The city of Anacortes tallied a victory with a Washington State Supreme Court ruling Thursday. But environmental groups deemed the decision, which upheld Anacortes’ shoreline planning process, a loss with potentially far-reaching consequences.

The court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that a law passed by the state Legislature in 2003 meant that shoreline critical areas shall be governed by shoreline master programs rather than the Growth Management Act and critical areas ordinances.

The city had updated its shorelines protection program in 2000, but the state Department of Ecology, Evergreen Islands and other environmental groups sued, arguing that a completely new program was called for.

Thursday’s Supreme Court decision validates Anacortes’ approach.

State officials said it is too soon to say what the court’s ruling means.

“It is a complicated decision that came down,” Department of Ecology spokesman Curt Hart said. “We are still looking and analyzing the decision.”

Parties in the case included Ecology, environmental organizations Futurewise, Evergreen Islands and Skagit Audubon Society, the city of Anacortes and others.

At issue were the jurisdictions of two state acts, and earlier decisions by the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board (in favor of Anacortes) and Thurston County Superior Court (in favor of Futurewise). The state Supreme Court appeal was brought by Anacortes.

Anacortes Mayor Dean Maxwell said Thursday’s ruling affirms his city’s position, which is that shorelines are governed by the state’s Shoreline Management Act and not the state Growth Management Act.

“The majority of our economy is based on access to the water. We have a port, any number of boat builders and marinas, and the vast majority of our shoreline, absent the industrial areas, is protected with buffers,” said Maxwell.

Under the Growth Management Act, extra levels of protection are required for so-called “critical areas,” such as wildlife habitats and wetlands, said Futurewise Planning Director Tim Trohimovich.

Trohimovich said the state Supreme Court decision will reach beyond Anacortes’ shores.

“It will have implications statewide,” he said. “... For instance, Snohomish County last year adopted as part of their critical areas ordinance a buffer to protect the Puget Sound that they did not have in their Shoreline Master (Project).”

Trohimovich said Thursday’s ruling means shorelines are now governed only by shoreline master projects, an element of the Shoreline Management Act, and not a community’s critical areas ordinance, an element of the Growth Management Act.

“I sure hope that is not the case but I guess that is part of what needs to be evaluated now that this decision has come down,” said People for Puget Sound Executive Director Kathy Fletcher, who stressed that she is not a lawyer. She read the ruling to mean that in the future cities cannot mingle policies related to the Growth Management Act with those from the Shoreline Management Act.

“I think that is good proof then that we need some time to understand the words that are written in this Supreme Court decision,” said Gordon White, who manages the state’s shorelands, wetlands and floodplains for the Department of Ecology.

“This decision has many layers and we have to read them very carefully before we decide whether this has statewide applicability,” he said.

The 10-page majority decision is devoted in large part to discerning the meaning of a 2003 state law that states “As of the date the department of ecology approves a local government’s shoreline master program ... the protection of critical areas ... shall be accomplished only through the local government’s shoreline master program.”

Therefore if a shoreline master program is adopted, then a city’s critical areas ordinance does not apply to its shorelines, said the five-justice majority. But the four-justice minority looked more closely at the verb “approves” in the state law. “This language is prospective,” said Justice Tom Chambers’ dissent.

The dissent argued that only when a new shoreline master plan is approved does the Growth Management Act lose applicability.
Even for Anacortes, the implications of the ruling are still fuzzy, Hart said.

He said the elements of the city’s current policy may now be subject to further review by Ecology, thanks to powers hinted at in the ruling.

“One thing that is clear is that the Supreme Court decision apparently ... puts Ecology in the role of reviewing and approving all local critical area ordinances. That is one of the things that we have surmised in the decision,” Hart said.

“The other thing that I do know,” said Hart, is that “the state has 20 days to file a motion for reconsideration.”

n Elliott Wilson can be reached at 360-416-2147 or .