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Kittitas County staff propose modest Critical Areas Ordinance edits as residents push for wetland-map corrections
Summary
Consultants proposed minor CAO edits for clarity, mitigation ratios and director discretion; property owners urged the county to validate decades-old National Wetland Inventory maps and consider on-the-ground surveys or staff site visits to avoid imposing consultant costs on landowners.
Kittitas County consultants told the planning commission they proposed primarily clarifying edits to the county's Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO) to align with the best available science and state administrative code. The changes aim to refine language around maintenance of existing legally established structures, mitigation ratios for fish and wildlife habitat buffers, vegetative standards for buffers, and director discretion to require revegetation or additional conditions to protect groundwater in recharge areas.
Kyle Cotton, the consultant presenting the CAO update, said the edits were designed to be consistent with state guidance and to maintain the county's compliance. "Where applicable changes were made to adhere to the no net loss principle and align terms with definitions provided in the Washington Administrative Code," Cotton said.
Several property owners and commissioners raised practical concerns about wetland mapping. A long-standing theme was that the National Wetland Inventory (NWI) maps used as a starting point are sometimes outdated and can produce erroneous wetland designations on private properties. One property owner (speaker 3) said of the maps, "They're just wrong," and described hiring consultants previously to contest wetland designations and paying thousands of dollars for on-site reports.
Speakers asked who bears the cost and who hires consultants to confirm wetland boundaries; staff said it is typically the applicant/landowner who must hire a consultant to validate or contest a mapped wetland because on-site studies are the accepted method for defining buffer requirements. Staff and commissioners discussed whether the county could or should provide county-performed site assessments or create a local wetland-validation role to reduce property-owner costs, but cautioned that full remapping of the county would be costly and could produce mixed results.
Commissioners and staff also discussed mitigation-banking as a potential tool; staff said they had not fully vetted a mitigation-banking program though other counties operate such programs and there are maintenance and oversight costs to consider.
Next steps: the draft CAO edits will remain open for comment through the scoping period; staff encouraged citizens to submit technical information as part of the public record and said the planning commission has a May 12 public hearing scheduled to consider the updates before forwarding recommendations.
