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Colville, Washington |
Thursday, March 11, 2010 |
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Water concerns rise to the surface |
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Wednesday, 02 July 2008 |
Concerns over Columbia River water
ripple out into related issues
By JAMIE HENNEMAN
S-E Staff Reporter
At an open house meeting held by the Department of Ecol¬ogy on June 17 regarding the Columbia River water storage release proposal, a number of water-related concerns were voiced by citizens who had come to learn more about the project. The proposal, which would po¬tentially be enacted in 2009, would release 82,500 acre feet of water from the storage area behind the Grand Coulee Dam. The 9-million-acre-feet “storage area” the study refers to is also called Lake Roosevelt.
Although the proposal has the potential to be a positive meas¬ure since it would provide more water to farmers, municipalities, and industry, those points seemed lost at the meeting that neither had a formal presenta¬tion or was set-up for formal comment.
“We can’t let more water go downstream because water is going to be the big thing in the next few years,” said attendee George Stahley. “The City of Colville, for instance, can’t get any more water and the de¬partment has taken away water that could be available, like the water at Crystal Falls.”
Stahley’s comment was ech¬oed by others who were con¬cerned that the new Columbia River allocations would affect the amount of water available in the local watershed.
“We should fill our local water applications that are waiting first and then worry about peo¬ple downstream,” said Laurel Garretson. “I came here from Nevada. I know water is a big deal. We need it to grow and we shouldn’t just be willing to let it go downstream.”
Columbia water not
directly tied to local water¬shed
But contrary to some of the expressed opinions, the water in the Columbia River is not nec¬essarily tied to the local water¬shed, also known as WRIA 59, according to WRIA 59 Water¬shed Planning Office head Linda Kiefer.
“This new allocation does not necessarily affect our local wa¬tershed and really would not unless they started issuing all kinds of new water permits downstream and therefore made us release more of the water we already use back into the river,” said Kiefer.
Kiefer said the WRIA 59 wa¬tershed has been considered a “closed” watershed since 1994 when the state Supreme Court ruled that low surface water lev¬els are tied to low groundwater levels and therefore indicate a scarcity of water throughout the watershed. The surface water permits in the WRIA 59 water¬shed had been closed since 1977 due to an extraordinary drought year that even dried up some of the tributaries to the Colville River.
Based on that one season, the Department of Ecology decided to suspend the approval of any more permits for surface water. The Supreme Court then sus¬pended new ground water per¬mits as well, effectively closing the watershed.
The water use permits for the watershed that are still lan¬guishing in DOE offices include permits for small industrial, municipal and irrigation use. Putting in a well for a private home is still allowed by the DOE, as long as that well does not exceed 5,000 gallon a day use.
Kiefer and others in the WRIA 59 group have been working to have the watershed re-opened and have collected information and reports for the last 10 years to determine how much water is available in the watershed and how it should be allocated.
Intensive effort
“We are putting so much work into the watershed planning be¬cause we want to do it right,” said Kiefer. “We don’t want to have to come back in 20 years and do it all over again because we didn’t have enough informa¬tion or accurate information.”
The only significant impacts Stevens County may experience if the Columbia River Storage water release goes ahead could be the approval of some stand¬ing water permit applications from municipalities like Kettle Falls and Marcus, as well as a negligible drop in the water lev¬els in Lake Roosevelt. According to DOE projections, the lake would drop one foot annually and 1.8 feet during a drought year if the additional storage water is released.
Because that water level dif¬ference could cause some po¬tential negative impacts to rec¬reation and business, DOE is planning to pay the five north¬ern counties that border the Columbia River $400,000 each to negate impacts.
Stevens County Commissioner Merrill Ott said the county is planning to use the funds “pur¬posefully” and will likely invest the money once it is received until definite plans can be made.
“In our county, we need to be able to carry on our watershed planning through WRIA 59 and the funds we are currently get¬ting from the state for that planning are limited,” Ott ex¬plained. “We need to be able to determine the impact of devel¬opment in our area and its ef¬fects on the water supply. The problem is that although we have conducted numerous studies since the watershed planning group started in 1998, there is a lot we still don’t know about the dynamics of our wa¬tershed.”
Ott said the five counties re¬ceiving the DOE funds are plan¬ning to conference about how the money should potentially be spent. Ott said no matter what the decision, it will be clearly linked to the future of the area.
“We want to make sure we are a persistent player at the table when water issues come up,” he said. “As commissioners, we want to make sure we have done the proper planning and proactive work to ensure water for our citizens.”
Distrust of agency also ex¬pressed
Along with general confusion about the links between the Colville area watershed and the Columbia River, some attendees expressed concern that the new Columbia River allocation may be part of a bigger plan.
“I’m concerned that if this water is committed, we may be making a bad decision because we don’t know what will happen with the climate and the water we give away may be the water we need someday,” said Roland Hornor. “We never know what the overall plan of these agen¬cies is. It seems like they just want total control of the water, in order to get control of people.
“I was hoping for an open fo¬rum so we could ask questions and get some answers,” he added.
Department of Ecology Central Region Director Derek Sandison said that trying to explain tech¬nical information at public meetings is difficult and al¬though there is a lot of concern about water use in general, the Columbia River storage water release program is only planning to release 1.3 percent of the storage water held in Lake Roo¬sevelt.
“Part of implementing this plan is allotting $400,000 to the northern counties that border the Columbia River so they can work on water projects and availability in their own areas,” said Sandison. “We want to en¬courage water planning in these rural areas.”
But if other citizens feel like Hornor, then an another recent water proposal from the De¬partment of Ecology is not likely to be welcomed.
Permits may be needed
to collect rainwater
On June 10, the DOE issued a press release that announced the department will begin hear¬ings on the statewide rulemak¬ing for rainwater collection and permitting. Calling rainwater a “water resource of the state,” the DOE is planning to require those who collect rainwater for “beneficial uses” to get a permit to do so. By DOE definition, “beneficial uses” includes rec¬reation, irrigation, residential water supplies and power gen¬eration.
The department said the new rule would define how much rainwater can be collected and used before a permit is required.
“A statewide rule would re¬move the ambiguity about rain¬water collection from existing water law,” said DOE Water Re¬sources Program Manager Ken Slatterly. “We want to ensure that collection and storage of rainwater happens in a way that is consistent with the protection of stream flows and water rights.”
For more information about the rainwater collection permits, visit www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/hq/rwh.html or call 360-407-7262.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 July 2008 )
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