Island County must protect some ecologically sensitive areas and animals under the state’s Growth Management Act following a decision by the county’s Superior Court on Wednesday. Judge Alan Hancock ruled that the county failed to appeal in a proper and timely manner a June 24 decision by the Growth Management Hearings Board (GMHB). Therefore that board decision remains in force.

“The county has not served its petition on the GMHB in accordance with the terms of [state law], and therefore has failed to timely appeal the final order of the GMHB,” Hancock wrote in his procedurally focused order. Under the ruling, the county is also liable for statutorily prescribed attorney fees and costs, which could total about $280, though that figure does not approach the actual cost.

The county in its appeal had attacked multiple conclusions in the June 24 board ruling favoring advocacy group Whidbey Environmental Action Network (or WEAN). In that 48-page decision, the Olympia-based board ordered the county to protect its only Natural Area Preserve and to follow the Growth Management Act by protecting critical areas using the best available science.

Specifically, it ordered the county to safeguard the habitat of rare plants, prairies, oak woodlands and the Western toad. It required the county to regulate the removal of beaver dams and to clarify under what circumstances farmland can be abandoned for more than five years and still remain exempt from critical-area regulations, according to WEAN.

The Growth Management Act requires counties to designate and protect “critical areas,” including fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas. The board found the county’s rules comply with the law as to seven of 14 issues raised by WEAN but to be noncompliant as to the remaining seven. Characterizing the case as having “unusual scope and complexity,” the board set Aug. 18, 2016 for a hearing on county compliance with its requirements, and it established several interim dates for ongoing reports.

“The county has taken no steps even to create a schedule or work plan for compliance,” WEAN litigation coordinator Steve Erickson wrote in an email to the county yesterday. If it does not do so by Oct. 9, Erickson wrote, “we intend to request the Hearings Board to revise the compliance schedule… to address the county’s continuing failure to take substantial steps toward compliance.”

The county could appeal the ruling, but “that would be another waste of taxpayers’ money,” Erickson said.

The county had sought to stay the litigation so it could address some, if not all, of the disputed issues as part of revising its 2016 Comprehensive Plan. That plan is meant to reflect current and anticipated changes in land use, housing, population growth, water, sewage, parks, schools, transportation and shorelines.

Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks in an email yesterday said the county is reviewing the decision. He declined to comment “until the Board [of Commissioners] has decided how they wish to proceed.” Commissioner Helen Price Johnson did not respond to an email and a phone call seeking comment.

The county was originally required to update its fish and wildlife habitat conservation regulations in 2005, but it failed to act until WEAN obtained an order from the hearings board in 2013.