Anchorage wetlands plan gets first update in over a decade as federal rules shift

The permit application diagram in Anchorage's 2014 Wetlands Management Plan no longer reflects current permitting practice. The Planning and Zoning Commission is set to address that gap at its July 13 meeting, where staff are recommending the first update to the plan be forwarded to the Anchorage Assembly.

The diagram still shows a permit pathway that ended April 30, 2021, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stopped renewing the Regional General Permits that let the city handle fill authorizations in-house. "All development projects located in wetlands throughout the Municipality must go to the Corps of Engineers for an authorization to place fill," the Planning Department's guidance states. The Supreme Court's 2023 Sackett v. EPA decision further shrank which wetlands qualify for federal protection. Corps staffing shortages at the Alaska District Office have also slowed wetland report reviews and made the permitting process harder to navigate.

The Phase I update would fix the permit diagram, reassign oversight duties, correct textual and formatting errors throughout the plan, and add language strengthening management strategies for site No. 60 in the Laurel Acres Subdivision. It would also allow boundary-line updates without a full Assembly hearing when a verified delineation is no more than five years old. A larger Phase II revision would follow. The commission previously heard the case May 11 and discussed it at a work session June 8. The Watershed and Natural Resources Advisory Commission passed a resolution supporting the update on April 15.