Ruling backs permit for Marrowstone water

The following article appeared in the June 4, 2006 Jefferson County edition of the Peninsula Daily News.

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Ruling backs permit for Marrowstone water

By Jeff Chew
Peninsula Daily News

PORT TOWNSEND — A deputy hearing examiner has granted a substantial shoreline permit request for the Jefferson County Public Utility District, clearing a major hurdle in the district's efforts to construct a Marrowstone Island water system.

The decision from Tacoma attorney Mark Hurdlebrink acting as hearing examiner, which was issued Thursday to the county's Department of Community Development, grants PUD the shoreline permit, allowing it to build within 200 feet of the fresh-water-deficient island's shoreline.

A Port Townsend environmental activist, who has represented Olympic Environmental Council in Jefferson County, indicated that an appeal of the decision, required within 14 days, might be in order.

Expressing her disappointment Friday over the decision, Nancy Dorgan said Hurdlebrink was wrong to conclude that the new water system protects the aquifer since it borrows from Chimacum Valley to feed Marrowstone.

"To date, every state and local agency has rolled over to facilitate construction of the Marrowstone system," Dorgan said in a statement Friday.

"The hearings examiner ruling is just the latest, but I expected better from a non-local lawyer."

The decision comes with a long list of conditions, none of which PUD officials contest.

"There was testimony regarding possible problems during construction," Hurdlebrink said in his written decision.

"Though this is certainly a possibility, appropriate provisions are going to have to be made by the public utility district to ensure this dows not happen."

"Currently there is not a contamination problem with runoff. There will certainly be disturbance of the ditches when installing the lines."

"Appropriate steps are going to have to be taken to prevent increased contamination. Conditions of approval address this issue."

May 16 hearing

The decision comes after a May 16 public hearing in which about 50 people — mostly Marrowstone Island residents — crowded into the county commissioners chambers to raise issues such as the Chimacum Valley aquifer, wetlands, soils, the shoreline, water rights and water capacity.

The hearing came after the county Community Development Department accepted more than 50 pieces of written public comments and opinions from seven public agencies.

Hurdlebrink's ruling was applauded by the three PUD commissioners.

"It's awful good news," said PUD Commissioner Wayne King of Gardiner, who supports the project along with fellow Commissioners Kelly Hays of Marrowstone Island and Dana Roberts of Cape George.

King said he was not surprised by Hurdlebrink's decision.

"We've done more than we were required to do," King said.

Hays, who hauls water for his family and others on East Marrowstone because of saltwater contamination, also expressed his approval of the decision, saying, "It's what I expected."

"Obviously, the examiner felt everything we were doing was not detrimental to a shoreline."

The shoreline permit clears the way for a county conditional use permit for the Marrowstone water system project, which would allow PUD to lay eight-, six-, four- and two-inch water lines along county and state roads crisscrossing the island.

In about nine areas the waterlines would come within 200 feet of the shoreline.

They include an area a quarter-mile north of the causeway on state Highway 116 connecting Marrowstone with Indian Island; Mystery Bay just north of Nordland, another area north of Highway 116, the end of Madrona Road, the end of Murphy Road, along Fort Gate Road, at teh intersection of East Beach Road and East Marrowstone Road, on Jansen Road, and at the southern end of the island south of the intersection of Robbins Road and Beach Drive.

The hearing examiner listed 13 conditions that the PUD must meet, including obtaining appropriate county and state permits, making substantial progress in work within two years, and not interfering with eagle nesting.

PUD General Manager Jim Parker said one of the conditions is that the agency must secure a permit with the Army Corps of Engineers for the shoreline work.

He said PUD has already applied for a Joint Aquatic Resource Permits Application through the corps.

"We will work that out," said Parker, adding that there was some debate between PUD and the corps over the corps' jurisdiction.

Parker said the decision comes with other good news that the county has issued a conditional use permit to PUD to run a 3,000-foot water line from a PUD-built water tank at Fort Flagler State Park to Fort Gate Road and Reef Road.

End of the year?

Parker estimated it would still take months to get the first pipe laid for the water system.

"It would be nice to go out to bid by the end of this year," Parker said of the Fort Gate pipeline link.

Parker said he was submitting an application for a county conditional use permit for the north mile of state Highway 116 pipeline, which does not affect any shoreline or wetlands.

He said PUD was also talking again with Navy officials about buying their water system on Indian Island, which serves the naval ammunition station.

Ralph Rush, Water for Marrowstone chairman, lauded the hearing examiner's decision.

"We are delighted," Rush said, adding that he was not surprised by the decision.

"I felt like there was an overwhelming support for the system," Rush said, adding that his group's effort was well-organized and communicated the need for water service.

About 100 wells of the estimated 500 in existence on Marrowstone Island are either dry or contaminated by saltwater intrusion, a growing problem.

The water project would bring water to about 300 homes on the island.

Utility district officials reapplied for county and state permits after prevailing over a lawsuit filed by a group of residents opposing the project.

The PUD Marrowstone water project has been endorsed by Jefferson County's three state lawmakers, Rep. Lynn Kessler, Rep. Jim Buck, and Sen. Jim Hargrove.

Dorgan argued that rather than fighting the construction permits, "it's now time to go to the heart of the matter — Ecology's erroneous and illegal transfer approval in 1997 converting the Sparling wupplemental only water right into an outright grant of a new primary groundwater withdrawal, comething a water right transfer may never do under state law."

Water right required

Dorgan contends that PUD's Sparling Well water right was aquired via its Glen Cove system swap with the city of Port Townsend in 2001 "and has always been legally bogus."

She said the well's status needs to be litigated "before the PUD wastes taxpayer money laying pipe that will never hold water."

She called the hearing examiner's ruling on the shoreline construction permit "a lazy response at taxpayer expense that ignored the serious issued raised in the record regarding improper State Environmental Policy Act review of the overall project and statutory requirements that do not allow SEPA exemptions for lands under water.

"Without required decommissioning of excising (sic) wells, the hearing examiner was wrong to conclude that the new water system protects the aquifer."

"New lawns and bigger gardens are going to be watered for free from the aquifer still used by people not hooking up to the new pipes."

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