Walla Walla County, WA Public Health Rules: Rodent Control (2026)

Walla Walla County's zoning code folds rodent control into its industrial land-use development conditions rather than a standalone health chapter. WWCC § 17.16.014(D) governs every parcel zoned Heavy Industrial, Light Industrial, Industrial Business Park or Industrial Agriculture Mixed or Heavy in the unincorporated county, and subsection (D)(2) lists the operating limits industrial uses must meet alongside noise, lighting and glare controls. Clause (f) specifically prohibits liquid and solid wastes, and any storage of animal or vegetable waste that attracts insects or rodents or otherwise creates a health hazard.

The same clause bars waste products from being visible at eye level from any property line inside an industrial district, so screening or enclosed storage is required even where the material itself is not otherwise a public-health violation. The condition sits inside the permitted-uses table that Community Development applies at site plan and building permit review under WWCC Title 14, so a rodent-attracting storage practice discovered during a project review can hold up permit approval. Once a property is occupied, code enforcement runs through WWCC Chapter 14.13: the community development director issues a notice of violation and order requiring corrective action by a set deadline before any penalty attaches.

There is no separate agricultural or residential rodent ordinance in the county code outside this industrial clause; unincorporated properties in other zoning districts fall instead under the general nuisance and debris provisions of WWCC Chapter 8.24, which address accumulated trash and vegetation rather than rodents by name.