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Editorial: Skillful planning for water use imperative
Still waters may run deep, but pump them long or hard enough, they’re gone.
The city of Airway Heights has been pumping a West Plains aquifer for several years using water rights purchased from an industrial park. Nearby landowners soon noticed their wells were drying up, or that the water levels were falling. The city responded responsibly, paying for the re-drilling of wells to greater depth, some more than once.
The water keeps falling, so the city is moving its well to another area where two others have not had problems. Officials are also looking at the possibility the falling water table at the well to be abandoned might be rechargeable using water from its soon-to-be-completed wastewater treatment plant. Other Washington cities are already replenishing aquifers with treated water.
Other options include buying water from the city of Spokane or water rights from farmers willing to curtail or stop irrigating.
The problem is not unique to Airway Heights, which happened to own the most recent, “junior” water rights. When the holders of more senior rights start losing water, junior has to bail out. The next most junior holder: Medical Lake, which in the late 1990s started pumping the aquifer Airway Heights, will abandon by mid-2013.
The Medical Lake well is deeper, but has also been pulling down the aquifer. Department of Ecology officials want to see if the levels stabilize when Airway Heights stops pumping.
The department’s regional water resource manager, Keith Stoffel, says the West Plains geology makes managing water difficult. The granite that crests in the low hills along Interstate 90 blocks the movement of water between aquifers in and between the subsurface basalt layers. The result is several isolated “buckets” that can handle only so many “straws.” Many of those buckets are recharged only by precipitation onto the surface, and the water coming out of the ground exceeds the amount falling out of the sky.
If that water can percolate into the ground at all.
Several years ago, construction of the B.F. Goodrich factory was almost stymied by water that flooded the foundation. The company did not have a permit to use the water in manufacturing airplane brake pads, and it did not have a permit to pump it deeper into the ground. The problem was finally resolved with the help of the city of Spokane, but it was a long time before economic development supporters could exhale.
Now, the West Plains area has become Spokane County’s most economically dynamic, thanks to the Northern Quest Resort and Casino, projects associated with Spokane International Airport, and the recently announced Caterpillar distribution center.
Keeping water out of, or getting water into, future developments will require flexibility and long-term thinking not just in Airway Heights, but at local and state levels all the way to the Washington-Idaho border, and beyond.
The good news: We have water, global warming notwithstanding. Ask Texans what they would give for a taste.