Cheney building moratorium ends

CHENEY – Cheney’s moratorium on new construction expires today, six months after concerns that growth could outpace the water supply prompted city leaders to put on hold building permits for subdivisions of five acres or more.

With plans under way for drilling a new well and exploring water-conservation measures, the city’s director of community development hopes more development lies in Cheney’s future.

“I’ll be glad when it’s over,” Tom Richardson said of the moratorium. “It’s hard to know what’s going to be in our future.”

Cheney has been experiencing considerable growth over the past few years, most likely because of increased enrollment at Eastern Washington University, and city leaders became worried about the increase demands on public water supplies. Peak water use can reach 834 gallons per household a day, including water used to irrigate lawns, Richardson said. The city also needs to make sure there is enough water during these high-usage times to combat fires.

Cheney gets its water from 1,200-foot-deep wells, which produce about 3,000 gallons of water per minute, or 4.3 million gallons per day, according to the city. City crews have been working to clean Well No. 6, since sand and grit can clog it. Richardson said the city will most likely drill a new well at that location; the work has already been OK’d by the state Department of Ecology.

The city is also working to build a new well, Well No. 8, and Richardson expects construction to be completed sometime next year once the work is approved. He said the city has been working for two years to get state approval for the project.

“It’s hard to get a well drilled in this state,” Richardson said.

The city also plans to educate residents about water conservation and is looking at alternative sources for water.

Don MacDonald, the director of public works, said the city is considering reusing water that has been treated at the city’s wastewater treatment plant for irrigation only, a move that would save around a million gallons of potable water a day.

The city held a public meeting last October to discuss water-conservation measures, and there has been talk of hosting workshops to discuss low-maintenance landscaping techniques that reduce the need to water lawns.

“There’s a lot that needs to be done,” MacDonald said.

MacDonald said that the moratorium gave the city a chance to have geologists test the area of Well No. 8 to make sure there is a viable water supply deep beneath thin layers of underground basalt. He added that the city is pushing the Department of Ecology hard to get the well approved.

MacDonald said the moratorium gave the city a chance to take a step back and think about future water usage.

“Hopefully we don’t have to go through this again,” he said.

While the moratorium was in effect, Richardson said there were a few applications for new developments that came in – one for a 120-lot subdivision and another for a 20-unit multifamily residential building.

The projects were put on hold until the moratorium expired, but one project, a 120-unit student-oriented building project pulled out entirely.

Richardson said he heard a lot of support for the moratorium from community members who felt the city was making the appropriate plans for Cheney’s future.

He also knows that word about the moratorium has spread through the development companies wanting to build there.

“I hope this doesn’t stop development in Cheney,” he said.