State Ecology chief says water issues top priority

Yakima Herald  April 28, 1988

Settling water rights claims and compliance with state water law are two concerns Washington state officials have with the just-introduced Yakima River Basin water enhancement bill, according to the new director of the Washington Department of Ecology.

Chris Gregoire said Gov. Booth Gardner has told Sen. Dan Evans, R-Wash., the state believes those issues must be resolved before the bill reaches its final form.

The measure was introduced in Congress Monday by Evans, Sen. Brock Adams, D-Wash, and Rep. Sid Morrison, R-Zillah.  All three sponsors said the bill is just a starting point for negotiation.  The bill had to be introduced now so that committee hearings could be scheduled.

Enhancement legislation is an attempt to provide additional water supplies for competing irrigation and fishery needs through additional storage and conservation.

While the enhancement legislation is proceeding, a major water rights adjudication case is handled in Yakima County Superior Court.  The adjudication is an attempt to sort out all water claims in the three-county basin.

Gregoire, on the job less than a month, said Judge Walter A. Stauffacher, who is in charge of the water rights case, will allow discovery of all claims to proceed after August.  Discovery of Yakima Indian Nation has been delayed more than a year so the tribe can concentrate on enhancement planning on the reservation.

“The bill does not provide a comprehensive resolution to the legal issues.  We have encouraged Senator Evans that we need that,” she said.

The state also is concerned about a provision of the bill that grants priority status to all the tribe’s water rights, based on its 1855 treaty with the United States.  Any water the tribe does not need could be sold to other users.

Gregoire said there is no such provision in Washington water law.

“If we are going to take that big of a step, all groups need to talk about it,” she said.

State agencies also want to make sure that the Bureau of Reclamation has exhausted all options before settling on the expansion of Bumping Lake.  The $380 million bill provides that the lake will be enlarged from 33,700 acre-feet to a maximum of 458,000 acre-feet.  Much of the additional water would be used for instream flows for fish.

Bumping Lake expansion is opposed by conservation groups.

The enhancement legislation seeks authorization for the enlarged dam, a series of irrigation delivery improvements to conserve water, a major water conservation study, subordination of hydroelectric generating rights to protect fish habitat and additional research on consolidating some small districts.

She said Gardner wrote Evans a letter Monday asking the senator how he wants to proceed with negotiations leading to the final bill.

Gregoire was in Yakima Thursday to speak to the Washington State Recycling Association convention.