Board backs WSU in water rights dispute
PULLMAN – A state panel has sided with Washington State University in its use of scarce water on the Pullman campus.
The Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board decided a group of appellants did not provide enough evidence to prove that the university’s water rights impair other existing rights in the area.
The decision followed a January hearing regarding the university’s application to consolidate its water rights, a practice that allows WSU to pump water through any combination of its seven wells.
The Palouse Water Conservation Network, the Palouse Group Sierra Club and Pullman-area resident Scotty Cornelius appealed a state Department of Ecology decision allowing the consolidation, claiming it would allow the university to pump more than three times the amount of water it currently does on an annual basis.
They also contend the school contributed to the dropping levels in the Grand Ronde aquifer, and point to the 18-hole Palouse Ridge Golf Course as a project that will further draw down the area’s primary water source. Cornelius has said his well level is decreasing by 10 inches per year.
Rachael Paschal Osborn, the appellants’ attorney, said the hearing board got it wrong.
“We do disagree with the board and, more importantly, we disagree with the Department of Ecology,” she said. “Their job is to protect other water users in the basin and to protect the public interest to supply an adequate supply of water for now and in the future.”
WSU currently has the rights to operate seven wells, though two large wells pump a majority of the water needed on campus at a rate of 2,500 gallons per minute. Additional wells can be used in case of emergency.
“We conclude a preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that consolidation of WSU’s existing water rights will not impair Mr. Cornelius’ well or other existing water-right holders,” the decision said. “We also therefore conclude that the public welfare will not be harmed by Ecology’s approval of these water changes.”
The three-member board did recognize that the Grand Ronde aquifer is “experiencing a long-term and troubling trend of declining water levels.” But it said the case was focused on the narrower question of whether WSU is legally entitled to consolidate its existing water rights.