03/11/2010: "Council Moves Forward On BAS"

ig_Paul_Adamus-001 (41k image) The County Council has agreed to hire Professor Paul Adamus to provide some of the data and the analysis necessary for the County to move forward on review and adoption of the Best Available Science (BAS) that is required to review and update the Critical Area Ordinance (CAO).

Last February County Prosecutor Randy Gaylord informed the County Council they had yet to adopt BAS as required by the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 365-195-905 and 173-26-201, specifically that “the responsibility for including the best available science…rests with the legislative authority of the county..”

Gaylord said the lawis even more specific when it comes to CAO for the shoreline, stating it is to be a two step process to “first identify and assemble the most current, accurate, and complete” science that is “applicable to the issues of concern;: and second use the adopted science when reviewing and writing regulations.

As for hiring Professor Adamus to lend a hand in the process, Gaylord points out the law states “when feasible, counties…should consult with a qualified scientific expert..”

For the County, "when feasible" includes money. County Administrator Pete Rose prepared a draft Scope of Services to be performed by Adamus, with an estimated cost range of $58,480 to $99,420.00.

Adamus would work with staff, the public and local scientist to perform six tasks to generate BAS for the wetlands and wildlife habitat data to be used for the review and updating of the CAO. The BAS will be available for use with both the uplands and shoreline CAO updates, since both have to be compatible with each other.

The full scope of work follows:

SCOPE OF SERVICES WETLANDS SCIENCE BEST AVAILABLE SCIENCE REVIEW

This task seeks the consultant to provide professional services for the review of best available science for wetlands. In identifying relevant technical literature, the consultant shall use his professional judgment and when necessary the criteria identified in the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) Chapter 365-195-905 titled, “Criteria for determining which information is the ‘best available science’”.

To satisfy the goals of reducing costs and minimizing time to prepare the necessary reports, the consultant should use, as much as possible, prior and existing reports on the best available science which have been prepared for other Washington State jurisdictions including, but not limited to reports prepared for the Washington State Department of Ecology and other cities and counties including Island County. This is not intended to limit or create any type of preference for an approach or source of information considered by the consultant to be appropriate.

The County Council will issue a call to its citizens for science that should be reviewed in this process. That will result in an additional task to evaluate this among other items identified in the BAS review.
For sequencing, it is anticipated that within the first 2 weeks of starting work on this project, the consultant will produce a list of all the literature the consultant has identified as relevant, and release that with the public call for additions. While awaiting additions from the public, the consultant will review and abstract the key ones listed. Once the consultant receives the additional suggestions, the consultant will review and abstract those, then prepare the BAS synthesis report.

Task 1: Best Available Science Review: The consultant will identify, catalog, review, and extract technical literature relevant to the wetlands and their functions in San Juan County (SJC).

Task 2: Evaluation of materials submitted in SJC call for best available science (BAS). The consultant will evaluate the merit and weight that should be given to the scientific reports submitted in the citizen call for BAS. In considering the material submitted, the consultant shall use the criteria identified in WAC 365- 195-905.

Task 3: Preparation of summaries and/or synthesis: Prepare a report that summarizes and/or synthesizes the technical literature that the consultant identifies as relevant to the wetlands and their functions in San Juan County.

Task 4: Review of Policies and Regulations: Assist the county in determining whether the science summary and/or synthesis indicate that policies or regulations should be changed, and if so, in what manner.

Task 5: Risk to Ecological Function: Taking into account the scientific information, assumptions and policy choices that are made where scientific information is not available, prepare a memorandum identifying the risk to ecological function that is associated with proposals for policy and regulatory changes. This shall be accomplished after the first workshop with the planning commission and before the first hearing with the planning commission.

Task 6: Attend (in person or by video-conference) and provide verbal reports to the planning commission and county council at dates to be arranged.