U.S. Water News Online
KENNEWICK, Wash. -- The water conservancy boards in two Eastern Washington counties have filed suit against the state, accusing it of failing to follow proper procedures in how it calculates changes to water rights.
The boards in Benton and Franklin counties allege the state Department of Ecology's new standards for how it calculates the amount of water that can be kept when a water right is transferred or changed are improper.
Benton County Superior Court Judge Carrie Runge issued a temporary restraining order to block the state from using the new standards.
Darryll Olsen, chairman of the Benton County board, said the new standards amount to an improper taking of water rights. The Ecology Department has been applying the new standards to recent water rights change applications without following state law that requires a formal rule-making process, including public comments, he said.
"If this rule goes through, it will be applied everywhere possible,'' he said.
Joye Redfield-Wilder, spokeswoman for the Ecology Department, denied Olsen's claims that the department has new standards on the matter. She also defended the department's right to use the most current available scientific and technical information when managing water.
"We're making our change decisions under our statutory authority and discretion,'' she said. "We're using the scientific and technical information that's out there to make decisions on a case by case basis.''
The dispute centers on the definition of "consumptive use,'' or water used by crops, and water inevitably lost to evaporation during irrigation, versus "return flows,'' or water that returns to the soil and is not productively used to grow crops.
Olsen accused the Ecology Department of choosing new standards that overestimate the amount of return flows typical for various irrigation methods. the standards could reduce by an average of 10 percent or more the amount of water actually available for water users, he said.
Because only the "consumptive'' amount of a water right, not return flows, are eligible for change or transfer under state law, increasing the amount of water assumed to be lost to returning flows will decrease the amount of water included in changed or transferred water rights, he said.
"They're trying to say all of the losses are attributable to return flows,'' Olsen said. "We're saying, no, these are direct irrigation application losses.''
Redfield-Wilder said no one should assume the department's standards will result in loss of water rights. Rather, she said, using the best scientific information available will enable agency officials to more accurately assess each situation individually.
She said the Ecology Department intends to file a response to the restraining order.
The judge set a hearing on whether to prevent Ecology officials from applying the new standards.
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