Meeting Summary- December 17, 2004

A GENERAL PARTNERSHIP BUSINESS

Introduction

This was the first meeting to start at 9:30. Chair Bob Spahr welcomed everyone and opened the meeting. Seventeen of the Partnership's twenty-eight member organizations had a representative or alternate at the meeting. Eleven additional citizens, alternates, or visitors were at the meeting. (See attendance list on the last page of this summary).

Steering/Technical Advisory Committee .

A summary of the December 2nd Steering/Technical Committee is attached. The material developed at that meeting was discussed later in this meeting. The STC will meet twice in January with representatives from Boise State University to develop and test decision rules to be used for prioritizing tasks under the Plan-2-Fund implementation tool.

Water Quality Committee

The Water Quality Committee met December 9th. The first action of the committee was to hear presentations on the two water quality projects that have been submitted to the Department of Ecology for funding from the Chehalis Basin. The two projects are a sewage treatment facility upgrade submitted by the City of Westport (WRIA 22), and a water quality improvement project in Dillenbaugh Creek submitted by the Lewis County Conservation District (WRIA 23). Reviewing and ranking the two projects at the WRIA level results in additional points that are added to the score they receive from Ecology's internal review process. The extra points from this local ranking process allows the projects to be as competitive as possible with other projects from across the state.

The committee also worked on taking action #39 [Develop and distribute public information on inspection and care of septic systems, page 24] from the approved watershed plan and putting it into the Plan-2-Fund format. This resulted in identifying 14 tasks that will be necessary to accomplish the recommendation. A copy of the results of the effort is attached to this summary.

Other Business

Annual Plan of Work: The annual plan of work for 2005 was handed out.

Water Quality Grant and Loans: As discussed above, the Water Quality Committee reviewed two projects and ranked each of them as the highest priority within the WRIA 22 and 23. Two letters to Ecology presenting these recommendations have been prepared and, if the Partnership approves the recommendations, the letters will be hand-delivered to Ecology today so it meets the December 17th 5:00 p.m. deadline. After a brief discussion the Partnership approved the recommendations and both the Chair and the Partnership's Lead Agency signed the letters.

Flow Monitoring Sub-Committee: A handout listing the places where flow data is currently collected in the Chehalis Basin and showing where historical flow data exists was distributed (copy attached). It has proven to be difficult to arrange a meeting where everyone who wants to be involved can attend. A lunch meeting for interested people will be held after the Partnership meeting today to discuss and agree on up to three locations where new "real-time" flow gauging stations might be placed by Ecology. [NOTE - at the meeting the following three sites were identified: the Black River near the mouth, the Newaukum River or one of its tributaries and the Wishkah River.]

B. SPECIAL PROJECTS

A handout based on work done by the Steering/Technical Committee in December was distributed. It turns out that the actions in the approved plan are a mixture of goals, objectives and tasks. The STC took all of the actions approved in the Chehalis Basin watershed plan and organized them under the goals and objectives in the plan. The handout dated December 2, 2004 and called "Clarifying the Actions," shows whether each plan action is a goal, an objective or a task. It also shows which goal and objective each plan action applies to the most.

This handout had the effect of encouraging some people who thought that the watershed plan didn't go far enough in determining what kinds of specific things needed to be done to protect the basin's water resources. Today's handout starts to fill in the gaps by showing where specific tasks will need to be identified to achieve the plan's goals and objectives.

The question was asked, 'Who is going to actually do the tasks once they are identified?" There were several responses to the question including: 1) we won't know the answer to that question until we complete this process, 2) it won't be just one person - we'll all share some portion of the responsibility to implement actions, and 3) it depends on what funding source we obtain to implement the plan.

It is recognized that it will take time to identify all the tasks, along with which organization is the most likely to be able to implement it, what it will cost and where the resources to implement the tasks will come from. To support that effort, Ecology has determined that planning groups, with both an approved watershed plan and leftover Phase 3 planning funds, can use the remaining Phase 3 funds to begin work on developing the elements of a Phase 4 detailed implementation plan. That is a good thing, because Phase 4 only allows twelve months to complete all the work. The detailed implementation plan, once complete, will allow us to say with confidence "we need this much funding to implement the actions in the plan."

The next priority of the Steering/Technical Committee will be to start developing decision rules to bring to the Partnership . Decision Rules will be used by the Partnership to prioritize one action against another. The January 6th STC meeting will focus on developing some draft decision rules, and the January 19th STC meeting will test how the draft decision rules help us move from the approved watershed plan to implementation tasks using Plan-2-Fund.

Response to "Implementation and Funding of Salmon Recovery and Watershed Health Efforts"

A copy of this concept paper (dated November 23, 2004) was mailed out with the meeting packet for the December Partnership meeting. A memo highlighting the thoughts of staff for Grays Harbor County, which serves as the lead agency for the Partnership, was distributed at the meeting. The paper was prepared by one of Governor Locke's. staff and explores possible options for integrating salmon recovery and watershed planning funding and implementation activities. There is no deadline for response, but it is something that will probably come up during the 2005 legislative session.

Salmon Recovery

The Chehalis Basin did very well this year. The Salmon Recovery Funding Board agreed to provide $1,174,192 to fund seven projects in the Chehalis Basin (See the shaded area in the attachments. There always seems to be some tension in the funding process between basins with impaired salmon stocks that want funds to develop projects to improve those stocks and basins with healthy stocks that want funds to do projects that will keep them healthy.

Special Presentation on Water Conservancy Boards

Don Davidson from the Department of Ecology discussed Water Conservancy Boards (WCBS) and answered questions. Water Conservancy Boards are units of local government. Members are appointed by County Commissioners and serve voluntarily. WCBs were created as an alternative for people who want to make a

change in the use (purpose, location of withdrawal or location of use) of their water right or transfer that right (or a portion of it) to another person. The total quantity of a water right cannot be changed. The idea was to speed up the time it takes to make a change in an existing water right and it has worked pretty well. Some charge fees

to cover their costs and others are funded by the counties they serve. -

There are twenty-one WCBs in the state. Five of them are in Western Washington, and three of those are in the Chehalis Basin. Lewis County was one of the first Water Conservancy Boards in the state. Thurston County has a very active Water Conservancy Board, and Mason County has formed one fairly recently. Members of WCBs go through a rigorous training on water law and must stay current on changes to water law. This requires about eight hours of additional training each year.

A couple of WCBs formally serve as a clearinghouse for people who want to buy and sell water. Others

probably do so informally. Some WCBs use their process to provide their interpretation of state water law and

policy.

Some facts from a report on Water Conservancy Boards:

WCBs have been able to process change applications for about one-half the amount it costs Ecology to process them.

Ecology processes six times as many changes.

WCBs make decisions faster.

WCBs have more public participation.

The percentage of change applications where the applicant receives less water than they had hoped to receive is about the same for both WCBs and Ecology.

One big difference is that when someone applies to a WCB for a change decision, the burden is on the applicant to provide all the data necessary to make the decision.

Ecology must approve all decisions made by WCBs and has disapproved or modified decisions, but only when we simply cannot approve the change because it goes against state law. Often a WCB will withdraw its decision when problems are pointed out by Ecology.

Questions...

What is done to prevent biased decisions because of who is on the board? Members are required to excuse

themselves from decisions where there may be a conflict.

What size well can be handled through the WCB system? Any well that is not an exempt well.

What about liability for WCB members, have any been sued? Not aware of any WCB members that have been

sued. The concern about liability is one reason some WCB fees are so high - they purchase insurance.

Has any decision been made regarding requiring relinquishment of a portion of a water right as part of a change ,or transfer? By law, neither Ecology nor a WCB can reduce a valid water right or require relinquishment of a portion of a right. But both evaluate the actual use of the water right and can't transfer water that hasn't been put to beneficial use in the last five years. People do sometimes find that they haven't used all the water they thought they were using.

Can a point of withdrawal be moved to an entirely different basin? There is a requirement that any change must

still come from the same source.

Can people who are interested in water law but are not on WCB attend the training? Because of the cost the

training is limited to people who have been appointed to a WCB.

What about the "public interest" element of WCB decision-making? In the law it says that watershed planning units will be part of the public interest component of WCB decisions. Although the Thurston County WCB has sent copies of change/transfer applications to the Chehalis Basin Partnership we have told them that they shouldn't expect a response on each application because we do not have the resources. Both the Chehalis

plan and the Nisqually plan contain actions that discourage the transfer of water rights away from agricultural lands in Thurston County. Do provisions like that satisfy the public interest test or does the planning unit need to review and comment on each water application considered by a WCB? Thurston County and Ecology should talk about these specific recommendations.

The next meeting of the Chehalis Basin Partnership will be held on January 28, 2005 from 9:30 to 12:00 a.m. at the Lucky Eagle Casino near Oakville.

Decisions

Approved the local ranking recommendation prepared by the Water Quality Committee.

November 19, 2004 Chehalis Basin Partnership Attendance Recor

Bob Beerbower, Lee Na pier	Grays Harbor County
Craig Swanson	Lewis County
Bob Macleod, Mark Swartout	Thurston County
Mark White	Chehalis Tribe
Art Lehman	Ports
Bonnie Canaday, Dennis Rhodes	City of Centralia
Bob Spahr, Patrick Wiltzius	City of Chehalis
Ron Schillinger	City of Montesano
Jim Hasleft	City of Napavine
Terry Willis	Grays Harbor County Citizen Representativ e
Lyle Hojem	Lewis County Citizen Representativ e
Jim Hill	Lewis County Citizen Advisory Committee member
Chanele Holbrook-Shaw, Earl Emerson	Thurston County Citizen Advisory Committee member
Ann Wick	WA ST Department of Agriculture
Kahle Jennings	WA ST Department of Ecology
Chad Stussy	WA ST Department of Fish and Wildlife
Lonnie Crumley	Chehalis basin Fisheries Task Force
Ron Mauel	Lewis County Farm Bureau
Bob Amrine	Lewis County Conservation District
Bruce Jones	Quinault Indian Nation
Guy McMinds	Quinault Indian Nation
Lori Morris	U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
John Mudge	Citizen, Lewis County

Attachments to this summary:

December 2 Steering/Technical Committee meeting summary

Water Quality Committee list of tasks under watershed plan recommended action #39.

Annual Plan of Work (reduced in size)

Summary of flow stations and historical data points

Memo on Salmon Recovery and Watershed integration concept paper.

List of Chehalis Basin projects funded by the Salmon Recover Funding Board

Not attached:

Matrix of goals, objectives and tasks. [Paper size did not allow copying]

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