Here's a regional take on one pressing water policy issue - securing adequate future supplies as population grows. "It's Clear: Plan Today For Water Tomorrow," is the title of the front page Insight section piece in today's Tacoma News Tribune, which I authored. My guest commentary is drawn from a longer white paper I recently completed for the Cascadia Center of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, called "Ample Water Potential, But a Leadership Drought: Toward a 21st Century Regional Water Policy for Central Puget Sound." As you'll see, I was especially interested in how key advisory bodies, and water utility managers outside of Seattle in Central Puget Sound (Pierce, King and Snohomish counties) look at impending growth, and our corresponding water supply planning options.
From my TNT Insight piece today:
The region’s future water needs, for both man and fish, will require more than conservation and more than the current fragmented approach to planning and decision-making on in-stream and out-of-stream water supplies....John Kirner, Tacoma Water superintendent, says, “We have a substantially increased population (in the three-county region) versus 1970, and the Puget Sound Regional Council forecasts a significant increase beyond today’s population. That means more economic development. The homes, roads, streets, malls, parking lots, schools and workplaces to support population growth all put stress on the water resource. Add to that more emphasis than ever on leaving water in streams for salmon, and you’re faced with the choice of people using less water, or making new water supplies and water storage facilities available.”
...The piecemeal approach doesn’t work. The clock is ticking, and the costs of securing enough water for our region’s future grow daily. Gov. (Christine) Gregoire needs to show real leadership and bring all the right parties to the table, in a binding regional decision-making process for central Puget Sound, where the water needs of homes, businesses and public institutions are firmly placed on equal footing with those of fish.
Central Puget Sound can learn from the experiences of other regions, and even nations, a number of which are also grappling with securing adequate future water supplies. To that end, a few related posts from one of my own sites, Rosenblog:
"GE Desalination Project To Expand Algiers Water Supply;"
"New Water Supplies, Conservation, Key To Metro Atlanta Growth."
Feel free to add your thoughts, even - of course - disagree. But please keep the feedback constructive. Meaning: trash-talkin' comments about politicians will be deleted from this string.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at September 11, 2005 10:12 PM | Email ThisSeriously, that's great work you've done. Unfortunately I can't picture a time in the immediate future where the people in Olympia will actually pay much attention to the topic. Unless you can figure out a way to involve the SEIU or the WEA, of course.
RM
Thanks!
Posted by: sgmmac on September 12, 2005 06:47 AMThere are lots of remote places outside of certain major metropolitan areas that really need to get water rights sewn up to even maintain current levels of development. There are many County and City growth management plans that don't have adequate water rights for the existing zoning. There are even people with home mortgages that live in places without senior water rights, such that their homes could at some point be declared uninhabitable.
Now for the other side. Some cities like Everret developed their water supply at a time when they had several pulp & paper mills and plywood mills in the city and planned for more industrial expansion. As these industries were driven out by changes in forest practice requirements, changing market conditions, shortages of resources, and especially by changes in air pollution laws and the price of electricity they closed and their water needs disappeared.
A similar trend has occurred in these older cities where old toilets that used more water have worn out and been replaced by more modern toilets that use less water. Where low flow shower heads or water restrictors have been given out to folks in the name of electric energy conservation, and where newer washing machines and dishwashers have been installed (that were designed for the California and European markets) which use much less water.
All of these things have combined up in Everett to mean that they have a water supply that will last them a long long time, if they don't share it too broadly (i.e. with King County).
Nationally, Everett is the exception. But there are other mill towns in Western Washington which also have had their high water use industries driven out. The water right needs in Washington state can not be generalized. However, if generalization is required there are enough towns, rural areas, etc. that require water that this is a significant issue that needs to be addressed.
Unfortunately Dept of Ecology, which deals with handing out water rights, is more concerned about setting stream flow minimum values at optimal salmon spawning levels than at historic lows. There are many many streams where Ecology has established minimum stream flows that are higher than average water in the streams. This combined with their "continuity of ground and surface water" policy means that you can't even drill wells. Common sense is not practices or even common at the Dept. of Ecology.
Posted by: Bob on September 12, 2005 08:17 AMDiscovery seems to think that every transit and road agency should be part of one giant bureau run by politicians. Yet there's no evidence that will do any good. While a merger of the two transit agencies in Snohomish county in a non brainer - the rest are better left to voters in each county because there's better and more accountability.
Vague notions about "governance" reform aren't constructive. Specific examples or proposals for workable changes are extremely constructive and would be useful in making transportation and water planning work better around here.
Posted by: thor on September 12, 2005 08:21 AMWith Water and Growth comes the need for roads, schools and other infrastructure. Governments' unwillingness to coerse growth to pay its way has left us with huge liabilities in exchange for our "progress". We're now tens of billions in the red for roads with unfunded projects in King County alone, with congestion growing and no money available to even maintain the road systems we have now. Our schools are overcrowded in the developing areas with no money for new construction, so our kids must live with crowded classrooms and long bus rides to and from.
Water is easy. You don't have to threaten the taxpayers to pay for it, as current water ratepayers will pay for any expansion and they won't even be aware of it. But with water comes growth made easier with water availability, and those other road, school and infrastructure costs are simply not getting paid for. With local government bureacracies dependent on permit fees and mitigation, they don't know how to say "no" and they have no leverage to demand fair and reasonable impact costs.
Progress today at the expense of our future 5, 10 or 20 years from now is not progress. It's a derailed train waiting for the horrific crash.
Posted by: Mike on September 12, 2005 10:17 AMOverall it this is the type a of a regional authority should be able to do. However it is should be tightly defined and controlled. With water for humans a priority over fish.
As it is now we have one agency telling folks in rural KC to use rain barrels to catch runoff from roofs etc... but then DNR comes in and says water belongs to them and you cannot catch runoff. Precisely the kind of Baker Sierra that drives folks nuts.
Now of the real solutions for greater water none of them are not going to get done with a huge fight with the watermelons. i.e. new dams, raising dams etc... So we should really scare them up front and propose a nuc plant to power a desalination plant.
Bottom line reform Washington politics, then look at water management. With crew around now water management will cost too much, do too little and be far to late to be effective.
Posted by: JCM on September 12, 2005 12:03 PMThe Department of Ecology is going to seize all unallocated water in any given WRIA (there are, as I understand it, 62 of them). In WRIA 17, they want to backdate the water right seniority for the seized water to June 12, 2000. Then they are going to set aside "reserves" All new water withdrawals have to come out of these "reserves".
The "reserve" system amounts to a very strict rationing scheme. New wells will be allowed for domestic use up to the limit of the "reserve" that Ecology sets. The owner of one of these wells is allowed to water a whopping 1/12 (one-twelfth) of an acre of the parcel, regardless of parcel size. There is a maximum daily average of 360 gallons per day, whether you are a bachelor or have four teen-age daughters.
If you are on a multiple unit well, and have fourteen residences on that well, all of the residences, combined, are allowed to water 1/2 acre. That would mean each residence would be allowed to water 1/28 of an acre. Can't get too many tumaters out of that big a garden!
I live in Jefferson County, a county larger than Rhode Island, and pushing toward a total population of 30,000. In Jefferson County I live in WRIA 17. If Ecology's instream flow rule goes through as drafted, the Designated Ground Water Area where I live (Quimper Peninsula) will be allocated a reserve of 86,100 gallons of water per day for new wells. Using Ecology's max daily average of 360 gallons per day per well, we come up with a future additional well number of 239 and a fraction.
If you can't get permission to drill a well, you can't get the permits to build a home. When we reach that magic number of 239 new wells, the Designated Ground Water Area will be closed to new withdrawals.
So, in the unincorporated area outside Port Townsend, we are only going to be allowed to welcome 239 new families who want to build their homes here.
If this rule goes into force, no new water withdrawals will be allowed on any island in WRIA 17.
WRIA 5, the Stillaguamish River Basin in Snohomish County had their instream flow rule signed August 26, 2005. WRIA 17 is slated to be next. As more of these "early adopter" precendents are set, it becomes ever more likely that the same will happen in all the remaining WRIAS, because the initial draft they work from is boiler plate text. They've all started with the 1/12 acre / 360 gallon per day limits. They've all included a presumption of full hyrdraulic continuity.
The Department of Ecology also wants to install meters on new wells, to their specifications, and for the permit holder to report the readings to the Department.
SO...you don't have to wonder, and you don't have to waste time trying to set up any regional water planning efforts. Ecology has already decided how they want our future water use to look, and it's not pretty.
Mark Twain once told us that whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting. We can either all go out and get drunk out of our minds, or we can get some spine and fight Ecology's effort to steal our water.
We do, indeed, live in interesting times.
Posted by: Norman MacLeod on September 12, 2005 11:09 PM