Residents greet shoreline plan with criticism

A proposed revision of Spokane County’s shoreline regulations has too many “mays” and not enough “shalls” and isn’t tough enough on septic tanks, several residents told county commissioners Tuesday.

The biggest problem is retention of a 50-foot buffer in which construction is prohibited along the county’s larger lakes, rivers and creeks, according to Doug Pineo, shore lands specialist for the state Department Ecology.

The current 50-foot setback “doesn’t adequately protect a lot of your lake shorelines, and that has got to be corrected,” Pineo said. “The best science would suggest someplace between 100 and 250 feet.”

Pineo’s opinion has extra weight because his agency must approve the county’s plan.

County commissioners are under pressure to complete the much-delayed revision quickly to prevent Ecology officials from exercising their authority to rewrite the plan themselves. A state-imposed plan would remain in effect until commissioners came up with a plan acceptable to state officials.

Commission Chairman Mark Richard said he thinks commissioners will complete their work by the end of the year at the latest. Pineo acknowledged that the most recent delay resulted from county efforts to respond to Ecology criticisms last summer, and said the department plans to continue working with county officials.

County officials had accepted a state grant to speed up the work, but three deadlines passed without completion.

A public hearing scheduled last September was postponed until Tuesday while county and state officials worked to resolve their differences.

County planner Jim Falk said the most important part of the revised regulations is a requirement that development cannot cause any degradation of “environmental function.” But Lindell Haggin, who served on a citizen advisory committee that helped draft the new ordinance, questioned how well that goal will be implemented.

“There is entirely too much discretion given to the director of building,” Haggin said. “I am not sure the director (Jim Manson) has the background or interest to determine whether there will be a net loss in environmental function for a project.”

Haggin said a vital part of the proposed regulations is a requirement for appeals to be resolved before construction starts.

Neighborhood Alliance spokeswoman Carol Sebastian agreed there is too much discretion in the new regulations.

Sebastian, Haggin and Stan Miller, formerly Spokane County’s aquifer protection coordinator, told commissioners the proposed regulations improperly abandon a requirement that septic systems be at least 10 feet above ground water. Instead, the Spokane Regional Health District would take over enforcement under rules that would allow septic tanks to be less than three feet above ground water. That could hamper the county’s efforts to comply with new requirements to reduce the amount of phosphorus in the Spokane River, according to Miller.

He said one way to meet the new standard is to take credit for replacing septic tanks with sewers. With a 10-foot buffer, phosphorus from new septic tanks would take 10 years to reach the river – enough time for the county to build a sewage treatment plant that will offset the damage, Miller said.

“Any house that would be built with a three-foot separation now, under the new rules, would have its phosphorus getting into the Spokane River in five or six years,” Miller said. “That phosphorus from one single house effectively eliminates the benefit of sewering 1,000 homes.”

Dale Gill worried that portions of the plan aimed at improving public access to waterways would allow boaters onto his Little Spokane River property if he improved the shoreline.

“If you are trying to preserve the shoreline and the integrity of the aquatic ecosystem, then you certainly don’t want people taking their canoes and walking them around logs and over falls and things like that,” Gill said.

Others argued for less restrictive designations of their shoreline properties. They included Jim Frank, who is developing 600 acres of riverfront property at Liberty Lake that is owned by Centennial Properties, a subsidiary of Cowles Co., which owns The Spokesman-Review.

County commissioners will continue to receive written comments through Friday. They agreed to take up the issue again at 5 p.m. Aug. 14.