstrate compliance with the shoreline master program's no-net-loss standard.

Hyland said she identified scoring errors in the wetland ratings used in the project's delineation report, including an undercount of water-quality function because Lake Washington is listed as an impaired water on the state Water Quality Atlas. "When you bump that score up," she said, "you move a wetland from a category 3 to a category 2 and that typically increases the buffer from 75 feet to 100 feet." She said similar adjustments to the habitat score would increase some buffers further.

Hyland testified she also found inconsistencies on data forms and a site visit…