Prime farmland may still be at risk under new reg, they argue

By COOKSON BEECHER

Capital Press

Although Washington state has adopted a wetland-mitigation-banking rule that takes the need to protect farmland into account, farmland-preservation leaders say it doesn't go far enough to do that.

Allen Rozema, executive director of Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland, said the new rule makes it "only marginally harder" to convert prime farmland into wetland banks.

"It is a fact that the private wetland-mitigation-banking industry is not economically viable if agricultural lands are not available for banking," he said.

Dan Wood, director of local affairs for the state's Farm Bureau, said that while it might be "a little bit harder" to harm farms under the new rule, if the end result is unchanged, agriculture is no better off.

"It would be far better to mitigate impacts to wetlands by using impact fees to pay farmers for the environmental benefits they already provide, such as water filtration, floodwater dispersal and wildlife habitat," he said.

Wetland-mitigation banks allow developers and government entities overseeing road construction and other projects to buy credits to compensate for wetlands destroyed by the projects. State and federal laws prohibit the loss of wetlands due to development.

In a Sept. 3 press release from the Ecology Department, Lauren Driscoll, who oversees the department's wetland-mitigation-banking program, said the final rule contains provisions to ensure that mitigation-bank sites comply with and support local shoreline regulations as well as support local salmon recovery, surface water recovery and watershed management plans.

"We also want to ensure that wetland banks are compatible with working farms," Driscoll said. "The rule includes considerations for locating and designing banks so that they don't adversely affect adjacent farmland."

In an interview with Capital Press, Driscoll said the real issue involving farmland is the soil and its productivity.

"We strongly discourage putting wetland-mitigation banks on prime farmland," she said.

If a wetland-mitigation bank is going to be on farmland, she said, the effects on the soil have to be minimized and the project has to have an overarching goal such as salmon protection.

The department "heard loud and clear" from conservation districts with large areas of ag-zoned land located within them that some of those areas are too wet to farm.

For that reason, representatives from those conservation districts told the department they didn't want to undermine the ability of farmers to sell their land to wetland-mitigation bank developers.

The state has already certified eight wetland mitigation banks across the state, and another six are in the certification process.

In addition, there are also four other non-Ecology certified wetland mitigation banks operating in the state.

Staff writer Cookson Beecher is based in Sedro-Woolley, Wash. E-mail: cbeecher@capitalpress.com.

On the net:

To read the final rule, go to www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/wetlands/mitigation/rule/index.html

To see a map of existing and proposed wetland mitigation banks in Washington state, go to www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/wetlands/mitigation/banking/map.html

Meeting

An appeal of the controversial Clear Valley wetland-mitigation bank in the Nookachamps Basin slated for farmland in Skagit County, Wash., will come before the county's hearing examiner on Sept. 25.

The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. and will be held in the hearing room at 1800 Continental Place, Mount Vernon, Wash.