WHATCOM COUNTYCOUNCIL AGENDA BILL NO

Transcription

1 WHATCOM COUNTYCOUNCIL AGENDA BILL NO CLEARANCES Initial Date Date Received in Council Office Agenda Date Assigned to: Originator: 2/23/2015 3/3/2015 NR & Council Division Head: Dept. Head: '--' ~~.,.(').? Prosecutor: ~/. Purchasing/Budget: Executive. TITLE OFDOCUMENT: Resolution providing guidance to the WRIA 1 Planning Unit ATTACHMENTS: SEPA review required? ( ) Yes ( ) NO Should Clerk schedule a hearing? ( ) Yes ( ) NO SEPA review completed? ( ) Yes ( ) NO Requested Date: SUMMARYSTATEMENT OR LEGAL NOTICE LANGUAGE: ( Ifthis item is an ordinance or requires a public hearing, you mustprovide the language for use in the requiredpublic notice. Be specific and cite RCWor WCC as appropriate. Be clear in explaining the intent ofthe action.) Resolution providing guidance to the WRIA 1 Planning Unit COMMITTEE ACTION: COUNCIL ACTION: 3/3/2015: Amended and approved in Natural Resources 3/ 3/2015: Amended and approved 6-0, Res Committee, forwarded to Council for approval Related County Contract #: Related File Numbers: Ordinance or Resolution Number: Res Please Note: Once adopted and signed, ordinances and resolutions are available for viewing and printing on the County's website at: www. co. whatcom. wa. us/council.

2 PROPOSED BY: Weimer SPONSORED BY: Weimer INTRODUCTION DATE: March 3, 2015 RESOLUTION NO PROVIDING GUIDANCE TO THE WATER RESOURCE INVENTORY AREA 1 ( WRIA 1) PLANNING UNIT WHEREAS, in 2013 the Whatcom County Council passed resolution recognizing the role of the WRIA 1 Planning Unit in assisting the Whatcom County Council regarding water resource issues; and WHEREAS, the WRIA 1 Planning Unit has spent much of the past year and a half reorganizing and reviewing information in preparation for once again providing a multi-stakeholder voice in various water planning issues; and WHEREAS, the Whatcom County Council recognizes the need for a well represented multistakeholder group to provide independent advice on a range of water issues; and WHEREAS, the WRIA 1 Planning Unit has adapted their meeting procedures to be able to provide advice to the County in a timely manner; and WHEREAS, WRIA 1 Planning Unit members in a recent meeting with the County Council to present the Planning Unit's work plan requested guidance from the County Council regarding which water issues the Council would like them to provide input on; and WHEREAS, the WRIA 1 Planning Unit is unique from other County advisory committees because representatives to the Planning Unit are selected by members of their own stakeholder caucuses instead of being appointed by the Council or Executive; and WHEREAS, some of the WRIA 1 Planning Unit's water resource interest caucuses are made up of diverse individuals and groups not typically organized as a single voice; and WHEREAS, the Whatcom County Council believes that transparency in the procedures used for caucus outreach, operations, and to select caucus representatives will help build trust in the WRIA 1 Planning Unit advice; day of_...::..: Mc= ar::...: c:..: h, WHATCOM COUNTY COUNCIL WHATCOM COUNTY, WASHINGTON Carl Weimer, Council Chair

3 EXHIBIT A WRIA 1 Planning Unit Guidance Re-engagement Documentation The County Council believes that trust in the Planning Unit function is dependent on sufficient transparency in the selection of caucus representatives and operation of the caucuses. During the initial formation of the caucuses Addendum # 2 to the Structure and Function document spelled out 6 requirements for caucus participation. Those requirements were: 1. A list of organizations and/or individuals that were invited, notified, or have requested inclusion in the caucus. 2. A list of individuals and the organizations currently represented by caucus membership. 3. An explanation of how the Planning Unit caucus representative was selected by the caucus membership, and the term of the Planning Unit caucus representative. 4. A summary of caucus formation meetings, correspondence, and other membership outreach activities that have occurred prior to the first Planning Unit Meeting. 5. Caucus operating procedures describing the authority of the Planning Unit representative and of any other officials of the caucus ( such as chair, treasurer, recorder, etc.); meeting frequency; means of communication; basis for decisions making; etc. 6. A written request of resources needed to facilitate caucus formation, operation, and participation on the Planning Unit. While the County Council recognizes that it was not the fault of the Planning Unit that there was an extended period of time when there was little or no caucus communication or engagement, it is still true that for trust and transparency to be reestablished that caucuses should again confirm participation by providing the Council with documentation regarding the caucuses current operations and leadership by once again submitting the required six items listed above. This requirement only pertains to the ten Water Resource Interest caucuses listed in the Structure and Function document. Please answer these items pertaining to how the caucus was reactivated in 2013 or If a caucus has already provided this information to the County since re-formation in 2013 there is no need to do it again. Please provide this information to the Council Office by April 1, Program Review The County Council is interested in getting review of the current situation on the following issues and recommendations for changes needed to better protect water quality, increase water availability for fish and humans, restore habitat toward renewing a sustainable salmon fishery, and better integrate our land use policies with water resource protection.

4 Review Implementation of the five recommended WRIA-Wide programs from the Watershed Management Plan. Provide the Council a synopsis of what has been implemented, what has not been implemented, and recommendations for full implementation. This review will help integrate the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Plan with the 2016 Comprehensive Plan update. Those five WRIA-wide programs were: Compliance Program -The purpose of the WRIA 1 Compliance Program is to 1) improve compliance with water-related environmental regulations using coordinated, interagency education, technical assistance, enforcement, and compliance monitoring; and 2) to determine the effectiveness of water-related regulations. Low Impact Development -The purpose of the Low Impact Development program is to reduce development impacts on water resources through the increased use of Low Impact Development techniques. Natural Resources Policy Integration -The purpose of the Natural Resource Policy Integration ( NRPI) program is to assure improved coordination among waterrelated natural resource plans and policies developed within the jurisdictions of WRIA 1. Public Involvement and Education -The purpose of the Public Involvement and Education ( P.I.E.) Program is to continue to build the community's capacity to understand general water resource issues, with the eventual goal of more extensive community engagement in the development of water-related policies in WRIA 1. Water Use Efficiency - The purpose of the WRIA 1 Water Use Efficiency Program is to identify water use efficiency measures for domestic, municipal, commercial, industrial, and agricultural water supplies and to identify and remove legal disincentives to water use efficiency programs. Review of the implementation of the WRIA 1 Long Term Monitoring Program. Provide overview of what parts have been implemented, what parts have not, and prioritized recommendations for any needed improvements or additions to the current status. Review the Lower Nooksack Strategy to determine which parts of the strategy have been adequately accomplished, which parts are in the works and are being implemented adequately, which parts have been permanently or temporarily abandoned, which parts are still scheduled to be accomplished and what the timeline for those are, and what programs to accomplish the goal of "Economic and environmental certainty for stakeholders and communities that share the Lower Nooksack River Sub-basin" are either missing from the strategy or are not being adequately implemented at this time. Provide a comparison of this strategy to the agreed upon Instream Flow Action Plan in the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Plan. Resource Needs The County Council has appropriated $ 40,000 for support of Planning Unit efforts in ,000 for meeting facilitation, and $ 10,000 for Caucus support. We have assumed that staff from the pertinent County departments - Public Works, Planning and Development Services, and Health will be made available to brief the Planning Unit on current programs and efforts,

5 and to assist with administrative and informational needs. We also have assumed that staff from other Caucuses will be available to assist the Planning Unit as reasonably requested. We believe that the reviews requested above should not require any additional funding for Planning Unit completion, but if that assumption turns out to be incorrect please let us know and provide a detailed budget request as early as possible. We believe review of the above stated programs will help bring the entire Planning Unit back up to speed on these important issues, and allow the Planning Unit to once again serve the important role of providing multiple stakeholder groups a valued voice in Whatcom County water planning. As we believe you are aware money for watershed planning efforts from the Department of Ecology has pretty much dried up, and money that Whatcom County provided from the Flood Fund to be administered by the Joint Board for implementation of many of the WRIA 1 efforts is due to run out near the end of this year. This funding dilemma will give us all an opportunity to rethink the best way to cooperatively engage and fund the implementation of the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Plan to make needed progress on the issues of water availability for fish and humans, water quality, and habitat. A fully re-engaged Planning Unit should play an important role in that discussion. Ongoing Communication To ensure ongoing communication between the Planning Unit and the Council we would like to start dedicating a portion of our Water Work Sessions to joint meetings, where we can more informally discuss both group's findings and needs. To start we suggest making these quarterly meetings to be held April 21, July 28 and October 20 this year. These meetings normally take place at 10:30 AM. The County's representative on the Planning Unit will help arrange these meetings, and if the Planning Unit needs to provide briefings between these meetings he can also arrange times during our normal Natural Resource Committee meetings on regular County Council meeting days.