City of Bellingham Municipal Code

16.55.420 - DESIGNATION OF SPECIFIC HAZARD AREAS

A. Erosion Hazard Areas. Erosion hazard areas are prone to soil erosion. Specifically these areas include:

1. Areas identified in soil unit maps and Table 11—Building Site Development of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service Soil Survey of Whatcom County Area. They are rated as “Severe:” due to “slope, wetness, ponding, flooding, cutbanks cave” or any combination thereof.

2. Erosion hazard areas also include those uplands immediately adjacent to Lake Whatcom, Lake Padden, Bellingham and Chuckanut bays, ponds under 20 acres in size and all streams.

3. Erosion hazard areas may also include any area where the soil type is predominantly (> 50%) comprised of sand, clay, silt, and/or organic matter and slope is greater than 30%.

1. Those areas identified in soil unit maps and Table 11—Building Site Development of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service Soil Survey of Whatcom County Area. They are rated “Severe:” due to “slope” and/or “subsides”.

2. Slopes with an incline that is equal to or greater than 40% grade (22 degrees) within a vertical elevation change of at least 10 feet. Slope shall be calculated by identifying slopes that have at least 10 feet of vertical elevation change within a horizontal distance of 25 feet or less.

Slope shall not include those lands that have 10 feet of vertical change by virtue of a legally established retaining wall(s), foundation wall, stairways or similar vertical structure or those land areas where public infrastructure and its supporting elements have been developed.

3. Slopes that are parallel or subparallel to planes of weakness (such as bedding planes, joint systems, and fault planes) in subsurface materials.

4. Current and historic marine bluffs along present and historical shorelines including Bellingham and Chuckanut bays.

5. Areas depicted as having High Landslide Potential within the Landslide Hazard Areas section of the GEOLOGIC HAZARD AREAS Map Folio, Bellingham, Washington, 1991.

1. All landfills placed waterward of the historic 1850 natural coastline of Bellingham and Chuckanut bays.

2. All alluvial deposits near the mouth (delta) of Chuckanut Creek, Padden Creek, Whatcom Creek, Squalicum Creek and Little Squalicum Creek.

3. All marine and stream course bluffs greater than 10’ in vertical relief and steeper than 100% (45 degrees).

4. All rock outcrops greater than 10’ in vertical relief and lands lying adjacent, or in close proximity, and within the fall-line of potential falling, rolling or sliding rock and debris flows.

1. Areas depicted as Coal Mine Hazard Areas within the GEOLOGIC HAZARD AREAS Map Folio, Bellingham, Washington, 1991.