Difficulties already plague state’s massive Whatcom water lawsuit in first hearing | Opinion

Local farmers are concerned as troubling questions and legal conflicts already threaten to delay the Washington State Department of Ecology’s massive water rights lawsuit in Whatcom County.

The confusion resulting from the massive scale of the growing lawsuit has already led to delays. The size of the lawsuit has already grown from Ecology’s initial estimate of 15,000 claimants to now over 30,000. The complexity of the case, where Ecology is bringing complicated groundwater flows into a water rights adjudication for the first time in an entire watershed, is resulting in growing legal fees before the actual case has technically even started.

Initial farming community fears that the process will take decades more than Ecology’s optimistic estimates and cost local water users and state taxpayers many millions of dollars appears to be well founded. This first hearing, finally coming almost a year after Ecology was originally given the go ahead to file the lawsuit, only dealt with the simple task of setting a schedule of initial events. Yet, multiple motions were laid in front of Whatcom County Superior Court Judge David Freeman over what would appear to be a fairly simple beginning act in this complicated process.

The continued delays in this process underline what we at Whatcom Family Farmers have said all along: This will be a long, complicated legal process that will significantly delay any real progress toward fixing the complicated water issues in the Nooksack river system.

Judge Freeman denied all motions that had been filed so far, ruling that the lawsuit hasn’t commenced yet, and won’t officially start until he issues a summons and scheduling order. The primary issue to be resolved yet is the claims form required to be filled out by the claimants. Initially Ecology drafted two claims forms. After many concerns were raised, Ecology is still working on getting a single revised claim form out. They have now proposed Aug. 30, with a hearing date for the form to be determined yet. Without significant changes to the original draft, further objections are likely.

The Department of Ecology filed the water rights adjudication in Whatcom County Superior Court in early May after multiple years of threatening to do so. The adjudication and its expansive legal questions have brought most collaborative work in achieving solutions to Whatcom’s water challenges to a halt while the court case grinds along. Once the 30,000 claimants are served, they have one year to file their claim, and an additional three years after that to prove their claim is valid. After that process the court will need to process all 30,000+ claimants, in addition to dealing with the almost certain objections to claims that will arise.

Fred Likkel is executive director of Whatcom Family Farmers.