WITH ORCAS IN JEOPARDY, OLYMPIA CONSIDERS MAKING NEW DEVELOPMENT PAY FOR PAST SINS

…The proposed new standard would be something of a sea change for land use in Washington. Builders doing damage to the environment would be required to create or restore more ecological capacity than their construction destroys. The century-plus-long decline in Washington water quality and the diminishing numbers of salmon might begin to be reversed.

“It sets a standard,” said Rep. Debra Lekanoff, the Legislature’s leading advocate for the change, “of leaving [the environment] better than we found it.”

Read more in Investigate West.