Skagit County, WA Landscaping Rules: Water Restrictions (2026)

340, imposes lawn watering restrictions specifically to protect Surface Water Source Limited (SWSL) streams from interim groundwater withdrawals. Subsection (3)(d) names ten SWSL streams: Carpenter Creek, Coal Creek, Diobsud Creek, Friday Creek, Grandy Creek, Jones Creek, Lake Erie, Nookachamps Creek, Samish River and Whitehall Creek. Any land division approved within one-half mile of one of these streams, after the ordinance's adoption date, must include lawn watering restrictions or other conservation measures for its lots, unless the project either connects to an existing public water supply timely and reasonably available outside the watershed, or draws water from an aquifer that meets the demonstration standard in Subsection (3)(e).

Where public water is not yet available, a property can use interim groundwater withdrawals only if the owner signs a written agreement not to protest formation of a local utility or improvement district, agrees to connect once public water arrives, and agrees to decommission any interim well after connecting. The county requires the watering restriction and any related protection plan to be recorded as a plat note or on the property title, so future buyers see the condition, and the Director must approve any request to remove the condition once it demonstrates protection measures are no longer necessary.