Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Washington Governor's office unveiled 22-ideas Monday for overhauling the way the state manages and protects natural resources. Olympia Correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

The ideas for reform range from streamlining permit applications to consolidating agencies.

Currently Washington state has a dozen agencies and sub-agencies with fingers in the natural resource pie.

John Mankowski with the Governor's office makes the case for reform with this hypothetical: let's say you're a forestland owner with a stream through your property. You have a culvert that is blocking fish. State law requires you to have passage through that barrier.

But he says before you start any work...

John Mankowski: “You're going to have to go to four or five agencies. You may have to go to the DNR to get a forest practices permit if you're a forestland owner, fish and wildlife to get a hydraulics permit to get the work done in the stream, you might go to RCO – the Recreation and Conservation funding Office – to find the funding to do this work then you might go to the Conservation Commission to get the technical support on how to get this work done.”

The Governor's team will collect feedback on its ideas over the coming weeks. Then it will propose an initial round of reforms to the legislature this January.