Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The Washington state legislature agreed on a resolution Jan. 18 to the controversial Hirst ruling, affecting rural wells.
Senate Bill 6091 passed 35-14 in the Senate and 66-30 in the House. The votes ended a stand-off which began last year after a state Supreme Court decision on the drilling of new wells – making whether or not the well would draw water from streams and harm fish, up to a landowner to prove it did not.
The Hirst decision came out of a lawsuit brought by environmental watchdog groups regarding how Whatcom County instituted the state’s Growth Management Act. In turn, it left it to question whether new wells would be allowed throughout the state.
Washington has 62 watersheds, in which water is not uniformly available in all. Bill 6091 does not change this.
In the compromise between Republicans and Democrats, the bill includes $300 million for water conservation projects throughout the state. A $500 fee takes effect for some wells, with a withdrawal limit in some places of 950 gallons a day. Wells already dug are grandfathered in.
“It’s a compromise,” said Ninth District Rep. Joe Schmick. “All in all for the people in the ninth district, it’s a good bill. The biggest thing is assurety: there is water available, so you should be able to get a loan for property.”
Schmick refers to one result of the Hirst decision, in which some lenders held back loans as it was no longer clear whether wells would be permitted for homes to be built.
Previously, before Hirst, counties used an assessment from the Washington State Department of Ecology to approve (home) building permits on land with a well drawing fewer than 5,000 gallons of water per day. They were known as “permit exempt.” The Hirst ruling changed the law to require counties to scrutinize wells more by studying water availability on their own before a building permit might be issued.
The ruling still allowed permit-exempt wells to draw water resources used by fish and other wildlife, along with people holding senior water rights.
With the Hirst requirements, some counties stopped construction that relied on permit-exempt wells or passed the cost of the water studies on to landowners. Estimated cost of the studies was more than $5,000.
Overall, the 2016 Hirst order added to counties’ responsibilities for regulating drilling of new, small wells. In turn, Republicans held off on passing the state’s capital budget until getting a deal to address Hirst’s effects.
The deal was part of a $4.17 billion state capital budget, also passed Jan. 18.
“Overall, the bill will bring some assurance to folks with a plot of land that they will be able to drill that well, build that home,” Schmick said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
Reader Comments(0)