Wa. Legislature HB2514 status Watershed Management

Line by line, interest groups pick apart bill to regulate water use 
By JAMES BURKE 
The Associated Press
02/10/98 2:01 AM Eastern


OLYMPIA (AP) -- Line by line, interest groups are picking apart a 
water-rights bill that lawmakers hope eventually will satisfy everyone 
involved. 

It's not an easy task, and the search for compromise has been slow. 

Leaders from both parties in the House and Senate, along with Ecology 
Director Tom Fitzsimmons, spent months drafting a bill that tried to 
meet the needs of diverse constituents. 

Then public hearings began and everyone, it seemed, found something to 
criticize. 

Cities said the bill gave counties too much power. Cattle ranchers said 
the same about Indian tribes. Tribal leaders expressed concern that 
local governments could undermine their authority as sovereign nations. 

After all that, the bill was on "life support," said Rep. Kelli 
Linville, D-Bellingham, a key negotiator. 

The measure, House Bill 2514, was still breathing enough on its own last 
week to move out of the House Agriculture and Ecology Committee. Most of 
the work trying to hammer out the details will occur in the House, 
leaving senators with a basic "thumbs-up or thumbs-down approach," 
Linville said. 

"Hopefully, it will be thumbs up," she said. "Otherwise, it will have 
been a lot of hours put in for not much benefit." 

Negotiators have put in quite a few more hours recently, including a 
couple of 9-hour sessions last Sunday and Monday. They continue to 
inspect the bill's language "a line at a time, sometimes a word at a 
time," said Fitzsimmons, who noted that the talks were cordial and 
productive. 

"I'm confident we'll find language acceptable to everyone," he said. 

Lawmakers have argued for most of the decade about who gets how much 
water, what quality levels should be maintained and how much habitat to 
provide for salmon. 

The issue has become more urgent as the federal government prepares to 
put some salmon species on the endangered list, and the state has to 
meet provisions of the federal Clean Water Act. 

The goal of HB2514 -- only one of dozens of water-related bills 
introduced this year -- is to get beyond a piecemeal approach and foster 
widespread collaboration among cities and counties, Indian tribes, 
agribusiness owners and utilities. 

As Agriculture Secretary Jim Jesernig said, "There's been watershed 
planning for 10 years, but no uniformity in how it's done." 

This year's bill tries to rectify that. It would emphasize the front end 
of the planning process by focusing on local governments. Planning units 
could form in certain geographic areas to set stream levels and improve 
water quality and salmon habitat. 

That doesn't sit well with everyone -- especially tribal leaders who 
contend that they should have to negotiate only with state and federal 
governments. 

"The bill puts the tribes in a position where their position could be 
outvoted at the local level," said Steve Robinson, policy analyst for 
the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. "That is against federal law. 
The only way the tribes can relinquish their water rights is if they 
choose to do so." 

Not so, said Rep. Gary Chandler, R-Moses Lake. Robinson criticizes the 
chairman of the House Agriculture and Ecology Committee for knowing 
little about tribal rights. Chandler argues that tribes are 
self-governing but not fully sovereign because they rely in part on the 
federal government. 

"He's trying," Robinson said of Chandler. "He told me he thinks he 
finally gets it. Unfortunately, he's wrong." 

Chandler said he supports tribal rights and means no disrespect -- but 
that lawmakers have to honor everyone's needs. 

"The tribes think it's belittling for them to sit at the same table with 
local government," he said. "They think they should only sit at the 
table with the state....I don't know if we can get around that. We're 
trying." 

Another sticking point has been the role of the Ecology Department, 
which has had final authority over setting "in-stream flows" to protect 
salmon habitat. 

This year's bill would encourage consensus among the various local 
interests. If agreement is reached, Ecology would adopt that setting. If 
not, Ecology would move forward to set stream levels in consultation 
with the various groups, Fitzsimmons said. 

"It really is a substantive, although subtle, difference," he said. "The 
difference is that we're assuming a joint management responsibility. 
There's this balance struck where locals feel like they do have a 
meaningful role in the process."