Drafter
Clerk 01/17/2012
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AN ORDINANCE authorizing the King County executive to execute an intergovernmental agreement with the Washington state Department of Ecology and the United States Army Corps of Engineers to allow King County to meet mitigation requirements in newly adopted federal rules through an in-lieu fee program, and to ensure consistency of the in-lieu program with the terms of the agreement; and amending Ordinance 11955, Section 9, as amended, and K.C.C. 2.16.045, Ordinance 15051, Section 151, and K.C.C. 21A.24.133, Ordinance 15051, Section 152, and K.C.C. 21A.24.137, Ordinance 10870, Section 486, as amended, and K.C.C. 21A.24.390, Ordinance 10870, Section 487, as amended, and K.C.C. 21A24.400, Ordinance 10870, Section 488, as amended, and K.C.C. 21A.24.410 and Ordinance 10870, Section 489, as amended, and K.C.C. 21A.24.420.
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STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. Permit applicants in King County whose proposed projects involve unavoidable impacts to aquatic resources are required to provide compensatory mitigation for such impacts by King County's Critical Areas Ordinance, in Ordinance 15051 from 2004.
2. Onsite compensatory mitigation is not always possible nor ecologically appropriate, and studies have shown that permittee offsite mitigation efforts have a high rate of failure.
3. An in-lieu fee mitigation program provides permittees the option of addressing offsite mitigation requirements by paying a fee in lieu of implementing their own mitigation to a program that typically has substantial mitigation experience.
4. Sponsors of such in lieu-fee programs use permittee-paid fees to implement appropriate compensatory mitigation in ways and in locations that provide a greater likelihood of continued ecological function and integrity of aquatic ecosystems.
5. King County's mitigation reserves program was established by King County's Critical Areas Ordinance, in Ordinance 15051, Sections 151 and 152, from 2004, and was implemented as an in-lieu ...
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