Thank you to all of you who wrote, emailed or called our state Senators and Representatives to voice support for legislation that would have prohibited the transfer of water out of our watersheds. The number of responses from our little valley in such a short time made a big impression in Olympia!

Despite the great local show of support and tremendous help from our legislators, none of the approaches that we tried to stop the transfers – even temporarily – were successful this session. 

The initial bill sponsored by Representatives Goehner and Steele failed to get a vote by the House Rural Development, Agriculture, and Natural Resources Committee, and an amendment that our Representatives attached to a separate bill failed to get out of the same Committee by 1 vote. Over in the Senate, Senator Hawkins worked extremely hard to get an amendment attached to an Ecology bill on trust water rights. That bill failed to get a floor vote by the Senate last week.

The next session, beginning in January 2021, will be a long session, unlike this year’s 60-day session. We will continue to work with our Representatives and Senator, as well as our community and other interested parties, to have a bill ready to be introduced next session.

While the legislative route has failed this session, the Senate’s operating budget released yesterday contains a provision directing the Department of Ecology to study water transfers in places such as the Methow river basin.

The study provision would direct the Washington State Department of Ecology to convene a workgroup to study the state’s water trust, water banking, and the water transfer process, and calls for a report to the Legislature by December 1, 2020.

A big thank you to Senator Brad Hawkins for working to secure funding for this study group!

We look forward to working with Sen. Hawkins, Rep Goehner, and Rep. Steele during the next legislative session.
For now, entities can still buy water rights and transfer the water downstream out of our watershed.

We are asking everyone to remain alert to any attempt to buy water rights for out of watershed transfer and let us know. We will continue to oppose such efforts on a case-by-case basis until we can get an effective bill passed by the legislature.

Thank you again for your efforts on behalf of our community and our future!