For those interested in Lewis County’s quest for a water bank, a Wednesday morning meeting had bits of hopeful news.
Firstly, the county’s updated agreement with AMP Insights, a water banking contractor, stands at $44,500 — “much less” than the original projections budgeted for the project, said Lewis County Housing and Infrastructure Specialist Eric Eisenberg. Secondly, Eisenberg shared the county seems to have a “fair crack” at earning grant money from the Department of Ecology for setting up the bank.
Water banks are a conceptual collection of water rights in state law. They are not physical storage locations with water and, Eisenberg assured, they do not mean other water rights holders or well owners in the region will be required to meter their water usage. Instead, ownership of a water bank could allow Lewis County to mitigate consumption during construction or growth.
Basically, it would be a benefit for the growing rural county, especially as Ecology has “over-allocated” the Chehalis River, meaning there are more rights assigned to people than there is water available.
Lewis County Commissioner Lindsey Pollock added as water becomes increasingly valuable and scarce, having a water bank will increase “the general availability of water for multiple uses — municipal as well as commercial processes and even agricultural.”
Eisenberg said there is approximately $6 million not yet claimed that Ecology has reserved for county water banking purposes alone. If the board of county commissioners passes an amended contract with AMP Insights on Tuesday, which they are likely to do, the contractor will have until the end of the month to submit applications for the process, which could award them up to $2 million for water banking on the Cowlitz and Chehalis. If AMP Insights is very successful, Lewis County could possibly see $2 million for banking on each river.
“We always like coming in under budget and the more tax dollars we can recoup from the state that were collected from the citizens via sales tax to be able to use them locally, the happier we are,” Pollock said.
With water rights to a single acre-foot (a lot of water, Eisenberg asserted) costing between $2,000 and $3,000, the grant would allow the county to negotiate purchases for water and pay for the process of “validating” the rights through Ecology, which determines whether the rights can or can’t go into a water bank.
And if you’re still awake after all that, there is one more piece of good news. Eisenberg said he recently spoke with representatives from the cities of Chehalis and Centralia, which are jointly purchasing water rights from TransAlta, and found the county’s water banking will have no impact, let alone hindrance, on the cities’ quest for rights.
As TransAlta owns the largest year–round water bank in Washington, the municipalities are three of many entities eyeing their water rights: 28,000 acre-feet of water per year from the Skookumchuck River.
Lewis County is also checking out water rights on the Cowlitz River near Toledo where a proposed blueberry farm never got its start. The Cowlitz River, unlike the Chehalis, is under-allocated. However, Ecology has no staff dedicated to dolling out water rights, and County Manager Erik Martin said he’s aware of people who have “literally died waiting” for rights from the Cowlitz.
With all this at play, the county has encouraged their state legislators and lobbyists to focus on these issues during the upcoming legislative session.
