The definitions in this section apply throughout this chapter unless the context clearly requires otherwise.

     (1) "Bed" means the land below the ordinary high water lines of state waters. This definition does not include irrigation ditches, canals, storm water runoff devices, or other artificial watercourses except where they exist in a natural watercourse that has been altered by man.

     (2) "Board" means the hydraulic appeals board created in RCW 77.55.301.

     (3) "Commission" means the state fish and wildlife commission.

     (4) "Department" means the department of fish and wildlife.

     (5) "Director" means the director of the department of fish and wildlife.

     (6) "Emergency" means an immediate threat to life, the public, property, or of environmental degradation.

     (7) "Hydraulic project" means the construction or performance of work that will use, divert, obstruct, or change the natural flow or bed of any of the salt or freshwaters of the state.

     (8) "Imminent danger" means a threat by weather, water flow, or other natural conditions that is likely to occur within sixty days of a request for a permit application.

     (9) "Marina" means a public or private facility providing boat moorage space, fuel, or commercial services. Commercial services include but are not limited to overnight or live-aboard boating accommodations.

     (10) "Marine terminal" means a public or private commercial wharf located in the navigable water of the state and used, or intended to be used, as a port or facility for the storing, handling, transferring, or transporting of goods to and from vessels.

     (11) "Ordinary high water line" means the mark on the shores of all water that will be found by examining the bed and banks and ascertaining where the presence and action of waters are so common and usual, and so long continued in ordinary years as to mark upon the soil or vegetation a character distinct from the abutting upland. Provided, that in any area where the ordinary high water line cannot be found, the ordinary high water line adjoining saltwater is the line of mean higher high water and the ordinary high water line adjoining fresh water is the elevation of the mean annual flood.

     (12) "Permit" means a hydraulic project approval permit issued under this chapter.

     (13) "Sandbars" includes, but is not limited to, sand, gravel, rock, silt, and sediments.

     (14) "Small scale prospecting and mining" means the use of only the following methods: Pans; nonmotorized sluice boxes; concentrators; and minirocker boxes for the discovery and recovery of minerals.

     (15) "Spartina," "purple loosestrife," and "aquatic noxious weeds" have the same meanings as defined in RCW 17.26.020.

     (16) "Streambank stabilization" means those projects that prevent or limit erosion, slippage, and mass wasting. These projects include, but are not limited to, bank resloping, log and debris relocation or removal, planting of woody vegetation, bank protection using rock or woody material or placement of jetties or groins, gravel removal, or erosion control.

     (17) "Tide gate" means a one-way check valve that prevents the backflow of tidal water.

     (18) "Waters of the state" and "state waters" means all salt and fresh waters waterward of the ordinary high water line and within the territorial boundary of the state.

[2005 c 146 § 101.]

NOTES:

     Part headings not law -- 2005 c 146: "Part headings used in this act are not any part of the law." [2005 c 146 § 1007.]