Water fight to continue

While ranchers celebrate court win, attention turns to lawmakers' options

By MATTHEW WEAVER

Capital Press

The battle over Washington's livestock watering exemption will likely move from the courtroom to the Capitol after the state Supreme Court ruled current law does not limit the amount of well water that can be used for animals.

In a 6-3 decision issued Dec. 22, the Washington Supreme Court found that the state law on the issue was clear.

"We conclude that, under the plain language of the statute, withdrawals of groundwater for stock-watering purposes are not limited to any particular quantity by RCW 90.44.050," Justice Susan Owen wrote for the majority.

Five Corners Family Farmers, the Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Sierra Club challenged rancher Cody Easterday's plans to build a 30,000-head cattle feedlot near Mesa, Wash. They asked the court to declare that the stockwatering exemption in the statute is limited to less than 5,000 gallons per day.

"This is huge, huge, huge, huge news for the livestock industry," said Jack Field, executive vice president of the Washington Cattlemen's Association. "It says stock has the right to drink from ground water. This is a huge step forward."

Had the decision gone differently, it could have meant many Washington livestock and dairy operations with exempt wells would have to find another source of water for livestock, he said.

"We've earned the right to have a long sigh of relief for a while, at least several months," said Jay Gordon, executive director of the Washington State Dairy Federation.

Gordon said it had been 11 years and 40 days since the issue first arose, with "low-level staffers" at the state Department of Ecology saying they believed dairy and livestock farms were limited to 5,000 gallons.

Many banks have refused to lend money to farms because of uncertainty over the water exemption caused by the legal challenge, Gordon said.

"It would have been nuclear" if the challenge had been successful, he said. "All of those things would have been massively disruptive to the cattle industry, feedlot industry, dairy industry, poultry industry, all of us farm organizations and farmers that rely on what we thought was a fairly clear statute for the last 60 years."

A 5,000-gallon water limit is adequate for 80 to 100 cows at most, Gordon said.

Agricultural interests fear this may not be the end of the stockwatering issue. Field said the environmental community could push in the state Legislature for a change in the statute.

"We'd obviously be fighting tooth and nail against any such efforts," Field said.

CELP staff attorney Rachael Paschal Osborn said the Legislature needs to revisit the statute and include a limit on exempt wells. She is certain CELP would support such a bill.

"Ground water is finite and it is simply not workable to have a statute that says someone can take an unlimited amount of water without any consideration of the impacts on the resource," Osborn said.

Ed Field, executive director of the Washington Cattle Feeder's Association, said the amount of water all cattle in the state drink is equivalent to two 125-acre circles of potato production.

"If you say it in hundreds of thousands of gallons, it sounds like a lot, but put into perspective, it's not a huge amount of water," he said. "It's a huge industry that relies on this water."

Janette Brimmer, attorney for nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice in Seattle, said she and her clients are disappointed.

For Brimmer, the decision raises concerns about water policy in Washington. She's concerned about unlimited stockwater rights with poor monitoring.

"This is kind of a water trainwreck waiting to happen or it's already happening," she said.