State Claims Illegal Irrigation, Fines Hutterites Marlin Colony Appeals $34,300 Fine For Alleged Water Rights Violation

An Eastern Washington religious sect has been fined $34,300, the latest in a state crackdown on allegedly illegal irrigation.

According to the state Department of Ecology, the Marlin Hutterian Brethren irrigated 125 acres for which the group has no water rights. The colony, which grows a variety of irrigated and nonirrigated crops, is 14 miles west of Odessa, near the boundary between Grant and Lincoln counties.

Records show that the colony installed a sprinkler system last year to expand its potato crop, said Kevin Brown, enforcement coordinator for the Ecology Department’s Eastern region. In May, the agency ordered the group to stop using the sprinkler system and install a meter to measure water use.

“The irrigation continued in violation of the order, and the flow meter was installed but was not in working condition,” according to a written statement released by the Ecology Department on Wednesday.

Continued use of the sprinkler system led to this week’s fine, which the colony is appealing. The colony also has appealed the order to cease unauthorized irrigation; the state Pollution Control Hearings Board has scheduled a hearing early this month on that matter.

Colony members referred requests for comment to their Spokane attorney, Mike Loft, who did not return telephone messages this week.

Irrigation is getting more attention statewide as the region struggles to save salmon and other endangered fish. In some cases, such as in the Methow Valley of Okanogan County, federal agencies have stepped in to force modernization of irrigation systems.

Brown said the Ecology Department’s eastern region started increasing its enforcement of irrigation water withdrawals last July, partly because the Columbia Basin water table is sinking.

Special regulations adopted in the 1970s are designed to ensure that the water table in the Odessa area doesn’t fall more than 300 feet below 1967 levels. But Ecology Department officials say the Odessa water table has continued to sink since then - and the amount of irrigated land has increased - even though the state no longer issues new water rights for the area.

In November, the state agency fined farmer Raymond Jenkins $67,200 for illegal irrigation on a farm near Lind, which falls under the same regulations as Odessa. Jenkins has irrigation rights for 130 acres; the state contends he was watering 270 acres of potatoes and corn.

Jenkins since has converted 140 acres to crops that don’t require irrigation, Brown said.

Last week, the Ecology Department fined a Stevens County farmer for the second time in nine months. Jack Simmons faces a total fine of $29,400 for unauthorized use of water from a Colville River tributary. Brown said Simmons was penalized $19,400 last year for ignoring an order to stop irrigating. He lost an appeal.

“He was notified of that (loss) prior to this irrigation season and he irrigated anyway,” leading to an additional $10,000 fine, Brown said.

Brown said other cases are pending or have been settled without fines.

This sidebar appeared with the story:

HISTORY

The colony

One of five Hutterite colonies in Eastern Washington, the Marlin colony was established in 1975 by sect members from Alberta.

According to news accounts, they purchased 1,100 acres of irrigated land 14 miles west of Odessa.

It is not clear how much land the colony farms now.