Restoration planning

STEP 6 - Approval and Follow Through

Ecology must approve every SMP before it takes effect, and Ecology's approval can be appealed administratively and then to the courts. RCW 90.58.190.

Other Guidelines relevant to restoration planning:

• WAC 173-26-186(8), especially subsection (c)(”These master program elements regarding restoration should make real and meaningful use of established or funded nonregulatory policies and programs that contribute to restoration of ecological functions, and should appropriately consider the direct or indirect effects of other regulatory or nonregulatory programs under other local, state, and federal laws, as well as any restoration effects that may flow indirectly from shoreline development regulations and mitigation standards.”)
• WAC 173-26-186(4) and (5) (”The planning policies of master programs (as distinguished from the development regulations of master programs) may be achieved by a number of means, only one of which is the regulation of development.” “The policy goals of the act, implemented by the planning policies of master programs, may not be achievable by development regulation alone.”)
  All of RCW 90.58.020 and WAC 173-26-176 (concerning the "conflict" between protection of and use of shorelines)
• WAC 173-26-186(6) (”The territorial jurisdictions of the master program's planning function and regulatory function are legally distinct. The planning function may, and in some circumstances must, look beyond the territorial limits of shorelines of the state. RCW 90.58.340.”)
• WAC 173-26-201(3)(d)(viii) (”Identify how existing shoreline vegetation provides ecological functions and determine methods to ensure protection of those functions.”)

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