OLYMPIA — Opponents of a water management rule in the Dungeness Valley have moved to have it set aside by Thurston County Superior Court.
The rule restricts water use — especially by new homes and businesses — in some places between Bagley Creek and Sequim Bay in eastern Clallam County.
The suit would have the court declare what the Olympic Resource Protection Council termed “draconian” regulations that would ban outdoor watering in parts of Water Resource Inventory Area 18.
The council’s petition for declaratory judgment was filed Dec. 31 in Olympia, home to the lawsuit’s defendant, the state Department of Ecology. No court hearing had been set as of Friday.
Greg McCarry, council president, said Friday that the suit followed the group’s unsuccessful request for Ecology “to sit down with us and review the rule.”
The council made its request about a year ago. Ecology denied it three months later, he said.
The council then launched a fundraising effort among building contractors, developers and Realtors to fight the rule in court.
For its part, Ecology “just got a look at it this [Friday] morning,” said Dan Partridge, spokesman for the department’s Water Resources Program, the management plan’s author and enforcer.
“Our attorneys are reviewing it. We will have to let them get a good look at it before we have any comment on it.”
The main point of contention is that the management plan aims to restore optimum water flows for salmon and marine life. Those are greater than current usual flows, critics say.
The council also wants Ecology to apply mitigation elements of the rule to the whole Dungeness basin, not just to new customers. McCarry said the area comprises 3,800 undeveloped parcels of land ranging from 2.5 to 20 acres.
“It shouldn’t be a burden on people who just come in now and want to use water,” McCarry said.
Building and real estate interests have fought Ecology since the department’s water management efforts began two decades ago.
The contested rule was implemented in January 2013.
Meanwhile, moratoriums on new water use are in force in Skagit and Yakima counties.
In Skagit, the Swinomish tribe won a state Supreme Court ruling that Ecology had failed to protect fish runs on which the tribe relies.
That prompted state Sen. Jim Hargrove, whose 24th District includes Clallam County, to warn of unintended consequences of fighting water management.
“I certainly hope it doesn’t end up with us on the North Olympic Peninsula having the same issues as up in Skagit County,” Hargrove told the Peninsula Daily News on Friday.
“We have a couple of bad examples where basins or parts of basins have moratoriums against building or using water.”
The tribes dependent on the waters of WRIA 18 — primarily the Lower Elwha Klallam, Jamestown S’Klallam and Port Gamble S’Klallam — have not opposed the water rule “because they saw progress being made,” Hargrove said.
“My concern as a legislator is to try to avoid any disruption of our local economy, be it to builders or homebuyers.”
According to McCarry, Ecology has set an optimum flow in the Dungeness River of 180 cubic feet per second, whereas the normal flow is half that.
“They created a flow of about 90 cfs that basically isn’t there in nature,” he said.
Clallam County Commissioner Jim McEntire is the county commission’s point person in the water rule controversy.
On Friday, he declined to comment on legal particulars of the lawsuit because he hadn’t seen the document, although he repeated his contention that the water rule “uses a sledge hammer to swat a gnat.”
In some parts of WRIA 18 — mostly the sparsely populated region south of heavily irrigated areas — measures aren’t available to offset using water outside a home.
“There’s nothing available for watering your plants or watering your stock,” McEntire said.
“There’s still a part that’s not working right. There’s a way to fix this, and we’ve just got to work and get it done.
“I’m confident that if we put our minds around it, it’s not an insoluble problem.”
But Partridge said Ecology could stand pat in the face of the petition for declaratory judgment.
“We are confident in the strength of our Dungeness in-stream flow rule to survive any legal challenge,” he said.
________
Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
