Water opinions flow at DOE meeting (Port Townsend Leader article)
http://www.ptleader.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=13143
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Water opinions flow at DOE meeting
There was a lot of applause at the Sept. 20 presentation on proposed new water rules, but it wasn't for the Washington Department of Ecology. DOE staff members were continually peppered with questions and challenges during meeting at Fort Worden State Park attended by more than 100 people, most of who were visibly frustrated.
Tuesday night's meeting was an informal presentation on Water Resource Area 17 (WRIA 17), which includes East Jefferson County and part of Clallam County. The rules don't affect existing water rights, but they do limit the availability of water for those seeking water rights in the future.
Dave Nazy, a DOE hydrogeologist, tried to give an overview of how the agency has analyzed the amount of groundwater and surface water available. People were as upset with DOE's underlying data methodology as with its recommended policies.
One of those challenging the methodology upon which DOE's methodology was Keith Winters, a well driller. He called DOE's theory of water continuity “junk science” as many of the 100 or more people in attendance nodded or muttered in agreement.
“Do you have any real data that demonstrates the impact of wells on streams?” asked John Garrett of Cape George.
“A lot of little things add up to a big thing,” Nazy said of the water supply and fish issues.
No one spoke up in favor of the proposed rules during the boisterous meeting, which lasted nearly three hours.
DOE had planned to release a draft rule on ground and surface water consumption for (WRIA 17) on Oct 5, but Sept. 20, DOE staff said that a final draft of the rule probably wouldn't be available for months. Some said that they wished DOE would go away and never come back.
Hedia Adelsman, a DOE senior policy analyst, recapped the history of the 1998 legislation that created 62 WRIAs in Washington.
“DOE was accused of not protecting fish enough,” said Adelsman, and the WRIA process allows local communities decide how to address the issue. Under the law, DOE has the power to set stream flows if the local WRIA group - typically comprised of stakeholders such as tribes, conservationists, agricultural interests and municipal water systems - cannot reach agreement on its own.
Adelsman talked of progress being made in Eastern Washington, where water storage and conservation measures are making more water available to cattleman. Similar solutions could be implemented in WIRA 17, she said.
“The reality is there's not enough water in many cases,” said Adelsman.
Legislator observations
Although the WRIA process was authorized by the Legislature in 1998, 24th District Representatives Jim Buck (R-Joyce) and Lynn Kessler (D-Hoquiam) both said recently that the Legislature would want to consider changes to the law if its implications are shown to be unreasonable.
“Everybody wanted to do something about salmon,” said Buck of the 1998 legislative session. “But I doubt very seriously,” he said, that the law would have passed if legislators had known the implications being seen today. “These people have a right to be upset.”
Kessler said the rules are going to have a “great impact” on both agriculture and development. And if the WRIA rule-making process hasn't been “broad enough and inclusive enough,” she said, the Legislature is more than likely to step in and fix the situation.
The draft DOE rule for WRIA 17 may be viewed on-line at:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/instream-flows/quilsnowbasin.html
Tuesday night's meeting was an informal presentation on Water Resource Area 17 (WRIA 17), which includes East Jefferson County and part of Clallam County. The rules don't affect existing water rights, but they do limit the availability of water for those seeking water rights in the future.
Dave Nazy, a DOE hydrogeologist, tried to give an overview of how the agency has analyzed the amount of groundwater and surface water available. People were as upset with DOE's underlying data methodology as with its recommended policies.
One of those challenging the methodology upon which DOE's methodology was Keith Winters, a well driller. He called DOE's theory of water continuity “junk science” as many of the 100 or more people in attendance nodded or muttered in agreement.
“Do you have any real data that demonstrates the impact of wells on streams?” asked John Garrett of Cape George.
“A lot of little things add up to a big thing,” Nazy said of the water supply and fish issues.
No one spoke up in favor of the proposed rules during the boisterous meeting, which lasted nearly three hours.
DOE had planned to release a draft rule on ground and surface water consumption for (WRIA 17) on Oct 5, but Sept. 20, DOE staff said that a final draft of the rule probably wouldn't be available for months. Some said that they wished DOE would go away and never come back.
Hedia Adelsman, a DOE senior policy analyst, recapped the history of the 1998 legislation that created 62 WRIAs in Washington.
“DOE was accused of not protecting fish enough,” said Adelsman, and the WRIA process allows local communities decide how to address the issue. Under the law, DOE has the power to set stream flows if the local WRIA group - typically comprised of stakeholders such as tribes, conservationists, agricultural interests and municipal water systems - cannot reach agreement on its own.
Adelsman talked of progress being made in Eastern Washington, where water storage and conservation measures are making more water available to cattleman. Similar solutions could be implemented in WIRA 17, she said.
“The reality is there's not enough water in many cases,” said Adelsman.
Legislator observations
Although the WRIA process was authorized by the Legislature in 1998, 24th District Representatives Jim Buck (R-Joyce) and Lynn Kessler (D-Hoquiam) both said recently that the Legislature would want to consider changes to the law if its implications are shown to be unreasonable.
“Everybody wanted to do something about salmon,” said Buck of the 1998 legislative session. “But I doubt very seriously,” he said, that the law would have passed if legislators had known the implications being seen today. “These people have a right to be upset.”
Kessler said the rules are going to have a “great impact” on both agriculture and development. And if the WRIA rule-making process hasn't been “broad enough and inclusive enough,” she said, the Legislature is more than likely to step in and fix the situation.
The draft DOE rule for WRIA 17 may be viewed on-line at:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/instream-flows/quilsnowbasin.html
posted by olyfarm @ 10:47 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
It was an interesting and long meeting, with a standing room only crowd. The mood was one of opposition to the concept of the Department of Ecology coming in and seizing all of WRIA 17's unappropriated water, then rationing back a tiny portion of the seized water as if we lived in the desert.
We had well drillers in the audience, who were rather assertive in challenging some of the information presented by Ecology's hydogeolgist. We had people who were rather against Ecology even being here, and we had a lot of really good questions for the more senior representative from Olympia.
The meeting began at 6:30, and the last of us drove away at 10:45. Ecology is selling something that Jefferson County residents aren't buying. So far, we've managed to generate some second thoughts for Ecology, and they are learning that they don't have adequate information to base the water restriction side of their instream flow rule on, both in terms of the science and also as a result of their lack of understanding of the county's economic realities and the people who live here.
One of the issues we had with Ecology staff was the presence of a new draft of their rule, containing major changes, that had not been added to their web site. Those of us who had been reviewing what we thought was the "latest and greatest", the draft dated August 15, were blindsided and did not have time to adequately review the changes to be able to make full use of the new edits in our questions. This was a feature of the last meeting, where we thought the July draft was current, when it had been superceded by the August 15 draft, which was also not available prior to the meeting where its content would have been useful.
Ecology staff wrote our questions and points on flipchart pages, promising to provide answers to our concerns at a later date. How much later is open to question, since they have not yet provided answers for the concerns expressed at the previous meeting. Fortunately, most of this meeting was recorded on video, so we will have an independent record of the evening.
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