August – October 2010
(10/13/2010) 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.
October 4 – October 12
THE ISSUE
The mission of Ecology’s Water Resources Program is to support sustainable water resources management to meet the present and future water needs of people and the natural environment, in partnership with Washington communities.
In the past five weeks, the Water Smart Washington Online Forum has taken comments on water management issues such as shifting more of the costs of processing water right applications and other services of the Water Resources Program from the taxpayers of Washington state to those who benefit directly from those services, to giving Ecology better tools to integrate permit-exempt groundwater withdrawals with overall water management.
The final Forum question is seeking ideas on how the Water Resources Program can become more efficient and/or cost effective in delivering any or all of its ten distinct, statutorily required services. Those services are:
- Clarifying water rights through court adjudication,
- Setting instream flows,
- Ensuring dam safety,
- Managing water rights,
- Preparing and responding to drought,
- Ensuring compliance with water laws,
- Providing water resources data and information,
- Regulating well construction,
- Working with local groups, tribes and other agencies to develop and implement watershed plans,
- Supporting water use efficiency.
For detailed background and description of these 10 Water Resources Program services, see Appendix A in Ecology’s 2010 Report to the Legislature on water management reform. This appendix provides a description of these ten activities, including current funding and fee structures, as well as potential funding and fee options.
YOUR FEEDBACK
In your comments, please answer the following question:
I mumbled early on that I’d be in support of fee’s if some of the regulatory absurdity (partial relinquishment) was abandoned. Item #6 under appendix A (page 38) does mention that as one of the preferred solutions. Though puzzlingly it appears only in specific cases.
I also like the idea of water masters being able to regulate non-adjudicated rights. Adjudicated or not, you need to live with your priority date. In fact, if Ecology can regulate, relinquish, and otherwise manage (regardless of adjudication status) I think general adjudications would largely be unneeded.
I did note that there seems to be some disconnect about FTE and Ecology’s ability to process applications. Under that portion of the Appendix in question (Water Resources Program) there are only 9 FTE and $2.6M listed. Kind of a contrast to the earlier table that lists up to 50+ FTE and compares that to the number of applications processed.
I just cannot buy that right holders are benefitted directly by every segment of Ecology’s Water Programs. Most basins have no enforcement. Many are closed to new rights. Those users (billed under the blanket plan) would receive none of the more costly services their dollars would fund.
What we need is a tax (if back fill funding is needed) and/or a fix to the operational processes in place. Or a onetime blob of cash to fund an outside contractor to clean up the permit backlog. I suspect that’s the real solution.
The best way to increase efficiency: How about you get Ecology to just do what me, my county commissioner, and the growers association want. Give me my water, for free and for ever, and get out of the way!
Page 15 of the 2010 report to the Legislature includes a table of DOE FTEs correlated with applications processed for the last 10 years. It is provided to support the DOE proposition that additional money will result in additional work getting done. The data does not support that proposition. In 1998 19.5 FTEs processed 210 total applications for a productivity rate of 10.77 applications per FTE. In 1999 there was a surge in FTEs to 26.9 and a corresponding surge in processing to 273 but productivity sank to 10.15 applications per FTE. In 2000 productivity recovered to 10.71 applications per FTE. In 2001 there was a 3.7 FTE decline but productivity rose to 12.71. In 2002 there was another surge of FTEs to 56.9 which has remained pretty much the same since that year through 2008. This 2002 surge also brought with it a surge in work done with 874 applications being processed and a corresponding surge in productivity to 15.36 applications per FTE. The big story in the data is that in the next six years of data the FTEs remain roughly the same but productivity steadily declines to only 8.95 applications per FTE. This is a 42% decline in productivity in only 6 years.
I believe the problem can be traced to management policies that fail to provide adequate drection to the staff on where to focus their energies. New hires are likely to be competent in the basic concepts necessary to sucessfully process an application. Unfortunately Water Resource decisions are suceptible to being side tracked by minutia. As the new hires acquire greater sophisitcation they demand more and greater information that has less and less to do with the general merits of the application and generally involves inconsequential quantities of water. A management strategy like the one I outlined in previous comments would prevent this phenomonon and keep state dollars focused on legitimate state interests rather than a potentially endless quest for scientific perfection that happens to serve the ends of those who are opposed to getting the work done. I can provide numerous specific examples of enormous DOE and applicant resources being expended on issues that relate to fantastically small quantities of water in the context of change applications.
The upshot of this is that the data demonstrates that without a policy restraint of the kind I suggest a larger and more stable FTE number will likely bring applications to a stand still within a relatively short perio of time.
Before undertaking new programs or expanding program activity, we would encourage the agency to evaluate the performance of the water resource staff in each regional office, assess relative productivity rates, and engage in an internal audit that addresses the disparities that existing information indicates exists in relative performance – particularly relating to water right change applications. Hopefully such scrutiny will reveal performance and internal system issues that can be remedied through personnel and/or system modifications. Such audits/performance reviews should be performed on annual basis and results made available to the legislature/public. Before new fees are assessed, such an audit should be performed and metrics developed to evaluate future performance/efficiency achievements to ensure any new funding results in substantive improvements. We would also encourage that Ecology make an effort to determine what resource management services and information are available and/or being performed by local governments and other state agencies before new and/or expanded programs are contemplated. As a last comment, the needs of water right holders could be significantly aided by completing the digitizing of all existing water right records, and creating a internet access service where such records can be accessed without requiring Ecology staff assistance.
This is an excellent idea. With respect to the idea “you cannot manage what you cannot measure” I wonder how much of this data exists already.
When you build a racecar, because of the weight issue, there is a tipping point at which adding more horsepower is counter productive. Similarly, when Ecology expends inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to corral the minute percentage of water use resulting from exempt wells, the obvious conclusion is that the agency doesn’t have efficiency at the top of their priority list. Maybe, if car loads of DOE staff weren’t driving around the state in order to dominate “local committees” or schmooze and propagandize the population with their dog and pony shows, personnel would be available to process these applications.
Add to these activities, DOE’s dedication to disseminating faux science. The expansion of the concept of hydraulic conductivity’s influence on salmon populations fails to pass the smell test. Ecology’s focus is on consolidating power to control people, not administrating water. Imagine telling rural people that watering gardens, as has been done since the dawn of civilization, will prevent the fish from spawning! Look at the effort Ecology expended in trying to understate the recharge of septic systems into the aquifer. Imagine requiring meters so we can monitor and micro manage the various users of the last 1% of human water use.
The department has created a credibility issue. If truly DOE wants to concentrate on their mandates in this era of reduced budgets, they would cease the never ending expansion of their authorities and programs.
I really have a problem w/Ecology obtaining more money and more control, without outside scientific input. It bothers me a lot that Silverdale and surrounds can have, and use, so much water, when they don’t have the runoff from the mountains like we (Sequim) do. But, Ecology thinks we have very little water. We have three aquifers! and, runoff from our mountains, which receive lots of rain and snow. Why is the Department of Commerce budget being cut so much, and Ecology’s is not? Don’t we need jobs, while we are protecting the environment and our water?
The following comments from the Port Angeles Business Association are in answer to the Department of Ecology’s request for ways to increase the efficiency and cost effectiveness of their Water Resources Program. Each comment is a response to a specific section of Appendix A of the 2010 Report to the Legislature.
Appendix A, page 1, paragraph 1: “The late summer before fall rains arrive, etc.” Please look at the 4.9.10 Seattle Times article by Freitag and Montgomery, which proposes numerous small dams to provide water for fish during late summer.
Appendix A, page 19, paragraph 3: “In stream flows are used to determine how much water needs to remain in streams to meet environmental needs, etc.” While the enabling legislation and this document present the expectation of balance between environmental and social needs, the three (WRIA’s 17, 18 & 19) planning efforts on the North Olympic Peninsula have failed to attain this balance. The “technical assistance” provided by Ecology’s scientists was actually a mandate to provide the optimum needs for fish. Our recommendation for efficiency is for Ecology to develop plausible site-specific criteria, based on empirical data, to determine “water-short” basins and then abandon in-stream flow rule activity in those that are not water short.
Appendix A, page 20, paragraph 2: “Grant clearer Authority to regulate permit-exempt groundwater wells, etc. We believe, and have seen no empirical data to the contrary, that exempt well use does not have the real time connection to in stream flows assumed by Ecology. Our recommendation for effectiveness is for Ecology to do the science necessary to determine specifically where, in any specific watershed, exempt well use will reduce in stream flows sufficiently to cause unacceptable impacts to fish.
Appendix A, page 20, paragraph 3: “Adopt a statewide rule that sets in stream flows for all watersheds currently without in stream flow rules.” Developing and approving policy without science is an egregious violation of the goals of effectiveness and efficiency. We recommend that you do not do this.
Page 34, paragraph 2: “Conduct synoptic flow studies, etc.” To attain effectiveness in balancing environmental and social needs, we recommend that these studies be done as a precursor to setting in stream flows. This will allow an accurate determine of when and where flows are needed, when and where withdrawals are acceptable, and when and where stream restoration and enhancement projects will be effective.
Page 34, paragraph 4: “Support water supply development, conservation, and storage solutions.” We recommend that you consider the small dam option in the 4.9.10 Seattle Times article by Freitag & Montgomery, and stream restoration efforts that focus on re-establishment of the stream structure before setting in-stream flows.
Page 47, last paragraph: Water law, stream hydrology, and fish biology are complex fields and a large amount of technical assistance, etc.” We agree. However, our experience has been that the technical assistance has been a one-sided advocacy for environmental benefits and increased control of local activities by Ecology. Our recommendation is for Ecology to assist local planning groups in understanding the environmental risks associated with a range of in-stream flows and allow the planning groups to determine the flow that provides an acceptable balance between environmental and social values.
From reading your 2010 report it appears you have 10 primary “activities”. Each one of these “activities” actually looks like a program! How does DOE expect to do a good job of 10 areas of water management when the funding provides for 2 or 3 to be done right? Why doesn’t DOE make “Water Quality” an 11th activity and add 5 more people state wide to manage that function?
DOE management has obviously failed miserably. They haven’t acquired the resources necessary to do the job. Believing you can get to your destination with only a 1/4 of a tank demonstrates they don’t know what they are doing and will fail. The number #1 activity in the report to the legislator should be “acquire necessary resources”. Why cant your program see this?
Talking about efficiency and being cost effective is ludicrous. Why not ask a starving person how they can make their cup of rice go further?
Fundamental change is needed.
First, Appendix A reads like a pipe dream… get more reasonable. That said, clean water and air are taken for granted, assumed to be infinitely available especially in rural areas. It will take a long time for the concept of paying for water management to be publicly accepted, but if existing laws are to be enforced (#1 priority), you must do it. Proposed fees will cause very little impact to users, but the principle will create havoc.
Scientifically valid studies would be a more efficient use of the Department’s time and resources than doing otherwise, because, invalid studies do not go unnoticed by the public but provide a nucleus and basis for their opposition to the Department’s programs. Furthermore, in many cases, those studies must eventually be replaced by valid ones.
Part of the problem lies with other State and Federal agencies, local governments, Tribes and contractors, some of whom have embraced the principles of Conservation Biology. I do not know whether the Department of Ecology has done so, too. However, it appears that they may have. If that is the case, they should reconsider that decision.
Conservation Biology and science are mutually exclusive and incompatible approaches. In particular:
1) In Conservation Biology, science is mission-oriented. That is, you decide what result you want, first, before a study is done and, then, you devise and conduct a study that will give that desired out-come; and
2) A central principle from Conservation Biology is the idea that the complexity of nature exceeds human understanding. Therefore, if you conduct any study at all, you begin with the assumption of complex interactions. However, the preferred approach is to attempt to mimic nature and, also, to solve whatever the underlying problem may be, by molding the behavior and values of the public, through a group-decision-making process conducted at the local level but guided by the Department.
The first violates the impartiality of science and the second violates Occam’s Razor, as well as being offensive to many members of the public. — Having examined Conservation Biology, I find that it too closely allied to Nihilism to have a legitimate place in public-policy making.
So, I recommend that, the Department abandon the principles and methods of Conservation Biology and adopt those of science. That should help rebuild the Department’s reputation and, in the long-run, lead to the more efficient use of their resources.
Mr. Crittenden you sound like a very smart guy. What you propose here, although may be true, are very optimistic.
My understanding of the Water Resources program at DOE is that it is grossly underfunded. I ask you how would one get 5 star studies/results with 2 star funding?
And how do you expect to get real science when the politicians are calling the shots?
Yes. It is optimistic. But, I was looking at the long-term and considering the question of, “What changes do they need to make to improve their performance?”
Yes. I agree that the Department’s political leadership, could easily prevent those changes from occurring. However, many of their programs have been going in the same direction for several decades and have become senescent. Furthermore, the political climate is changing. Thus, they are approaching the time when a change in direction will be needed.
If the will is there, I believe that the necessary changes can be made, because, I have seen a large department of a university make such fundamental changes. I, also, believe that the funding level they recently had and may once again at least partially have in the future would be sufficient to attract qualified individuals. The present economic downturn, although, it puts a damper on new studies and programs, could also be used constructively to make the necessary changes in their staff. Thus, I expect that they will have a period of contraction and internal change rather than of new studies, rules, and programs.
The point is, that they need to do that with a view to where they intend to go in the future.
It seems an inordinate amount of time is spent reviewing proposed change appplications in order to reduce the quantity of water by some small amount. At the same time very little enforcement is undertaken to assure that folks using water illegally are brought into compliance with the laws of the state and the amount of water is enormous as compared to the small amounts a transfer is reduced. While Ecology says they respond to someone complaining about illegal water use that is not the way to enforce the law. Bottom line is a lot more of the “Publics” water could be managed for the greater good through better enforcement.