The two-minute brief · updated Oct 15, 2026
What is the “critical areas update”?
Every county and city in Washington has to review its critical areas rules: the local rules for building near creeks, wetlands, steep slopes and similar places. State law sets Dec 31, 2026 as the deadline for Walla Walla County and the cities in it, Waitsburg included. Creek buffers are the part getting the most attention.
- 10 yrsbetween required reviews of the rules
- Dec 312026 deadline for our county and its cities
- Nonecreek-buffer widths the Growth Management Act requires
- ≈1,490Walla Walla lots the proposed band touches, by our count
What it is
Five kinds of “critical areas”
Washington’s Growth Management Act has cities and counties protect these places. By law the rules must “include the best available science” and give “special consideration” to protecting salmon, steelhead and other fish that return from the ocean to spawn.
- Wetlands
- Fish & wildlife habitatcreeks included
- Geologic hazardssteep or unstable slopes
- Drinking-water recharge
- Flood areas
How it cascades
From Olympia to your street
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The Legislature
Writes the law
The Growth Management Act says each county and city “shall designate” critical areas and “shall adopt development regulations that protect” them, must include best available science, and must review those rules on a set schedule: Dec 31, 2026 for our county and its cities.
RCW 36.70A.170 ↗RCW 36.70A.060 ↗RCW 36.70A.172 ↗RCW 36.70A.130 ↗
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State agencies
Write the guidance
The Department of Commerce sets “minimum guidelines” for classifying critical areas, which must “allow for regional differences,” plus the rules for using best available science. The Department of Fish and Wildlife publishes the streamside science and recommendations that cities like Walla Walla are drawing on.
Commerce: critical areas ↗WAC 365-190 ↗WAC 365-195-900 ↗WDFW Riparian Vol. 1 (PDF) ↗WDFW Riparian Vol. 2 (PDF) ↗
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Walla Walla County
Writes rules for land outside city limits
The County’s critical areas rules are in County code chapter 18.08, and its update is due Dec 31, 2026 too.
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Each city
Writes its own, or borrows the County’s
A city with fewer than 25,000 people “may adopt the county’s critical areas regulations by reference.” Walla Walla writes its own, in City code chapter 21.04; the draft update is what Council is weighing now.
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Your lot
Where it lands
Existing homes stay; the rules come into play mainly when you apply for a permit to build, add on or rebuild near a critical area.
Walla Walla’s draft
What the City proposed, drawn to scale
Mill Creek stays under separate shoreline rules. By our count from the City’s map and County records, about 1,490 lots touch the new band, about 1,200 of them homes.
How we got here
Thirty-six years in eight steps
- 1990
The Legislature passes the Growth Management Act.
- 1995
The law adds “best available science” for critical areas.
- 2018–20
Fish and Wildlife publishes its streamside science and recommendations.
- 2022
A statewide streamside-zone bill dies without a committee vote.
- Sept 14, 2026
Walla Walla’s Planning Commission votes 7-0 to recommend revising the draft using science matching local conditions.
- Oct 14
About 30 people speak; Council holds off on the buffer and votes to ask staff for options.
- Nov 4–18
Options are due back no earlier than Nov 4 and by the end of November.
- Dec 31
State deadline for the update.
What the law does not say
No number.
No state law sets 100 feet, or any width, for city creek buffers. In 2022 the Governor’s office asked the Legislature to require streamside zones statewide; the bill died without a committee vote. Fish and Wildlife’s guidance, which the City reads as calling for at least 100 feet in dry places like ours, also favors widths “based on site-specific conditions … rather than uniform-width” zones.
What if a city is late?
A 12-month cushion on some state funding.
State law says a city fewer than 12 months late on its critical-areas rules still counts as making “substantial progress” for state public-works and water-quality loans and grants, though some funding preferences go only to cities that are on time.
The other side, fairly
The fish are real.
Every creek the City’s draft names is typed fish-bearing, and Yellowhawk Creek is the main route native steelhead take to upper Mill and Blue creeks; they are protected under the Endangered Species Act. The question is the right width for each creek, not whether to protect them. Staff and Council are working under a state deadline, and everyone wants healthy creeks.
Outside Walla Walla? See where your county stands.
Go deeper: the research library · what is required and what can change · the City’s own page ↗