This is the state’s response to Whatcom mayors who want flooding addressed before water rights
Several mayors of Whatcom County’s smaller cities, along with farmers in the Nooksack River basin, are asking the state to address their concerns about recent weather-related disasters before moving forward with a lawsuit over water rights in the aquifer.
But state Department of Ecology officials told The Bellingham Herald that decisions regarding water rights and measures to address extreme weather that’s related to climate change are separate issues and can be addressed at the same time.
A meeting with the mayors is planned soon, an Ecology official said.
In a letter dated Jan. 28 and released in a statement Wednesday, Feb. 2, the mayors of Everson, Ferndale, Lynden, Nooksack and Sumas asked Ecology to delay an “adjudication” process aimed at deciding who has claim to water in the Nooksack River Basin, known officially as Water Resource Inventory Area 1.
Instead, the mayors — members of the Northern Whatcom County Small Cities Caucus — want Ecology to focus on deadly record heat waves, drought and flooding that devastated the region last year.
“We are writing because we are concerned that the attention of your agencies is focused on other priorities and issues of concern to you, while the crisis we face with water management in the Nooksack River basin goes virtually unnoticed. Weather extremes over the past year have brought triple devastation to our local communities here in Whatcom County,” the letter said.
An unseasonable heat wave in late June killed one person and devastated Whatcom County’s raspberry crop, and mid-November flooding killed one person and caused an estimated $100 million in damage to communities along the Nooksack River.
“Instead of focusing on the entirely predictable twin problems of too much water in the river and streams at one time of the year, and too little at other times, your agencies have focused on issues that will do little to nothing to protect our salmon runs, protect water for our farms and citizens and protect our communities against these recurring low instream flows and devastating floods,” the letter said.
Mayor Mary Lou Steward of Blaine didn’t sign the letter, which was sent to the heads of the state departments of Ecology, Natural Resources, Fish and Wildlife and Agriculture.
But the agricultural organization Whatcom Family Farmers praised the mayors’ letter in a statement emailed to The Bellingham Herald.
“It is refreshing to see key leaders in our community campaign for a start to real solutions,” Whatcom Family Farmers said.
Adjudication process
In the adjudication process, a judge will decide how much water goes to Whatcom County’s tribes, agricultural interests, landowners and how much is reserved for fish — specifically the Northwest’s iconic salmon.
The state’s 2022-2023 budget includes $1 million over two years to fund adjudication for the Nooksack and another region in Eastern Washington. It also includes $250,000 for Whatcom County to conduct planning and technical work and proceed with what County Executive Satpal Sidhu is calling a negotiated cooperative agreement process to distribute water rights.
Ecology meeting set
Meanwhile, Ecology’s leadership is planning a meeting with the Whatcom mayors later this month, said the agency’s communications manager Jimmy Norris.
“We want to listen to their issues, to what their concerns are,” Norris said.
But he noted that adjudication and improving flood management can happen in tandem. The two issues are handled by different programs within the agency.
“One is not happening over the other,” Norris said. “They can both be happening at the same time.”
Funding is not being diverted away from flood management toward adjudication, said Robin McPherson, Ecology’s adjudication assessment manager.
“It’s important to remember that even though flooding is such a big urgent concern, it is a separate issue from adjudication,” McPherson said.
Ecology is aware that agricultural communities are worried about the consequences of adjudication, but this is the first “official notice” of concern that Ecology has received from Whatcom’s small cities, she said. The city of Bellingham has expressed support for the process, McPherson said.
