Water interest is lauded

Things are moving right along, aren't they? This morning's article in the Peninsula Daily News (not included in their online edition) provides additional context to the issues surrounding the Department of Ecology's draft instream flow rule.

The article contains some information on the published opinion in the case of Kim v. Pollution Control Hearing Board, et. AL.

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Water interest is lauded

by Jeff Chew
Peninsula Daily News

PORT TOWNSEND — State Rep. Jim Buck says he's glad Jefferson County residents are jumping into controversial watershed planning issues that could affect how they use water at home or commercially.

"I'm pleased that the public has gotten as active on the issue as they have," the Joyce Republican said Thursday.

Buck's 24th District includes Jefferson and Clallam counties and most of Grays Harbor County.

Buck said the Legislature has tried to make the state Department of Ecology more responsive to the public's concerns during the past 11 years, most of his tenure in the House.

At issue is the instream flow rule, which Ecology has proposed in an effort to provide enough water for threatened salmon stocks and human consumption.

As currently proposed, water consumption in most of Jefferson County could be reduced from 5,000 gallons per day per household to 350 gallons per day.

"Five thousand gallons a day means you are leaving your kitchen sink faucet running for a minimum of eight hours," Buck said, arguing that most residents don't use that much water.

East Jefferson County residents and political leaders have expressed skepticism over the rule proposal, saying that it smacks of an attempt by Ecology to meter water wells in the county.

Buck said he agrees, but Ecology officials deny that is the intention.

"They've been trying to meter wells for a long time," Buck said.

"Some people in the county have been trying to get them under control."

Buck said longtime Chimacum Valley dairy farmer Rover Short is one of those concerned water users, along with well drillers countywide.

Buck said he looks forward to a forum at 5 p.m. Thursday at Fort Worden Commons, 200 Battery Way, Port Townsend.

Buck, Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, and Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, are scheduled to meet with Ecology representatives.

The forum is open to the public.

"I welcome the public interest and public involvement because it's the only way to protect their water rights by having that kind of political backing," Buck said.

Citing the Kim Appeals Court decision, Buck said the Legislature has to act to make a change in such a rule, not Ecology.

"And we have not," Buck said.

"And that has been a hot political potato for the whole time I have been in Olympia."

"Now they're trying to do it through a rule and not through legislative action."

Precedent setting case

Joo Il and Keum Ja Kim won the precendent-setting case after a six-year battle against the Pollution Control Hearing Board and the Department of Ecology.

The Kims filed suit in 1998 against the state agencies after officials said they had to have a water right permit to use well water for their commercial nursery on less than a half-acre in Poulsbo.

Ecology ordered the Kims not to use the well drilled in 1965 for anything other than their residence.

The Court of Appeals rejected Ecology's assertion, ruling that the Kim's commercial nursery was using water for an "industrial purpose," which exempts them from needing a permit.

The court ruled that a 1945 law should be applied and that rendering the statute obsolete was up to the Legislature, not Ecology.

Although the Kims lost in the lower courts, the state Court of Appeals reversed the previous decisions, which gave the case precedent-setting value, akin to a state Supreme Court ruling because it has gone unchallenged and the 1945 law has not been amended by the state Legislature.

The Kims were represented by Jim Tracy, who is now legal counsel to Fred Hill Materials Inc., which is expanding its gravel-mining operations in Shine.

Science questionable

Buck is critical of Ecology's instream flow rule proposal as it now stands.

"I am not willing to accept their science on water continuity," he said.

Continuity is Ecology's belief that use of groundwater results in reduced surface water.

"Five thousand [gallons] is falling on the ground and partially recharging the aquifer," Buck said.

"Whether it is re-entering through a septic system or through te watering of a lawn, it is being reintroduced."

Ecology policymakers, who want more study on how to protect stream flows, arrived at the proposed rule allowing access to 3.87 million gallons of water a day in Water Resources Inventory Area 17, which includes the Quilcene-Snow basins in Jefferson County.

The limitation sets an average single household usage benchmark of 350 gallons daily, based on the assumption that the average person uses 70 gallons of water daily, Ecology officials said.

Under the proposed instream flow rule, water can be used exempt of a state water rights permit so long as what is grown is not sold commercially.

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