Stop the excessive regulation of farmers and their land, critics of new rules governing agriculture on Whidbey Island told the county’s planning commission Tuesday evening.

Island County has been revising rules covering agriculture and the use of land that has “critical areas,” properties with wetlands, streams or other environmentally sensitive spots.

Last spring, the county’s first attempt at new rules led to packed public hearings with hundreds of angry residents. Those earlier rules would have required anyone farming in rural residential zones to abide by tough critical areas rules, and many were worried the stringent regulations would spell doom for the family farm.

While some at Tuesday’s hearing thanked the planning commissioners for their work on the issue, many more said that farmers were being singled out. Farmers are careful stewards of their land, they said, while other activities — from developing land for homes or spraying golf courses with insecticides — are much more damaging to the island’s environment.

“We can maintain the open space and we can maintain the quality of life that we have now,” said Craig Williams of Clinton.

“I’ve seen too many local architects and local contractors that bypass the permit system and are just doing alterations near watersheds, and redirecting the flow of the water,” he added. “That has more impact than any type of fertilizing, or any type of farming.”

Jim Adsley of Langley agreed, and recalled the destruction of the Green River valley from development.

“It wasn’t the cows that killed the Green River,” he said.

Non-farmers also wondered why agriculture was being caught in the county’s regulatory cross-hairs.

County officials, however, said they had no choice but to revisit the rules.

The county has to change its way of regulating farming since the Whidbey Environmental Action Network challenged the county’s earlier regulations before a state growth board, and then won a subsequent challenge in the courts.

Some saw that battle as unnecessarily drawing farmers into the county’s ongoing land-use war with WEAN, and many at the hearing also called for the repeal of the Growth Management Act, the sweeping state law adopted more than a decade ago to protect farm and forest land from urban development.

“Let me tell you, because of environmental extremism, I thank God every day I didn’t buy any rural land in this county,” said Bill McAfee of Clinton.

“I wouldn’t touch this with an 11-foot pole, just because of the extremism that goes on here,” he said before he was interrupted by thunderous applause.

“In a perfect world, I’d like to see the rules be the same for everybody,” McAfee added.

And if environmental activists want to completely control rural land use, they should buy that land and pay the taxes on it, he said, “instead of trying to nitpick their neighbors to death.”

Farmers said excessive amounts of regulation would drive farms out of business.

And when they sell their land, they added, it would most likely be developed into housing tracts, leading to the loss of open space and the rural character of Whidbey Island.

“The whole thing should be thrown out. It’s too repressive,” said Paul Turner of Langley.

“You’re going to micro-manage everybody out of business,” he said.

The county’s new rules are a tiered approach, based on the type of farming activity that’s occurring on the land.

The regulations exempt property owners with gardens and orchards in rural residential zones from complying with the strict critical areas regulations.

The rules then get stricter based on the specific farming operation, and farm plans would be required.

Property owners with low-intensity activities, such as haying operations, would complete a standard farm management plan.

Medium- and high-intensity ag operations, which include dairies and livestock operations with feedlots, would need to prepare a custom farm plan.

While property owners with existing gardens or small-intensity farming operations near sensitive areas would not have to comply with critical areas regulations, only existing property owners would be “grandfathered” under the new rules.

Phil Bakke, Island County planning director, said the county wants to develop new rules that will protect critical areas and agriculture.

“Essentially, we want to do it all. That’s what we’re trying to do here,” Bakke said.

The planning commission will discuss the proposed rules later this month and pass its recommendation on the regulations to the board of commissioners.

The county commissioners are expected to vote on the new rules in December.