2023-08-14-minutes-public-works-study-session

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EXECUTIVE ORDER 89-10 PROTECTION OF WETLANDS WHEREAS, wetlands: (A) provide, protect and preserve drinking water supplies by purifying surface water and ground water; (B) provide a natural means of flood and storm damage protection through the absorption and storage of water during high runoff periods, thereby reducing flood crests and preventing loss of life and property; (C) often serve as transition zones between dry land and water courses, thereby retarding soil erosion; (D) provide essential breeding, spawning, rearing, feeding, nesting and wintering habitats for a major portion of the state's fish and wildlife; (E) provide special vegetation and vegetative communities; (F) maintain surface waters through the gradual release of stored flood waters and ground water, particularly during drought periods; (G) provide readily accessible outdoor biophysical laboratories, Iiving classrooms and training and educational resources; and (H) provide ecological as well as economic benefits; and WHEREAS, more than fifty percent of the state's original wetlands have been drained, dredged, filled or otherwise altered; and WHEREAS, over ninety percent of the original saltwater wetlands in some urban estuaries of Puget Sound have been eliminated; and WHEREAS, wetlands losses statewide are as much as two thousand acres annually; and WHEREAS, in urban areas in the state of Washington, freshwater wetlands losses are estimated at seventy-five acres per month or more than nine hundred acres per year; and WHEREAS, the loss of wetlands often leads to economic and ecological farm of the state; and WHEREAS, wetlands conservation is a matter of state concern, since wetlands of one county may be affected by activities on rivers, lakes, streams, or wetlands of other counties and because they support migratory animal species which cross local government boundaries; and