The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

Wahkiakum County and the Town of Cathlamet, have spent the last two years working on a Shoreline Master Program for the state.

The project, funded by the Department of Ecology, gives a voice to local agencies and citizens and creates a dialogue with the state when it comes to enforcing the Shoreline Management Act which:

• “Encourages reasonable and orderly development of shorelines;

• Protects the natural character of Washington shorelines, including the land, vegetation, wildlife and environment;

• Promotes public access and opportunities to enjoy views and recreation.”

The public has been invited to provide input at several meetings over the last couple years.

Wahkiakum County Public Works Director Chuck Beyer is optimistic that the local commission, made up of citizens from all over the county and appointed by county commissioners, is nearly finished with the lengthy project.

“The state mandated every county and municipality in the state to update their SMPs by a certain date,” Beyer said. “It came our turn and so we were secured some money through the state to hire a consultant, CREST (Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce) to update our plan for us. We’ve gone through two years of meetings and workshops and the planning commission have been going through the plans, making them as local as we can, within the guidelines set by DOE. We’ve tried to be as liberal for our citizens as we can.”

“We are in our final draft,” he continued. “The planning commission will be reviewing it at the April meeting. We’re getting down to the meat and potatoes of it. We’ve fine tuned it as much as we can with our planning commissioners, and we hope to be making a recommendation to the county commissioners at their April meeting. We’ve set a time frame to have something to the DOE by the end of the year.”

The last shoreline master program was adopted in 1975, according to a Community Participation Strategy document that can be found on the Wahkiakum County website.

In order to create an SMP, the commission must classify and survey the existing conditions of all the shoreline areas in the county, including wetlands and floodplains.

One hope is that the program will reduce injury to the shoreline by recognizing the areas that are more environmentally sensitive and areas that are safe to develop.

“We were supposed to have the SMP done by June of this year but the DOE gave us an extension,” Beyer said. “Our funding runs out June 30, 2017.”

He believes they’ll have the program completed well before then.