Cities, tribe gain water rights

The state Department of Ecology was to announce today that it has granted major water rights for the cities of Olympia and Lacey and the Nisqually Tribe to support growth and development for the two cities and tribe for the next 30 years.

Ecology officials are also poised to grant new water rights for the City of Yelm, but the permit to serve growth for the next 20 years in Yelm has been appealed to the Pollution Control Hearings Board and won’t be resolved until next summer.

The water supply package took more than 15 years to complete, largely because new withdrawals of water in the Nisqually and Deschutes river basins are restricted to protect stream flows.

The first-of-its-kind collaboration in Western Washington between the cities and tribe also includes a number of habitat restoration projects and introduction of reclaimed wastewater to aid the water budget in the Woodland Creek and Hawks Prairie areas.

“This is the type of creative solution that we hope other communities will embrace in the future,” said Ecology Director Ted Sturdevant. “It shows it is possible to meet the challenge of allocating finite water resources to protect our salmon and, at the same time, enable communities’ growth and economic health.”

The big-ticket item in the package is the transfer of the City of Olympia’s main water supply at McAllister Springs to a new series of groundwater wells called the McAllister Wellfield. Work on the project will begin in 2012 and water from the new wells will be on line in late 2013 or early 2014, city interim public works director Rich Hoey said.

McAllister Springs is a surface water supply that is more vulnerable to pollution than groundwater. The city would need to build an $8 million water treatment system to keep using the springs, state officials had ruled.

The Nisqually Tribe will also receive water from the new well field to fuel economic growth on the tribal reservation. The agreement also restores tribal access to McAllister Springs.

“Medicine Springs (McAllister Springs) is a location of tremendous cultural and spiritual significance to the tribe,” tribal Chairwoman Cynthia Iyall said.

The City of Lacey has now secured four of the six water rights permits its sought from Ecology since the 1990s to boost water supplies and avoid a building moratorium. The other two permits are pending, Ecology spokeswoman Linda Kent said.

Lacey gains nearly 6.6 million gallons per day, enough to accommodate city growth at its current planned densities, Ecology officials said.

“The City of Lacey appreciates Ecology’s willingness to consider innovative approaches to resolving complex regional water rights requests,” Lacey water resources manager Peter Brooks said in a statement.

Sturdevant was scheduled to deliver the City of Olympia permits to the City Council at its meeting tonight.