State issues rule for county boards, hopes to cut water-right backlog
OLYMPIA (AP) -- The Ecology Department issued a rule Wednesday allowing counties to create their own water-conservancy boards, a move intended to catch up on a backlog of 1,600 requests for water-rights changes.
"Processing water rights has been virtually at a standstill for too long, frustrating both the public and Ecology," said department director Tom Fitzsimmons. "Conservancy boards, combined with local watershed management, provide a major step toward breaking the gridlock that is stifling water-rights processing." About 6,800 water-rights applications are awaiting processing on the state's first-come-first-served list.
Of those, about 1,600 deal solely with changes to existing water rights, such as changing water use, the point of withdrawal or the place where the water is used.
In 1997, the state Legislature passed a law authorizing county boards to process applications for water-rights changes.
Previously, that was handled only by the state.
Last year, Ecology established pilot local boards in Lewis and Benton counties. The new rule expands the program to all counties, providing guidelines on how to create and run a water conservancy board.
It took two years to institute the rule due to lack of funding and staff limitations in the department, Ecology spokeswoman Mary Getchell said.
"There has been a great deal of interest by other counties," Getchell said.
In addition to Lewis and Benton counties, eight counties are in the process of forming water-conservancy boards: Adams, Chelan, Franklin, Grant, Klickitat, Thurston, Walla Walla and Yakima.
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