[Vision2020] WSU Fights to Keep Water Rights

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (January 20, 2008) Spokesman Review -

"Environmental groups cite reports showing the aquifer is dropping by a foot
and a half a year, and they argue that the state failed to consider the
"public impairment" caused by the increased water usage at the course when
granting WSU the consolidation."

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WSU fights to keep water rights 
Some say golf course threatens waning aquifer

Shawn Vestal 
Staff writer
January 20, 2008

The latest battle over Washington State University's water use and the
region's dwindling aquifer will get a public airing this week in Pullman,
when opponents try to overturn a state decision allowing WSU to consolidate
its water rights.

The university said the state decision addresses only where it can pump
water - consolidation allows it to pump its total allotment from any
combination of wells, rather than a certain amount per well. But the total
amount of water it can use won't change, WSU says, and the decision won't
affect watering its new golf course.

 
Opponents say the hearing is part of a longer-term strategy to prevent an
expansion of water use stemming from the new 18-hole golf course. Rachael
Pascal Osborn, an attorney representing opponents of the course, said the
next step is a court challenge of a 2003 law that allows WSU to hold onto
water rights indefinitely.

The golf course has been a lightning rod for the issue, with critics arguing
that it doesn't make sense to pump millions of gallons of water a year for
the course while the Grande Ronde aquifer, which supplies the region's
water, declines. 

Environmental groups cite reports showing the aquifer is dropping by a foot
and a half a year, and they argue that the state failed to consider the
"public impairment" caused by the increased water usage at the course when
granting WSU the consolidation.

The appeals hearing before the Pollution Control Hearings Board is expected
to last two days. It begins Tuesday at 9 a.m. at Lighty Student Services
Building, room 405.

Construction on the $12 million golf course is well under way, with the
driving range open and a full public opening set for this year, and critics
have not fared well so far in efforts to block it. The Palouse Conservation
Network, the Center for Environmental Law and Policies and others challenged
the consolidation on several points and lost on most of them in a written
judgment issued by the appeals board in December. However, the board ordered
a hearing on the issue of public impairment and a few other questions.

Osborn said whatever happens next week, she plans to pursue a court
challenge of a new law that allows "municipal water suppliers" such as WSU
to keep their unused water rights forever rather than losing them if they go
unused.

That law was the basis for most of the losses opponents suffered in the
appeals board decision, she said.

"We never believed, win or lose, that we'd be stopping at the Pollution
Control Hearings Board," she said.

She said WSU has actually only used about a third of its historic water
rights, and the golf course watering is "radically expanding" the actual
amount of water used. 

The university has argued that it has cut overall water use by more than 100
million gallons a year in the past decade and is continuing to focus on ways
of being efficient with its water. The golf course is expected to use about
55 million gallons a year, WSU says.

Osborn said that even if WSU has made gains in water efficiency, the
situation with the region's aquifer calls for urgent action. She plans to
call a pair of hydrogeologists to testify during the hearing about the
aquifer.

"There should be an extraordinary amount of belt-tightening in that area,
and it's not happening," she said. "When water levels are dropping a foot
and a half a year, you've got a problem."

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What's next?

The appeals hearing before the Pollution Control Hearings Board is expected
to last two days. It begins Tuesday at 9 a.m. at Lighty Student Services
Building, room 405.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If I wanted to overhear every tedious scrap of brain static rattling around
in your head, I'd read your blog."

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