Thanks to VSP stakeholders in Okanogan for the reminder that the Department of Commerce produced a series of webinars in early 2021 related to critical areas, monitoring at the parcel scale, and adaptive management. Those webinars are available for anyone to review at the Washington Department of Commerce Growth Management Critical Areas web page.

SCC highlighted this webinar series in the December 2020 VSP newsletter. At that time, SCC did caution VSP stakeholders that the webinars were focused more on the regulatory aspects of the Growth Management Act, and not so much on the voluntary stewardship program alternative, and monitoring at the parcel scale—a difference from monitoring in VSP, which is done at the watershed scale. Counties using a regulatory basis for protection of critical areas for other land uses likely will eventually focus on watershed or county-level scale for monitoring so some parallel approaches may be relevant, however, the focus of these webinars is at the parcel and individual permit scale.

With the caveats described above, the webinars are available and there is useful background information in them related to the Growth Management Act and critical areas. Webinars may offer helpful information related to monitoring and adaptive management of critical areas, complementing efforts the Commission has made regarding monitoring and adaptive management under VSP. And for those workgroups relying on regulatory backstops, the webinars may have direct applicability.

Access all critical area ordinance resources here.