Integrated Project Review & Mitigation Tools Initiative
This ORA-led project is a part of Washington State’s response to the need to simplify and streamline business regulations. The Integrated Project Review & Mitigation Tools (iPRMT) Initiative is a multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional effort to achieve efficient and environmental review, prior to permit application submittal. This will result in more complete applications being submitted the first time. iPRMT lays the groundwork for better long-term success of mitigation and helps achieve more sustainable environmental outcomes.
Mission
Make faster and more coordinated permit and mitigation decisions with better environmental outcomes by increasing access to multi-agency information and decision-making processes.
A multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional effort to:
Improve predictability, coordination and speed of environmental permitting;
Increase efficiency and success for mitigation; and
Improve environmental outcomes of permit requirements.
In Phase 1, participants included Clark County, the City of Vancouver, the Association of Washington Cities (AWC), and the Washington State Association of Counties (WSAC).
The workgroup is now in Phase 2 which involves:
Moving the Clark County pilot tool to the internet and engaging additional users;
Adding state and federal permits and pre-application review processes to the tool;
Enhancing the tool’s capabilities, to provide better communication among local, state, and federal agencies; and
Adopting coordinated and consistent review processes.
The release date for the decision-support tool was July 17, 2009.
Initiative Partners
These partners are working together to improve the performance of environmental review and mitigation activities:
City of Vancouver, Clark County, Association of Washington Cities, Washington State Association of Counties, National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington State Department of Ecology, Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington State Department of Information Services, Washington State Department of Transportation, and the Governor’s Office of Regulatory Assistance.
Background
2006—Legislature funded AWC and WSAC to develop a permit decision support tool to make faster permit decisions with better environmental outcomes for the City of Vancouver and Clark County. The result was an application that is currently being used by Clark County and the City of Vancouver to make permit decisions on wetland and habitat permits.
2007—Legislature provided additional funding to ORA, AWC, and WSAC to develop a second generation of the permit decision support tool that is web-based and expanded to include state and federal permits for Clark County and the City of Vancouver.
2008–During 2008, the iPRMT Partners worked to compile, add, and revise information for the web-based pre-application tool and test its usability.
2009–The web-based tool is now developed and was released on July 17, 2009. Further refinements to the decision-making tool will continue over time. A schedule is being developed for these revisions.
We strongly encourage you to view the Integrated Project Review & Mitigation Tools Initiative Briefing Paper for more detailed information on this project.
For more information, please contact Randi Thurston at 360-902-8013.