27.14.030 Exemptions.
(1) The following land development activities are exempt from the requirements of this chapter (for all of the unincorporated areas within Clallam County):
(a) Forest practices regulated under WAC Title 222, except for Class IV general forest practices that are conversions from timberland to other uses.
(b) Commercial agriculture practices involving working the land for production, except the conversion from timberland to agriculture and the construction of impervious surfaces are not exempt.
(c) Construction of drilling sites, waste management pits, and access roads, as well as construction of transportation and treatment infrastructure such as pipelines, natural gas treatment plants, natural gas pipeline compressor stations, and crude oil pumping stations.
(d) Pavement maintenance practices consisting of any of the following: pothole and square cut patching, overlaying existing asphalt or concrete pavement with asphalt or concrete without expanding the area coverage, shoulder grading, reshaping/regrading drainage systems, crack sealing, resurfacing with in-kind material without expanding the road prism, pavement preservation activities that do not expand the road prism, and vegetation maintenance. The following pavement maintenance practices are not categorically exempt, and are subject to the minimum requirements that are triggered when the thresholds identified for new or redevelopment projects are met per I-3.3 Applicability of the Minimum Requirements of the Department of Ecology’s 2019 Stormwater Management Manual for Western Washington (“Ecology’s 2019 Stormwater Manual”).
(i) Removing and replacing an asphalt or concrete pavement to base course or lower, or repairing the pavement base: These are considered replaced hard surfaces.
(ii) Extending the pavement edge without increasing the size of the road prism, or paving graveled shoulders: These are considered new hard surfaces.
(iii) Resurfacing by upgrading from dirt to gravel, a bituminous surface treatment (“chip seal”), asphalt, or concrete; upgrading from gravel to chip seal, asphalt, or concrete; or upgrading from chip seal to asphalt or concrete: These are considered new impervious surfaces.
(e) Underground utility projects that replace the ground surface with in-kind material or materials with similar runoff characteristics are only subject to Volume I-3.4.2 MR2 Construction Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan of the Department of Ecology’s 2019 Stormwater Manual.
(2) With the exception of the UPAUGA, land development activity within the unincorporated Clallam County shall be subject to the following additional exemptions:
(a) Land clearing, grading, filling, sandbagging, diking, ditching, or similar work during or after periods of extreme weather or other emergency conditions which have created situations such as toxic releases, flooding, or high fire danger that present an immediate danger to life or property.
(b) Digging of individual graves in a permitted graveyard.
(c) Routine landscape maintenance of existing landscaped areas on developed lots, including pruning, weeding, planting annuals, and other activities associated with maintaining an already established landscape or thinning of limbs of individual trees to provide for a view corridor consistent with Chapter 27.12 CCC.
(d) Routine drainage maintenance of existing, constructed stormwater drainage facilities located outside of a protected area, including, but not limited to, detention/retention ponds, wet ponds, sediment ponds, constructed drainage swales, water quality treatment facilities, such as filtration systems, and regional storm facilities that are necessary to preserve the water quality treatment and flow control functions of the facility. This exemption does not apply to any expansion and/or modification to already excavated and constructed stormwater drainage facilities.
(e) Construction, expansion or repair of detached accessory buildings 400 square feet or less in size not located within 200 feet of a wetland, aquatic habitat, conservation area, landslide hazard area, an erosion hazard area or within frequently flooded area pursuant to Chapter 27.12 CCC.
(f) The construction or installation of minor street improvements exempt from SEPA per WAC 197-11-800(2)(d) that are conducted in compliance with the Regional Road Maintenance ESA Program and designed in accordance with the Highway Runoff Manual.