Methow Valley Citizens' Council
Projects
MVCC Projects PageLetter from Paula Mackrow to Methow Valley Citizens Council, thanking them for the alert in Department of Ecology's proposed rule change to water allocation in the valley, July, 1999. I appreciated the alert and some of the basic information MVCC added that is not available in the Ecology notice summary. If NMFS is cutting off access to farm water but Ecology is pressured (often and hard) to convert rights from farm to residential, it certainly bears deep public scrutiny on when that seasonal water is then delegated to residential uses that tend to use more than the farms in low flow season. ( In Sequim the retirees like to grow giant pumpkins with ditch water.) The fatal flaw in the rule change is that it allows Ecology and developers to make arrangements on an individual basis then requires the public each time to make comment etc when currently the water conversion practice is basically unacceptable on this blanket scale. The missing link here includes relinquishment of unused irrigation rights TO THE STREAM rather than to new development. I hope MVCC can express the priority of increased summer flow over increased ornamental irrigation. I hope you work to continue to educate the farm community on sustainable agriculture and help these family farms overcome the pressures of conversion to residential property. Please remember a water right is a right to use the property (waters) of the state for benficial uses. The US The state law includes instream flow as a beneficial use. Supreme Court has declared that low stream flow can be regulated under the Clean Water Act as diminished water quality. Pressure must be equaled to get the CWA enforced before new development further impairs the river. The Ecology proposal appears to have taken a short look at past collaboration and drawn a conclusion that is not in the interest of future sustainability of the Methow community. When using collaborative community based planning to justify a change in state law regarding the protection and division of public resources, I hope that the basis of the collaborative agreement is kept in tack. If only one element is implemented without other balancing measures in protection of the resource as the alert implied, then the fragile agreement will have been broken. Ecology has also been particularly poor overseers in the Battle Mountain issue. I hope MVCC can remain vocal and wary. Correct me if I've misinterpreted the issues.
