Water area planning talks turn to metering

This article appeared in the May 10, 2006 Jefferson County edition of the Peninsula Daily News.

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Water area planning talks turn to metering

By Jeff Chew
Peninsula Daily News

PORT HADLOCK — New state-required water-well metering tapped a nerve for at least one farmer attending Tuesday night's Water Resource Inventory Area planning unit meeting.

Longtime Chimacum Valley dairy farmer Roger Short confronted state Department of Ecology officials, questioning why he had to pay as much as $4,000 to meter two wells he uses — metering intended to benefit Ecology in establishing a state-mandated in-stream flow rule.

Others attending the WRIA 17 planning unit meeting also questioned why Short should pay the state.

"The expense is my expense," an angry Short told Ecology officials.

"I'm broke anyway, so it doesn't matter."

Short explained that an Ecology official told him if he did not meter his water use, the state was "probably going to take my water away from me. If I do then I can probably pay later," he said he was told.

Norm MacLeod, representing the Olympic Water Users Association, said he believed the state should shoulder the cost, especially since fuel costs are up and milk prices are down.

While saying he was sympathetic to Short's plight, Joe Stohr, speical assistant to Ecology Director Jay Manning, said Ecology has a clear mandate from the state Legislature to set in-stream flow rule.

The controversial rule's basic intent is to ensure enough water for humans and stream levels that save salmon.

Tom Loranger, a manager in Ecology's water resources program, explained that through the state's metering law in 1993, any business diverting water must measure the diversion.

The rule applies in areas such as the Chimacum Basin, where salmon stocks are "critical and depressed because of low stream flows" as designated by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Loranger identified 2,400 water rights and claims for the entire Chimacum Basin. He said that comes down to about 80 water rights or claim holders who are required to meter water use.

List corrected

He said after mailing out metering notices to many of the wrong people, the state now has a correct list and has contacted everybody in the past 10 weeks.

Of the 78 water rights holders, the state has secured meter and measuring data from 15 in the Quilcene-Snow watershed, which includes the Chimacum Basin.

Loranger said Ecology has made contact with 34 others, and 20 more have just been contacted for metering.

Planning unit member Paula Mackrow, North Olympic Salmon Coalition chairwoman, said metering was necessary because "you've got to know your water budget."

Of metering, Stohr said, "I hope the planning unit would welcome this kind of information."

He said it was Ecology's responsibility to enforce metering.

"We have a pretty clear judge's order that we have to implement." Stohr said.

In March 1999, American Rivers, the Center for Environmental Law and Policy, Washington Environmental Council, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, and the Institute of Fisheries Resources filed a suit against Ecology for not complying with the 1993 state water measurement law.

In December 2000, Thurston County Superior Court issued a final ruling and ordered Ecology to submit a compliance plan to the court that was done in March 2001.

It describes how Ecology will begin to bring its water compliance program into line with the state water measuring law by Dec. 1, 2002.

Compliance Plan

The compliance plan calls for those water users totaling 80 percent of water use in each of 16 "fish critical" watersheds to perform their measuring and reporting practices with the requirements of the revised water measuring rule.

This will affect about 1,000 water-rights holders statewide, the majority of which are already metering their water.

The Quilcene-Snow Basin is one of the state's 62 designated watersheds. It stretches from Sequim Bay in Clallam County east through the Quimper Peninsula of Jefferson County and south into the Hood Canal area past Quilcene.

Concerned with salmon habitat, watershed quality and water access, state officials want to introduce a formula that would determine how much water could be accessed through wells in the watershed rural areas.

Ecology officials last year proposed to allow access to 3.87 million gallons of water a day, and possibly limiting daily water use to 350 gallons per well.

That sparked a major outcry among farmers and property owners around Jefferson County, and the county's state lawmakers stepped in, urging Ecology leaders to work more closely and carefully with county WRIA representatives on the planning to establish an in-stream flow rule.

New facilitator

David Sale, with ECO Resource, was introduced Tuesday night as the planning unit's new facilitator. The facilitator was hired through a state grant, according to previous agreements struck between the unit and Ecology.

Sale immediately began to kick off the design of the unit's proposed scope of work, taking suggestions from planning unit representatives.

Stohr also introduced new contractors with Hydrologic Services to help develop an in-stream flow rule.

Port Townsend/Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.