WASHINGTON STATUTES AND CODES

90.74.010 - Definitions.

Definitions.

The definitions in this section apply throughout this chapter unless the context clearly requires otherwise.

     (1) "Mitigation" means sequentially avoiding impacts, minimizing impacts, or compensating for remaining unavoidable impacts.

     (2) "Compensatory mitigation" means the restoration, creation, enhancement, or preservation of uplands, wetlands, or other aquatic resources for the purposes of compensating for unavoidable adverse impacts that remain after all appropriate and practicable avoidance and minimization has been achieved. "Compensatory mitigation" includes mitigation that:

     (a) Occurs at the same time as, or in advance of, a project's planned environmental impacts;

     (b) Is located in a site either on, near, or distant from the project's impacts; and

     (c) Provides either the same or different biological functions and values as the functions and values impacted by the project.

     (3) "Infrastructure development" means an action that is critical for the maintenance or expansion of an existing infrastructure feature such as a highway, rail line, airport, marine terminal, utility corridor, harbor area, or hydroelectric facility and is consistent with an approved land use planning process. This planning process may include the growth management act, chapter 36.70A RCW, or the shoreline management act, chapter 90.58 RCW, in areas covered by those chapters.

     (4) "Mitigation plan" means a document or set of documents developed through joint discussions between a project proponent and environmental regulatory agencies that describe the unavoidable wetland or aquatic resource impacts of the proposed infrastructure development and the proposed compensatory mitigation for those impacts.

     (5) "Project proponent" means a public or private entity responsible for preparing a mitigation plan.

     (6) "Watershed" means an area identified as a state of Washington water resource inventory area under WAC 173-500-040 as it exists on July 27, 1997.

[1997 c 424 § 2.]