The City of Burien has been awarded a $117,600 grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology for its Shoreline Master Program.
This grant is part of a $6.3 million award to 70 Puget Sound communities, and is meant to modernize local shoreline regulations.
The neighboring city of Des Moines was awarded $133,000.
“From the San Juans to the Sound’s southern tip, 120 of the 130 local governments in the Puget Sound region are still using largely the same shoreline master programs they adopted in the 1970s,” said Ecology’s Gordon White, who oversees statewide shorelands activities. “Yet in the past 30 years, the area’s population has ballooned by nearly 60 percent. If we hope to restore, protect and preserve the Sound, we’ve got to start by managing our shoreline areas wisely.”
According to the city’s website:
Under the state Shoreline Management Act, each city and county with “shorelines of the state” must adopt a Shoreline Master Program (SMP) that is based on state laws and rules while tailored to the specific geographic, economic and environmental needs of the community.
Burien must update its current SMP by December 1, 2009, and this grant will be used for this purpose. The City and its consultants are well into updating the master program with the aid of the City’s Shoreline Advisory Committee.
For more information on Burien’s Shoreline Master Program, click here.
To view a draft of the Shoreline Jurisdiction map, click here (PDF).
To view the full list of Department of Ecology grants, click here (PDF).
