Anacortes to get state money for shoreline planning

The state Department of Ecology is providing $6.3 million in legislatively approved grants to 70 cities and counties in the Puget Sound region, including $96,969 to the City of Anacortes to help push the city's shoreline master program along.

The $6.3 million will be divided among six counties and 64 cities based on factors such as miles of shoreline, number of shoreline types, population and growth rates.  The money will protect and restore more than 3,000 miles of marine, stream and lake shorelines throughout Puget Sound.

Shoreline master programs are the cornerstone of the Shoreline Management Act passed by voter referendum in 1972. Under the act, communities develop master programs to guide local decisions about shoreline uses such as ports, ferry terminals, residential neighborhoods, and public access to waterfront areas.

The local regulations are also designed to protect water quality and critical habitat, control beach and stream bank erosion, and increase flood protection along marine shorelines and shoreline areas around larger lakes and streams.
    
“From the San Juans to the Sound’s southern tip, 120 of the 130 local governments in the Puget Sound region are still using largely the same shoreline master programs they adopted in the 1970s,” said Ecology’s Gordon White, who oversees statewide shorelands activities. “Yet in the past 30 years, the area’s population has ballooned by nearly 60 percent. If we hope to restore, protect and preserve the Sound, we’ve got to start by managing our shoreline areas wisely.”

State law requires jurisdictions to periodically review and revise their shoreline regulations. More than 70 cities and counties, including others in the Puget Sound, are currently updating their programs.