August – October 2010
(09/23/2010) Please note: Feedback is no longer being accepted for this question. Thank you to all that participated. The responses we received are available below. You can also continue to provide comments or contact us at forum@ecy.wa.gov.
September 13 – September 19
THE ISSUE
The Water Resources Program at the Department of Ecology works to protect and manage the water resources of the state of Washington by providing a host of services such as:
- The processing of water right applications,
- Monitoring surface and groundwater use to assure water availability for people, farms and fish,
- Ensuring compliance with permit conditions, laws and rules,
- Collecting and storing water related information,
- Developing policies and procedures, providing technical assistance to the public,
- Supporting watershed planning, and
- Regulating water well drilling.
About 85 percent of the work of the program is currently funded through taxpayer revenue.
>> Learn more about Water Rights in Washington
>> Learn more about General Fund budget cuts reduce processing of water right applications statewide
YOUR FEEDBACK
In your comments, please answer the following question:
>> Scroll down to read all responses.
I believe that funding for this should be spread out evenly throughout the state. There are of course the initial benefactors of the program but there are secondary benefactors that cannot be as easily quantified. We need to be mindful of not creating more beaurocracy to support unneeded staffing but on the flip side to recognize that getting a grip on this complex subject requires human resources.As now being involved in municipal government for the last four years, I can see how some people tend to expect the government to idealistically take care of everything for them. In my small community it takes a match in people donating their time and energy to push things through. This is how we take ownership. We shouldn’t expect to throw a bunch of money at something and expect it to work. I think that funding should be utilized to empower people in their own community to make a difference. Balance can be achieved in this by not taking a stoic approach about a particular story but by addressing growing issues that are quite complex. Good resource management takes an open-minded approach.
This whole discussion points out how DOE has failed to perform doing their legislatively mandated duties. They have put off and refused to process water right applications for many years. Now they want the legislasture to allow them to charge ‘fees’ of questionable legality to the applicants that applied in good faith years ago.
This brings up a number of questions: Can they make they legally make the fees retroactive? Is this a violation of the RICCO Act? Other Government agencies have been sued under this Act. Will they only be applied to future applicants? How will DOE separate actual fees for service from their geweral expenses?
The best solution to this mess is to take control of water away from DOE and give it to a new agency that has very clear guidelines about what its responsibilities are and the rules under which it will operate. This new agency should not include any of the current DOE management. In the viewpoint of most of the water users in this state they are ‘tainted’ with their past failures.
Sure. Let the fish pay.
Who benefits? Me? yeah. When you shut me off, the senior guy downstream benefits. Charge him. Instream flows benefit fish.
And if you don’t manage, who benefits? The illegal user? The junior right? The guys who work for them?
Figure out who benefits.
I think this should vary depending on the type of service and amount of water being used. Generally yes, it is a good idea and would fit in with continuing to fund watershed management for at least four more years. Some of the revenues should be allocated to local watershed management groups. This would provide the beginnings of base funding that would stabilize these groups. Watershed management will be needed throughout this century. A system that includes local responsibility and state level support will work best. I also think that all citizens of Washington should pay some portion of the cost for managing water, since we all must have water and benefit from sound management practices which are currently being developed.
City of Kent Comment. According to the Department of Ecology, water management services provided by the agency include adjudications, instream flow setting, dam safety, managing water rights (decisions on new/change applications/replacement/exempt wells), drought response, enforcement, data collection, well construction, watershed management and supporting water use efficiency (reuse). Although each of the above “services” arguably provides some benefit to the State, including the public at large, we would not agree that each of the above programs provides a “benefit” to water right holders that warrants an annual water right fee. Indeed, many of the “services” constitute broad based public programs, rather than providing direct benefits to water right holders and/or directly regulating their conduct.
Adjudication, flow setting, data collection, enforcement, etc provide no direct “benefit” to water right holders nor is that the statutory intent of such programs. To the contrary, such programs are clearly regulatory in nature, intended to support broader state interests. Further the “benefits” of programs relating to drought enforcement, watershed management, and well construction are disparate among communities and user groups within the state, and often provide no direct or indirect “benefit” to water right holders. Obviously, the watershed management program provides no benefits to water right holders in King and Snohomish Counties where no such programs exist due to tribal opposition and other factors. And although dam safety, reuse, and data collection are in the public interest, it is arguable whether these programs provide “benefits” to all water right holders, particularly given the fact, for example, that inland reuse simply does not appear viable from a regulatory context. It should further be noted that virtually all water right decisions in the state for new applications and change applications are now subject to cost reimbursement, a program whereby Ecology’s “management service” costs are fully recovered.
Overall, the assumption that above programs provide “benefits” to state water right holders that justify an annual water right fee appears legally problematic. More specifically, such an “annual fee” would appear to constitute a “tax” as opposed to a “fee for service” and thus may not be consistent with law. In this regard, the Washington State Supreme Court has made it clear that if the primary purpose of a law is to collect revenue to finance broad based public programs or improvements, rather than to regulate the person paying the charge, the charge may be recognized as an unlawful tax. The context of the above question, and more specifically Ecology’s stated interest in imposing an annual water right fee appears clearly intended to raise revenue for several arguably “broad based public programs,” as opposed to regulating/benefiting the conduct of (all) individual water right holders. Further, absent a direct relationship between the fee charged and the service received by the person paying the charge, a “fee” can be found to constitute an unlawful “tax”.
Given the broad scope of the “management services” Ecology is seeking to financially support, and the highly attenuated, if even existent direct relationship between many of those “services” and water right holders, it does not appear legally appropriate or sound public policy for Ecology to make a blanket assumption that (1) all water right holders (directly/indirectly) benefits from such services; and (2) that the recovery of costs for such services can properly occur via an (annual) fee schedule. Ecology may be better advised to increase program revenues by establishing a fee system where there is a clear and direct nexus between the service and applicant “benefit” and/or regulated conduct, and where the costs for such service can be effectively quantified. For services that do not provide a direct “benefit” or operate to clearly/directly “regulate” a water right holder’s conduct, Ecology may be compelled to determine how such costs can be addressed in the form of a properly framed tax measure.
As a final comment, it now appears that the great proportion of DOE’s programmatic efforts are focused on protecting and/or regulating unappropriated water that remains in streams/groundwater in order to protect stream/fish flows. It therefore seems reasonable that this programmatic priority or benefit of “resource protection” should be a subject of general fund support, as opposed to fees on individual water right holders.
When Fish and Wildlife charges fees to take the fish is it a tax? When Natural Resources charges fees to take their timber is it a tax?
Yes. It makes good fiscal and policy sense for beneficiaries of the water management system to pay for a higher portion of the cost of managing the resource from which they benefit. Higher user fees should be structured to provide adequate and stable funding for Ecology, which has lacked the resources needed to efficiently and effectively manage water for out-of-stream and instream purposes. Fees should also be structured to provides a clear financial incentive to use water more efficiently.
How will DOE define who benefits from the management services? Does this include the general public that expects water to be available? Or is it the individual water purveyors who are trying to meet the water demands for growth or the farmers who are trying to have enough water to produce food for a growing population? The State has an obligation to manage water resources and as such should provide necessary resources (i.e. adequate staffing) through the General Fund. It is also reasonable to expect applicants for new water rights or changes to help pay via a user fee (fair share and balanced amount). However, it is equally reasonable for the payers of these user fees to expect that their applications be processed in a timely and predictable manner. Water law and Growth Management Act provisions are at a disconnect and need to be reconciled.
Typical of DOE, the public comment exercise is window dressing only. The Department has already prepared a set of funding recommendations to the legislature (http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/1011022.pdf). It is this type of dishonesty that has robbed DOE of credibility and led a lot of Washington’s citizens to say, if anything, DOE’s budget should be slashed. Until the agency is cleaned of its activist personnel and demonstrates it can work honestly with the public, I join that group.
That report (IMO) has some big problems.
Like a sliding scale where we are charged less if we use less? Sweet! Oh waitaminute, should you or I “conserve” for 5 years we lose that portion (Qa, Qi, Place of use, season, even purpose).
Unless we put it in a trust or water bank. Which opens users to partial relinquishment since a trust requires and extent and validity test.
The one water bank I’m aware of doesn’t require a test, but when you pull it out and someone complains…blammo! Extent and validity. And now maybe it’s been in the bank long enough that the user doesn’t not have the records (or the property is sold and its a new user) to prove one way or the other if the water was used. And the burden is on the right holder to prove they did use it, not on Ecology to prove you didn’t.
Oh and while Ecology states “Washington state lags behind California, Oregon and British Columbia in requiring users of water resources services to pay for the services.” We also lag behind Oregon who has NO partial relinquishment and we’re light years ahead of California which (for the most part) doesn’t even regulate ground water use at all.
I’m beginning to think Ecology is being quite selective with it’s facts to make a sketchy argument more appealing.
The fact is if you flush a toilet, or take a shower in this state you are a water user. Ecology manages the resource for the users…and that’s eveyone. Not just the single user (or municipality…they’ll be paying a fee too…right?) who has a permit to pump water out of the river/well. Those users are just first in the chain, and the easiest target to go after in a tight budget year.
Sigh.
Should those who benefit from the management services provided by the Water Resources Program be required to pay a higher portion of those costs? Misleading question. First it insinuates WR program has the funding to manage Washington’s water… FALSE. It gets from the taxpayers about 1/3 of what’s necessary to manage the waters of the state. Second this question appears to insinuate a fee structure would would partially pay for that 1/3 of underfunding…RIDICULOUS.
A fee for the use of Washington’s water is the ONLY way the WR program can manage the water and get adequate funding to do so.
The downsides of no fee for use? water supply monopolies, waste, mismanagement, no more water for future users…etc etc etc. The list is endless. The idea that the state gives away ANY resource for free is absurd. In a market driven society there must be a price for any resource that isn’t endless. It’s the peoples water. Demand that it gets managed correctly. Ask for a fee for use.
The problem for DOE is too great a mandate for too little funding. By charging for water management Ecology will be doing what the private sector does: fee for service. Other responders describe the water management as a public good and public should pay. But they do not stop to consider that most individuals in this State are paying sales tax for all the services provided by the State, and the dollars do not stretch, especially in a depressed economy. A fee means those who benefit get charged. It should improve the service as well.
The services listed above as provided by DOE water resources are misleading. My response to the previous weeks question pointed out that applications for new water are typically denied as most basins are closed to new appropriations in the central region. The only other applications are for changes to existing rights which CRO has essentially stopped doing. Persons who need a change now go through water conservancy boards at thier own expense. DOE review often feels more like a turf battle that DOE undertakes against conservancy boards as DOE does not provide complete information to the boards upon request (e.g. Landsat photos and other relevant file materials) and often denies changes for impairment issues that are theoretical at most.
The stream guages are not monitored by DOE. Other rights are insufficiently monitored to assure any meaningful benefit by DOE. DOE is dependant upon citizen complaints for water use violations and even then has little authority to do anything except when the violation is very clear.
DOE efforts on compliance are largely letter writing which is useful but not particularly labor intensive.
Collection and storage of relevant information is a key role for ecology, but accessing this information is difficult. Ecology began to put this information on line along the columbia river but that website is no longer functional as designed. Collecting and diseminating information in this manner is wonderful for the majority of citizens who want to voluntarily comply but the fact that DOE does not fix the website and expand upon it demonstrates that their priority is controlling the resource and not educational or even voluntary compliance related.
I agree with the majority of the comments that the benefits that are supposed to happen are a general benefit to all persons and are rightfully funded by the general fund. I see DOE efforts to secure funding elsewhere as an effort to further insulate it from the persons it is supposed to serve.
The problem is priorities. If DOE priorities ever felt like they were consistent with the publics there would be no trouble finding funding. Instead DOE spends much of its resources fighting battles over water quantities that are too small to measure even cumulatively. If DOE focused on empowering water users and local government with knowledge of water rights and taking stands on water use that is meaningful to the public then they would be seen as part of a solution rather than a publicly funded special interest group.
Intersting. Since the State Department of Ecology has stated many times that they are NOT GIVING OUT ANY NEW Water rights, whats the argument really about.
If we do not stop their abuse of power. we will all be out of luck. I am already hearing from people in eastern wa who allowed a water meter to be placed volunterily on thier well. Only to recieve a water bill within months. They destroyed the meter.
The majority of Ecology’s workload is managing a public resource for the public benefit. While there may be a few “services” that would be suited to a “pay to play” format, the vast majority of Ecology’s management services should be borne by the tax payers. In order to meet thier mandates, Ecology should align their priorities and resources with those of the citizens whom they serve.
DOE provides very few direct services to the users of water. Most of the work they do is for the ‘public good’. Asking water users to pay for Ecology’s operations, is like making only parents pay for education, or, only the people calling the fire department to support the fire departments. How much of DOE’s budget is spent on projects and studies that affect whole watersheds or multiple properties, where many of the people don’t want them, or, don’t even know they are being conducted? We have to get out of the mindset of “What’s good for Ecology is good for you”.
Again….fees are fine but should be based on applicant’s/users ability to pay!
Since we all drink water, this program can and should continue to be mainly supported from the general fund. An annual fee for water right holders is not a good idea in general, and it apparently does not apply to exempt well owners. Water right holders are increasingly unsure about the validity of their certificates and claims. I don’t think additional level of staffing that would be required to manage the collection of these new fees would be worth it.
However, the current water rights application and change fees are very low, and an increase of approximately 10 times seems reasonable. I don’t think they have been increased in decades.
More funding, or changing the funding source, will probably not help solve the problems with water management in this State. What we really need is a new system of “active water management” rather than the current “passive water management.” There are real opportunities to better fund and better utilize our water resources through a new system of regional watermasters who actively work with the local people and local governments, water banks in each WRIA, temporary permits, temporary water rights, and other incentives for the better and more efficient use of our water. To help accomplish this, Ecology really needs more experienced engineer-types on staff and less attorneys and professor-types. More hands-on practical input on Ecology’s decisions would help.
A “fee” implies a service or benefit will be received. Such is not the case for most water rights applicants — the backlog now tops 7,000 applications and a majority of those applicants have been waiting in line for 10 years or more. The only permits processed quickly by DOE in recent years have been at full cost reimbursement to the agency by the applicant.
A majority of what Ecology does in the Water Resources Program isn’t processing applications for new appropriations, changes or transfers of water. It is, as stated by the agency, “protecting the waters of Washington” for the people of the state. Given that programmatic focus, it isn’t unreasonable that a majority of the program costs are and should be paid by the taxpayers, the citizens at large. Shifting that funding burden onto a small number of water rights applicants is unreasonable.
Putting water to beneficial use, especially for irrigated agriculture, is great investment in the state’s economy and benefits all our citizens. Water rights have helped transform otherwise arid, lower value ground into some of the most productive farm land in the world. Maintaining in-stream flows for fish passage and future populations are important, but DOE needs to restructure the program to find more policy balance and reform the program to find more staff efficiencies. Substituting fees for shrinking support from the State General Fund is NOT the answer in today’s struggling economy.
In my opinion, yes. As a former county commissioner, many of our programs functioned on user fees or a high percentage of user fees, including the Building and Planning department, sub-departments of Engineering, sub-departments of Utilities, and the recreation and golf divisions in the Parks, Recreation and Golf Department (among others). The hostility toward DOE indicated above should not be a basis for refusing revenue from those who benefit from the work. Private enterprise runs on customers (users) and government would do well to charge its customers for its services, not rely on the common tax dollar. Our taxes have too many demands from services which cannot derive significant revenue (courts, law enforcement, etc.), so anytime there is a specific user – they should “pay to play”.
The same response, as to the second question:
In this State, water is owned by the public and it is supposed to be managed for the public benefit. Therefore, the public should bear the cost of that management. To place that financial burden upon one sector of the public would impose an illegal tax upon them. Alternatively, that could be interpreted as privatizing the water or, a least, a significant step in that direction.
Several years ago, the Legislature considered removing the responsibility for water management from the Department of Ecology and creating a new agency to provide those services. Perhaps, that issue should be revisited, now that DOE, by asking this question, has given the indication that they are considering privatizing the water resources of the State instead of managing them for the public benefit.
Absolutely not!!! Citizens of the State of Washington are not served by allowing this out of control state agency any deeper into their pockets. This agency neeeds less funding until the culture in the department changes to allow people back into their “water for fish, farms, and forget people” policies.
Give Ecology more money and they will simply use it to be more obstructionistic in water rights acquisition and water rights changes. The State deced to take over managing all water rights in WA, the State should be resposible for funding a process that gets bogged down in ECYs own nitpicking, adversarial process.
While I recognize the necessity to conserve and protect our most precious resource, I don’t see a correlation between conservation and protection and water rights issues as determined by ECY. We (in America) are expected to increase our population by 50% to 450,000,000 residents. Obviously, this will affect WA similarly. I don’t see a proactive plan or objective for meeting the needs generated by this crisis. Aquifers are being drained by exempt wells, even exempt wells for development.
In the meantime, I see no proactive development of reservoirs to retain water supplies from snow melt and river water or to capture the downstream flow from the glacier that is the headwaters of the Columbia.
My computer posted my response before I had completed it. Don’t know how, I didn’t strike anything.
If we don’t get our act together between ECY, municipalities and other concentrated areas of domestic water use, the needs of agriculture, and the needs of industry, the logical outcome of this lack of pre-emptive, proactive planning will be water wars, fought in the courts at no small cost to all involved.
Another leading question, designed to get everyone to answer, “of course!” And, then, Ecology will go to the Legislature, and say that they have a mandate to increase fees for management services. Ask the people of Chimacum, Hadlock, and Sequim, if Ecology is working to provide water for farms. Many of us don’t see that at all.