HB 1879: Public water systems

Summary

• $ Explicitly adopts a growing communities doctrine that governs water rights for municipal water supplies and allows municipal water suppliers to acquire and maintain water rights for reasonably anticipated future needs.
• $ Allows such a municipal water use to take place under such a right within 50 or more years of the latest approval of certain water system plans and for the use to take place within the service areas identified in such plans.
• $ Identifies the water right holders who are municipal water suppliers for these purposes.
• $ With certain exceptions, prohibits the Department of Ecology (DOE) from rescinding or reissuing any water right certificate.
• $ Establishes requirements for the development of water rights held as inchoate water rights including, for the development of such rights by public water systems with 1000 or more service connections, requirements for the systems to meet 6 year water withdrawal target rates.
• $ Allows interties to be used to acquire water, no longer prohibits interties from including the development of new sources of supply to meet future demands, and, with certain exceptions, prohibits an intertie from being used to deliver a primary or secondary supply of water on a temporary basis.

From the House Bill Analysis (HB 1879), written by the Legislature's nonpartisan staff. Read the full report ↗