December 15, 2017
CapitalPress.com
3
Capital Press File
Water is released for flood control purposes from the Owyhee
Reservoir dam last spring. Carryover from this year will keep
irrigators well supplied going into next season.
Huge 2017 snowpack gives
Idaho irrigators a boost
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
From left, the Washington governor’s policy adviser Rob Duff, Ecology Director Maia Bellon and Ecology water resources program
manager Mary Verner listen to testimony Dec. 12 in Olympia at a legislative hearing on redistributing water in rural areas to respond to the
state Supreme Court’s Hirst ruling.
Washington Dems float rural well bill
New fee, less
water for new
country homes
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Democrats
outlined a plan Tuesday to
help fish while curtailing
withdrawals from new rural
wells, redistributing water
in the wake of the state Su-
preme Court’s Hirst decision.
The proposal could allow
more farm families to drill
wells for homes. But it would
limit withdrawals to 350 gal-
lons a day, as opposed to the
current cap of 5,000 gallons.
The plan also would impose
a $1,500 fee on new wells
and set the stage for metering
wells.
Some Republicans pushed
back against the plan. “It’s
unfortunate that these ideas
have come forward from the
city, the urban bubble,” said
Rep. Vincent Buys, R-Lyn-
den. “It really is the rural
folks impacted by this, not
the urban communities.”
Democrats, who control
the House and Senate, aired
their proposal at a session
attended by lawmakers from
both chambers. The plan
likely will be the starting
point when legislators re-
convene in January and take
another crack at responding
to the 2016 Hirst ruling.
The ruling directed indi-
vidual landowners to prove
their new well won’t affect
streams that sometimes run
lower than state-set levels.
Tribes and environmentalists
say the ruling should be en-
forced to protect fish. Build-
ers, lenders and landowners
say the decision has halted
well drilling, amounts to a
war on rural Washington and
should be fixed.
The Washington Farm
Bureau brands the ruling as a
harsh blow to farm families
and communities.
Farm Bureau associate
director of government re-
lations Evan Sheffels said
the plan presented Tuesday
was not as good as Republi-
can legislation to repeal the
ruling, but he credited Dem-
ocrats with putting forward
something to negotiate.
“I think it’s better than a
moratorium” on new wells,
he said. “The amount of wa-
ter (allowed to be drawn) and
the fees do raise concerns.”
To offset new wells, the
plan calls for spending $200
million over 10 years on
salmon recovery. Basin-lev-
el committees made up of
state agencies, local govern-
ments and tribes would be
charged with writing plans
to keep new wells from low-
ering streams.
Fish projects are essential
to allowing new wells, said
House Environment Com-
mittee Chairman Joe Fitz-
gibbon, D-Burien. “Without
the investments in stream
flow recovery, we’re really
back to where we started,”
he said.
The proposal also calls
on Ecology to put meters on
wells in one watershed to
test monitoring actual use.
Gov. Jay Inslee’s senior
adviser on environmental is-
sues, Rob Duff, said the pro-
posal provides a framework
for an agreement that eluded
lawmakers during the 2017
session.
“I think we’re on the right
track here,” he said.
Democrats took control
of the Senate in a special
election in November. A
bill sponsored by Sen. Judy
Warnick, R-Moses Lake, to
repeal Hirst is now dead.
Senate Republicans, how-
ever, still hold enough seats
to block the capital budget,
a tactic they’ve used to get
Democrats to negotiate a
Hirst bill.
Warnick said that Tues-
day’s meeting was a step
forward for Democrats. But
she said she couldn’t sup-
port the 350-gallon limit,
the $1,500 fee or meters
on wells. “Not those three
things,” she said.
Oregon county considers 35,000 acres for rural housing
Capital Press
Nearly 35,000 acres of
farmland and forestland in
Oregon’s Douglas County
would become available for
rural housing under a plan
that may be approved in Jan-
uary.
The county’s commis-
sioners are considering
changing the designation
of these acres from farm
and forest zones to “non-re-
source transitional lands”
where 20-acre home sites
could be developed.
While the county believes
this revision is needed to
meet demand for “rural life-
style” dwellings in the area,
state land use regulators and
farmland preservation advo-
cates are concerned by the
proposal.
The alleged need for ru-
ral housing isn’t actually
backed up by analysis, said
Greg Holmes, Southern Or-
egon advocate for the 1,000
Friends of Oregon conserva-
tion group.
“There’s a lot of asser-
tions that aren’t supported
by material in the record,”
Holmes said.
Douglas County currently
has land that’s classified for
agriculture and forestry uses
but is actually of low quality
for commercial production,
said Keith Cubic, the coun-
ty’s planning director.
an
Douglas Co.
mulls plan to
rezone 35,000
acres of farm-
land and
forestland
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Coos
Bay
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Roseburg
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Capital Press graphic
“It’s not well addressed
under current state law,” but
the county believes it can
make the “non-resource”
concept fit within existing
land use parameters, he said.
The 35,000 acres iden-
tified for minimum 20-acre
rural lots have been selected
because they’re not high-val-
ue farmland, rangeland or
forestland, Cubic said.
Areas with wetlands and
big game habitat have been
excluded from the “non-re-
source” designation, as have
properties two miles out-
side existing cities and rural
communities.
The county wanted to
avoid new development in
the “middle of nowhere”
that’s difficult to reach for
firefighters and other service
providers, Cubic said.
In all, only about 1 per-
cent of the county’s farm-
land and forestland would
be eligible for rural lifestyle
housing, he said.
The plan would allow
for about 2,300 new 20-acre
parcels, but the county ex-
pects only 25 to 50 percent
would be developed.
Even so, Oregon’s De-
partment of Land Conser-
vation and Development
has raised several concerns
about the proposal that are
shared by 1,000 Friends of
Oregon.
Douglas County is mis-
applying a state land use
provision that allows par-
cels to “go below” standard
acreage sizes for farmland
and forestland under certain
circumstances, said Holmes.
This provision is ap-
propriate for certain uses,
such as vineyards, but not
for rural housing, he said.
“They’re not allowed to use
that process.”
The county has also set
the threshold too high for
what is considered commer-
cially feasible forestland and
grazing land, allowing for
rural housing development
in areas where livestock and
tree production are viable,
Holmes said.
Surrounding existing cit-
ies with low-density rural
housing is also problemat-
ic when those communities
seek to expand, he said.
Developers must then con-
solidate properties and work
around or remove existing
infrastructure, such as roads
and septic tanks.
“When and if the urban
areas expand, it’s ineffi-
cient,” Holmes said.
Compared to farms,
which are inexpensive for
local governments to ser-
vice, smaller rural housing
parcels can end up costing
more than the added tax rev-
enue they bring in, he said.
“It’s a net loss to the county
usually.”
Cubic, of Douglas Coun-
ty, said the plan relies on
appropriate analysis of com-
mercially viable forestland
and rangeland and complies
with statewide land use plan-
ning goals.
Under Oregon law, coun-
ties must submit amend-
ments to their comprehen-
sive land use plans — such
as the “non-resource” idea
— to the Department of Land
Conservation and Develop-
ment for comment, said Tim
Murphy, DLCD’s farm and
forest lands specialist.
DLCD doesn’t approve
or reject such plans, but they
can be challenged before the
state’s Land Use Board of
Appeals, he said.
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By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Area in
detail
Pacific Oce
Home sites of 20
acres would be
allowed under new
‘non-resource’
designation
CALDWELL, Idaho —
The large amounts of snow-
fall that fell in basins across
Idaho and Eastern Oregon
last winter will benefit irriga-
tors into the 2018 water year.
“Last year was so exciting
and set the stage for the com-
ing year,” Ron Abramovich,
a Natural Resources Conser-
vation Service water supply
specialist, said during the
University of Idaho’s Ag
Outlook Seminar in Caldwell
Dec. 7.
Some reservoirs in Idaho
are at or near record high
storage levels for this time of
year, he said.
“There is a tremendous
amount of water in the res-
ervoirs now, and flows
are above normal, too,”
Abramovich said. “We are
going to put less emphasis on
snow this year because there
is so much water in the res-
ervoirs.”
Snowpack levels are be-
low normal so far this sea-
son in many basins of the
region but the amount of
water in reservoirs that was
carried over from the 2017
water season has provided a
significant buffer that could
insulate irrigators from even
a below-average snow year
this winter.
For example, the over-
all snowpack level in the
Owyhee River basin was
only 26 percent of normal as
of Dec. 11 but the Owyhee
Reservoir has 449,000 acre-
feet of water, which means
that reservoir is already 63
percent full with the rest of
the winter still to come.
The Owyhee basin feeds
the Owyhee Reservoir,
which provides water to
118,000 acres of irrigated
land in Eastern Oregon and
part of Idaho.
“An average year for us
is 300,000 acre-feet of carry-
over. We’ve done much bet-
ter than that this year,” said
Owyhee Irrigation District
Manager Jay Chamberlin.
“We’re sitting in real good
shape.”
Even if snowpack in the
Owyhee Basin is slightly be-
low normal this winter, grow-
ers who depend on the reser-
voir for their irrigation water
would have a full season of
water next year, he said.
Many basins in the state
produced near-record nat-
ural stream flows this year
and many had near-record
amounts of carryover water,
said Terrell Sorensen, a Uni-
versity of Idaho Extension ed-
ucator in Power County.
Idaho’s overall 2017 water
season “ranks right up there
in the top (ever),” he said. “It
was a really good water year.”
Natural river flow in the
Upper Snake River basin this
year was the second highest
in the last 106 years.
At the end of the 2017 wa-
ter season, the Upper Snake
reservoir system had the
highest amount of carryover
water in its history, said Lyle
Swank, watermaster for Wa-
ter District 1, which is Idaho’s
largest and provides water for
more than 1 million acres of
irrigated farmland.
On Nov. 7, the system was
78 percent full, which is twice
the normal average for that
date, Swank said.
“The benefits of 2017’s
high snowpack are still help-
ing us out heading into the
2018 water season,” he said.
“We’re in excellent position
as far as reservoir storage car-
ryover.”
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