Defending our Shorelines

Land Use

Critical Areas Ordinance Update Shoreline Master Program Update

Water

Endangered Species

Recent Actions

The Growth Management Act required San Juan County to promulgate its Critical Areas Ordinance in 2005.  The County has delayed that update for four years, but proposes to complete the update in 2010. 

In the meantime, FRIENDS encourages members of the public to attend CAO related hearings.

Click here to take the FRIENDS CAO Quiz

After approximately two years of State and County enforcement of an unpermitted 800-foot-long bulkhead, a groin, and two developed picnic areas on a potential forage fish beach, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) approved the retention of the bulkhead.

In December 2009, FRIENDS filed a challenge of this bulkhead with the Washington Hydraulics Appeal Board, requesting reversal of the approval on the grounds that the bulkhead does not meet WDFW’s no-net-loss standards.

On January 15, 2010, FRIENDS submitted public comments in response to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s proposed vessel regulations for the Southern Resident Killer Whale. Friends expressed support for the regulations’ proposals to preclude vessels from approaching within 200 yards of the whales and to avoid parking in the path of transiting whales.

In addition, FRIENDS encouraged NMFS to establish a no-go zone for the whales in a location identified by scientists as the primary feeding area off the southwestern shores of San Juan Island. FRIENDS chastised NMFS, however, for failing to take prompt action on such substantial threats to the orcas’ continued existence as their lack of salmon and bioaccumulation of toxins. For more details, read the comment letter here.

On October 14, 2009, FRIENDS submitted a comment letter that identified flaws in the County's environmental review of its proposal to convert a section of Jackson Beach into a barge landing site.  The County's proposal indicates that the barge landing could see significant use, including regular loads of gravel, houses, asphalt, propane, diesel, and even vehicles. 

Notwithstanding the potential for these activities to substantially impact eelgrass, potential surf smelt spawning habitat, Pacific sand lance spawning habitat, and the tranquility of the neighborhood, the County deferred any meaningful environmental review until a later stage in the development process.  The County has withdrawn its proposal in favor of a different approach, which also has not undergone any environmental review.

On October 16, 2009, FRIENDS submitted comments to San Juan County to identify the procedural errors in the County's proposal to rezone six acres of farmland to rural industrial land for the trash transfer station.  Without expressing an opinion about the proper location for the trash transfer station, FRIENDS stated that the continued conversion of agricultural lands to other uses frustrates the Growth Management Act mandate to protect such resource lands. 

In addition, the County's staff recommendation implied that the agricultural zoning was merely a mapping error, without explaining how it was an error, and suggested the rezone was necessary to correct that error.  Lastly, notwithstanding the rigorous legal criteria for a rezone, the proposal offered little justification to support the proposed rezone, and if approved could have established a dangerously low threshold for site-specific rezone proposals in San Juan County.  The County Planning Commission subsequently recommended against the rezone.

During Summer 2008, FRIENDS successfully challenged a San Juan County settlement agreement with a dock applicant that would have allowed a single-user dock over eelgrass in exchange for the removal of a distant, unpermitted mooring buoy.  On August 25, 2008, the Shorelines Hearings Board issued a decision denying that dock on the grounds that the applicant had alternative access to his property that was sufficient given his intended use of the property, and due to the adverse environmental impact to the eelgrass bed. 

The San Juan County Superior Court subsequently reversed that decision in an opinion that inappropriately reevaluated the credibility of the facts before the Board.  On October 19, 2009, FRIENDS appealed the superior court decision to the State Court of Appeals. 

On January 4, 2010, FRIENDS submitted to the Court of Appeals a brief requesting that the court reinstate the SHB decision.

During Summer 2008, FRIENDS participated in a challenge to a bulkhead on a surf smelt spawning beach adjacent to an eelgrass bed that hosts spawning Pacific herring.  The applicants requested the bulkhead because it would improve the aesthetics of their untidy shoreline and because it would decrease already-minimal erosion impacts to their lawn and a few shoreline trees.  The applicants initially failed to identify the surf smelt, herring, and eelgrass.

In accord with written and oral testimony provided by FRIENDS, on October 31, 2008, the Hearing Examiner denied the bulkhead on the grounds that it was unnecessary and would wreak significant impacts on the surf smelt habitat. 

The applicants promptly appealed that decision to the Shorelines Hearings Board, which reversed the denial and approved the bulkhead on the grounds that it was necessary to prevent the chance of storm-driven erosion and, in a decision that contravenes the best available coastal geology expertise, that it would not harm the surf smelt spawning beach.  FRIENDS was not named a party to that appeal, and did not participate.

In response to the County's subsequent issuance of a permit for the bulkhead, on July 6, 2009, FRIENDS filed an appeal with the Board.  The Board dismissed that appeal on procedural grounds, and the Superior Court upheld that dismissal, notwithstanding recent photographs that FRIENDS offered to show that the applicants had removed the lawn and landscaping and most of the trees they had relied upon in requesting the bulkhead.

On July 15, 2009, the Hearing Examiner denied a dock whose pier and ramp would extend over an eelgrass bed, while its float would lie within an identified void in the bed.  The denial rested on several grounds that FRIENDS had offered in written and oral testimony, including: (a) aesthetic impacts to a State Scenic Byway; (b) likely impacts to eelgrass; and (c) lack of need for the dock.  During the Hearing Examiner process, FRIENDS collaborated with a neighbor with similar concerns about the marine environment.  The applicants have appealed this matter to the State Shorelines Hearings Board and, FRIENDS has intervened to assist in the defense of the Hearing Examiner denial.

In a parallel proceeding, on April 30, 3009, the State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) granted a Hydraulic Project Approval (HPA) for the dock.

FRIENDS filed an informal appeal with WDFW on the grounds that the dock violates WDFW no-net-loss regulations, which prohibit impacts to marine resources and, specifically, shading of eelgrass.  WDFW disagreed with FRIENDS that the mandate that docks shall be designed and located to avoid shading of eelgrass, requires the avoidance of shading of eelgrass, but did withdraw the HPA on the grounds that pilings embedded in the eelgrass bed could adversely impact eelgrass.  On December 28, WDFW issued a new HPA based on an eelgrass transplanting and monitoring project and the removal of a concrete block on the seafloor. FRIENDS subsequently challenged this HPA on many of the same grounds as its initial challenge.