Cities pursue more water rights

Lacey, Olympia and Yelm seek to buy individual rights

By Christian Hill | The Olympian • Published July 25, 2008

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Three Thurston County cities soon could seek to buy water rights from dozens of individuals to serve their growing communities - although officials don't plan to use the rights for drinking water.

Lacey, Olympia and Yelm would place the water rights they acquire in the Deschutes River basin into trust; in other words, stop their active use. By making more water available for the river's flow from those rights, the cities then can subtract the same volume of water to serve its communities with no net effect, according to their proposal. The cities the would pump that volume of water from new wells.

On Thursday, the Lacey City Council signed an agreement to hire a consultant to negotiate the purchase of the water rights. The vote, preceded by little discussion, was 5-0. Council members Virgil Clarkson and Tom Nelson were absent.

Olympia and Yelm will take action on the agreement soon.

Last year, the cities agreed to hire a consultant, WestWater Research of Vancouver, Wash., to identify water rights in the river basin that could be used for mitigation. About 50 water rights were identified, said Peter Brooks, Lacey's water resources manager.

The cost of the new contract to negiotate any purchases will be split between the three cities and not exceed a total of $80,000, according to the agreement. The cost of the contract with WestWater was unavailable.

The cities have pending requests for new water rights before the state Department of Ecology that modeling shows would reduce the stream flow of the Deschutes River. Ecology requires the cities mitigate the effect to secure those new rights.

In other news:

• The city awarded the construction contract for its annual neighborhood road work to Lakeside Industries of Lacey, which submitted a low bid of $665,764. Most of the work will be done west of Sleater-Kinney Road and south of Lacey Boulevard. For years, the city has budgeted money to repair aging neighborhood streets during summers. Public Works Director Scott Egger said the budget won't carry as far this year because of the soaring price of asphalt and that the work will involve road reconstruction instead of less-costly repaving. The total project cost, including engineering and stormwater improvements, is a little more than $900,000.

Christian Hill covers Lacey and the Port of Olympia for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5427 or at chill@theolympian.com.