§ 17.22.120. Water resource protection setback.

Adverse impacts on the natural environment shall be mitigated by meeting or exceeding the following design standards:

a)

All structures and roads shall meet the applicable setback standard (i.e. distance from the ordinary high water mark of the water body and any structures) and vegetated buffer standard, in which existing native species may not be removed. Setback distances shall be measured from the ordinary high water mark of the water body and no structure shall be allowed within the setback area.

(1)

Type I watercourses as defined under MCA 23-2-301—Two-hundred-fifty-foot setback, one-hundred-foot buffer;

(2)

Type II watercourses, generally defined as all main tributaries of type I watercourses—Two-hundred-foot setback, seventy-five-foot buffer;

(3)

Type III watercourses, generally defined as all tributaries of type II watercourses; all intermittent streams; and reservoirs - 100 ft setback, 50 ft buffer;

(4)

Type IV watercourses, which for these purposes are considered drainage channels capable of carrying or collecting storm water and snowmelt runoff, and irrigation district canals—Fifty-foot setback, thirty-foot buffer;

(5)

Within a designated urban growth area—Seventy-five-foot setback, thirty-foot buffer.

b)

The following minimum buffer areas must be established from the boundary of a wetland identified by the county, the [U.S.] Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, DNRC, or FWP. Buffers from wetland boundaries within which structures and improvements may not be built, except for those for educational or scientific purposes, include:

(1)

Wetlands of one acre or less—Fifty feet.

(2)

Wetlands of more than one acre—One hundred feet.

(Ord. No. 10-12, § 29, 1-19-2011)