The Board of Lewis County Commissioners delayed a hearing Monday on an update to the county’s Critical Areas Ordinance, the result of clerical changes that required an extension of the public comment period.
The county must periodically update guidelines for its critical areas as required by state law. Such areas are wetlands, aquifer recharge areas, frequently flooded areas, geologically hazardous areas and fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas.
The 100-page ordinance as originally submitted required two changes, one updating its effective date to July 1, 2018, after the line had been left blank. The other added three soils to a table of soil types. Because of the changes, the public must be given an extended period of time to comment, pushing the hearing back to June 25.
Senior long-range planner Fred Evander called the update a more “robust” guideline. Under the previous critical areas document, he said the entire county was classified as a critical aquifer recharge area.
“Every part of Lewis County was regulated,” he said. “Clearly not every place in Lewis County is critical for drinking water.”
The county worked to refine soil categories and make changes to other classifications like erosion hazard areas. In addition, Evander said the new ordinance will be more user-friendly.
“We’ve dramatically improved the mapping of the critical areas, and we will have that information available online,” he said.
