SEQUIM ¬– A plan to limit new wells in the Dungeness Valley drew a torrent of people to John Wayne Marina on Wednesday night.
The state Department of Ecology hosted “Water for People, Farms and Fish,” a public workshop on how and why water from the Dungeness River must now be managed instead of allowed to flow freely into an unlimited number of households, lawns, gardens and fields.
The marina’s meeting room filled up fast, until the crowd numbered nearly 150; among the most vociferous were longtime Dungeness Valley residents and real estate agents.
Cynthia Nelson, Ecology’s watershed planner, sought to explain what’s called the in-stream flow rule, a proposal intended to keep enough water in the Dungeness and surrounding streams for fish, other wildlife and recreational pursuits, while also allowing existing-well users to draw what they need.
To do this, the Sequim area now needs a “water exchange,” a system of fees paid for water rights, said Ecology’s Sarah Ferguson, lead writer of the in-stream flow rule.
And, Ferguson added, there may be periods when no new wells are permitted.
In some areas of the Dungeness Valley, these closed periods could stretch from spring into fall.
The development that has engulfed Sequim in recent years has produced the need for limits, Ferguson said, adding that in recent years, some 200 wells have been dug annually in the Dungeness watershed.
Are limits necessary?
But many in the crowd didn’t believe that limits are necessary yet.
“Are you talking about shutting the Peninsula down?” asked Paul Burgess, who lives off of Palo Alto Road outside Sequim.
He also asked Nelson whether people growing their own food in small gardens, or farmers working larger parcels, will face limits on their water.
“People who are using their existing wells are not going to be affected,” Nelson replied.
Future users “will have access to water. It’s just that it’s going to come with some strings attached to it, whereas before it has not.”
Nelson didn’t, however, explain how those strings will work or how much their attached price tags might be.
Instead, she and Ferguson took a long series of questions about why the strings are appearing now.
Ferguson sought to boil down the answer by saying that since many thousands of wells have been drilled in the past few decades, the flow of water in the Dungeness River now dwindles too low during summer and fall, making it an unhealthy habitat for threatened and critical species of salmon.
River ‘over-appropriated’
The river is “over-appropriated,” according to one of several Ecology posters displayed at the meeting.
So the state must establish a water bank, or exchange, a system that requires people to pay for new water rights.
This will ensure that there’s enough water to go around, according to the poster.
Yet a long line of skeptics formed after Nelson and Ferguson spoke.
“Fundamentally I don’t trust you,” Bob Forde of Sequim told the Ecology officials. He also challenged their premise that the water supply is a finite resource.
Ferguson, meantime, stressed that the limits on future well drilling and activation are still under discussion, and that the proposed in-stream flow rule will appear on Ecology’s Web site before any limits and fees are finalized.
She urged the audience to send feedback to her and to Nelson now and during the 180-day formal public comment period that will begin this spring, but she gave no start date.
According to an Ecology brochure, a public hearing will be held in early summer before the rule is adopted this fall.
Nelson told the crowd that Ecology has data on the demand that would result from continued development around Sequim.
If, for example, 10,000 people move into the Dungeness watershed and enjoy unlimited well and water rights, the river could dry up, Nelson said.
She then said she could “put that data together,” on Ecology’s Web site.
Karen Pritchard, a real estate agent who’s worked in Sequim for 18 years, was among the last to address the officials.
“This is a noble effort … to honor our earth, our fish,” she said.
Then she asked whether the in-stream flow rule, with its limits on water use, would be discontinued if they don’t save the salmon after all. “If we’re not successful, we should quit punishing the people.”
Ecology planner Brian Walsh said that the state has a far broader responsibility than only protecting fish.
“There are lots of benefits of keeping water in the river,” he said, though he didn’t elaborate.
Ferguson, for her part, urged Sequim area residents to send comments to her at ser461@ec.wa.gov, or to Nelson at cyne461@ec.wa.gov. Ecology’s Web page outlining the in-stream flow rule, with its charges for new wells, is www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/instream-flows/dngeness.html.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com
