EPHRATA - Grant County is joining a new program designed to allow farmers more input on how their land is managed.

The commissioners voted to join the voluntary stewardship program after holding a public hearing.

The Legislature created the program last year following three years of development by the William D. Ruckelshaus Center.

The center's plan provides an alternative to critical areas ordinances in agricultural lands. The ordinances, required as part of the Growth Management Act, designate what people can do in areas such as wetlands, aquifer recharge areas, fish and wildlife habitat conservation areas, frequently flooded areas and geologically hazardous areas, according to information from the Washington State Conservation Commission.

Instead, the county will create a watershed group, made up of people involved in agriculture, environmental groups and tribes, to determine a plan for how to protect critical areas around farm land, according to the commission report.

The state commission suggested encouraging "lead entities, watershed planning units or other integrating organizations" to serve as the watershed group.

Once the group is designated it needs to develop a plan to protect critical areas while maintaining agriculture, according to the commission report. The plan is reviewed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington State Department of Agriculture, the Department of Ecology and the conservation commission.

The program is intended to bridge the gap between protecting critical areas and preserving the agricultural way of life, Grant County Planning Manager Damien Hooper said at the hearing. He pointed out he wasn't speaking for or against the program.

"The voluntary stewardship program is going to approach it more (from) a watershed level approach," he said. "It's going to establish goals and benchmarks to try and meet environmental quality. Whether it's wetlands water quality, slope issues, whatever they may be when the groups put together the work plan."

The plan will include voluntary measures the people in the area would try to implement to take care of the critical areas, Hooper said.

"No one knows, at this point, what those plans are going to look like because they haven't been developed yet," he said. "I can't tell you it's going to be better or worse than the existing critical areas ordinance. What I can tell you is your existing critical areas ordinance is compliant with the Growth Management Act."

Hooper explained the present critical areas ordinance exempts presently used agricultural land unless it has an adverse affect on the environment. The county didn't need to update the plan until 2018, and it can't be appealed until it's updated.

Aaron Golladay, a Warden farmer and Washington Farm Bureau vice president, supported the new program, saying he feared environmental groups are looking for counties which haven't joined, so they can challenge their critical areas ordinances.

"They're going to hammer away to get things where they want it," he said. "As a farmer in this county, I'm not going to have anything to say about it."

Golladay compared it to the voluntary program, where he would have a say in its goals and what goals need to be achieved.

"Local groups would look at an area, decide what goals they should or should not have. They may look at a watershed and say, 'You know what? Everything is great here. We don't need to do anything,'" he said. "They may look at a watershed and say, 'Hey, the (Department of Ecology) is concerned about water quality issues, and we think we can address those through some type of planting of trees along the edge of the water.'"

He pointed out the county has times when it can leave the program.

Commissioner Carolann Swartz decided to join the program as an insurance policy, she said.

"There are probably a lot more unknowns than knowns here, but I feel this is the safest route for us to take," she said.

Commissioner Cindy Carter added the county's present critical areas ordinance is great, and deciding to go with the program didn't take away from the ordinance.

The next step is whether the state will fund the program. If the state doesn't fund it, the program won't go into affect, and the critical areas ordinance will remain in place, according to the commission.

The critical areas ordinance remains in place until the program starts in the county, according to the resolution passed by the commissioners.