Sen. Warnick is satisfied with Hirst compromise

OLYMPIA — State lawmaker’s bipartisan compromise on rural water rights last week was significantly different than the 2017 bill masterminded by Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake, which repeatedly stalled in a Democrat-controlled House.

Water rights legislation signed into law Friday restored the majority of counties in Eastern Washington to a 5,000 gallon-per-day limit on well-water for domestic indoor use, the standard before the 2016 state Supreme Court’s Hirst decision.

Last year’s bill would have reversed the Hirst decision, Warnick said in an interview, which ruled that regulations for small, permit-exempt wells must be tailored to each region. Under Thursday’s legislative fix for Hirst, regulations would be based on the water resource inventory area, or WRIA, that a property is in.

While the majority of Eastern Washington will be able to use pre-Hirst amounts of water, others will be limited to 3,000 gallons per day, and still others will be limited to 950, Warnick said, but the average house uses less.

In 2010, Grant County had the highest rate of self-supplied domestic water use of any county east of the Cascades, according to a report by the United States Geological Survey. Its residents use an average of 234 gallons per day.

Warnick said she was disappointed that the bill she had put forward last year never passed, but she was satisfied with what she and other lawmakers had hammered out.

“In hindsight, I think we found some things in this bill that might help people a little more than what mine might have done,” Warnick said on the Senate floor Thursday night, shortly before voting for the bill.

The deal comes after more than a year of discussions and negotiations between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans have refused to move forward with a capital budget without a fix for Hirst, citing billions of dollars of losses in property value for affected landowners unable to obtain well-water and building permits.

The 2017 session ended after a record 193 days with no fix for the Hirst decision and no capital budget. The legislature’s failure to pass a capital budget stalled hundreds of construction projects across the state, including schools and hospitals.

Big Bend Community College has been unable to complete a 70,000-square-foot workforce education building until the capital budget passes. Ephrata is waiting for the budget to replace three miles of 70-year-old waterline originally built in the Truman administration.

Lawmakers signaled a final push Thursday morning by voting for bonds related to the capital budget, though there were some holdouts. Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Ellensburg, was one of two who voted against the bonds.

“I don’t trust the governor,” Manweller said. “The governor lied to us last year.”

Republicans in 2017 had lowered the tax rates of manufacturers to match that of Boeing. Manweller said that Republicans kept their side of the bargain with budget negotiations and that by vetoing that tax break, Inslee had tricked Republicans.

“I believe we should not give the governor a vote on the capital budget before there’s a fix for Hirst,” Manweller said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Jamie Smith, communications director for Inslee, wrote in an email Thursday that Manweller’s claim the governor lied, “frankly, doesn’t even merit a response.” If the Hirst fix put in front of the governor is the same he has been briefed on, Smith said, Inslee will sign it.

There were no amendments to the Hirst fix on either the House or Senate floors, and Inslee signed all three pieces of legislation Friday.