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After 13 years on the books, a Kenai Peninsula Borough ordinance that controls development within 50 feet of the Kenai River and other peninsula salmon rearing streams, is drawing heightened attention.

The ordinance, 21.18, "Anadromous Streams Habitat Protection," has been in place since 1996, but after a recent review, some are questioning how effective the law really is.

The ordinance went on the books to regulate development within the 50-foot buffer area adjacent to the Kenai River.

Later in 2000 it was expanded to include 10 of the Kenai's tributaries and 14 other salmon streams within the borough.

The regulation was intended to use a permitting process to control activities that could cause changes to the streamside habitat, known as the riparian zone, such as large scale clearing of vegetation, building, filling in wetlands or excavations.

Robert Ruffner, executive director of the Kenai Watershed Forum, who led the review, said that embedded in the ordinance is the requirement that the code receive an overview every two years to determine if it's continuing to function as originally intended.

While he said that his organization, and bodies like the Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board, have been calling for such a review for several years, the ordinance has received little attention since it went on the books.

Only in the last year, following a request made by KRSMA to the Department of Environmental Conservation, has funding become available.

Ruffner said the study has revealed an ordinance that lacks clarity and a strong back.

As it stands, the ordinance depends on the willingness of landowners to abide by it, beyond that there is little that officials can do to enforce it.

He said his study showed that 95 to 98 percent or more of those issued permits to do work within this zone "Are doing their level best to do the right thing."

Additionally, he said the ordinance has helped give people guidance on what they can and cannot do in this zone.

Despite it's contentious beginnings - Ruffner said streamside zoning laws such as this typically draw fire from landowners concerned about losing control of their property - it seems to have generally been accepted.

"We havn't seen a large outcry of, 'This is preventing me from doing what I want to do,'" Ruffner said. "Most want to do the right thing and recognize the need to take care of the resource."

Since its establishment, Ruffner said there have only been 112 cases where a property owner was not in compliance with 21.18.

Of those, all but eight were resolved, mostly through voluntary remediation actions.

Often times these violations have involved incorrect installation of light-penetrating boardwalks or clearing of vegetation.

In some cases, Ruffner said there's little that can be done after the fact.

"Some things can be remedied with a wrench, but there's a lot of acts that can't," he said. "It can take some amount of time for vegetation to grow back, or there's a structure that can't be moved."

So far, Ruffner said that only one fine has ever been issued for a violation.

While many river front owners are willing to comply with the law on their own, he said right now with the current wording of the ordinance there is little more it can ask.

"The language in the ordinance could use some fine tuning," he said. "The statistics bear it out, if there's been one fine issued and everything else has been voluntary or has not happened, that says we're lacking the enforcement piece."

Ruffner said the concern is that future developments could slip under the wire.

"There have been a few significant effects along the river," Ruffner said. "Some people are concerned about those types of significant effects continuing to occur. They certainly seem to be able to work through system as it continues to exist."

What happens next with Ruffner's findings is in the hands of elected officials. They could decide the law is fine, or see it as easily skirted.

"Whether this is significant enough or not, that's what policy-makers need to wrestle with," he said. "We've had such a degree of voluntary compliance they need to ask, is that enough or not."

If local policy-makers do take the matter up, Ruffner sees two potential outcomes. One involves ratcheting down on the language of the ordinance as it stands and removing the ambiguity.

A larger scale endeavor would entail a complete revision of the law and might include increasing its coverage to additional streams, or expanding or minimizing the size of the buffer zone.

Assemblyman Bill Smith, of Homer, said he expected any changes to come in time and not overnight.

"What I want to look at first before we do anything else is if there's some conflicting areas in the code about how enforcement is to take place. Those things need to be replaced," he said.

Dante Petri can be reached at dante.petri@peninsulaclarion.com