Rural landowner calls for urban water users to participate in implementation of instream flow rules to help salmon

(Submitted to Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

11/21/05

Editor —

I find it ironic that the Seattle Region's urban water users seem to think that it's OK for the Department of Ecology to implement instream flow rules that have the potential for economic catastrophe in rural areas, but that they should somehow be exempt from a fully appropriate share in the cost of helping endangered and threatened fish species.  While concern about the price of returning treated water to the environment is appropriate, and I agree that such projects need to be managed for the greatest possible return on utility ratepayer investment, I would like to point a couple of things out to you.

First, your water utility removed the water you are using from salmon-bearing streams in surrounding watersheds.  This withdrawal decreases instream flows.  If rural landowners have an obligation to take action to maintain instream flows, then so do you.

Second, one of the places the Brightwater project intends to discharge treated water is directly into Puget Sound.  Rural landowners who use wells send nearly all of their treated wastewater back into the aquifer through their drainfields.  Shouldn't you be making your treated water available for instream values, including supporting salmon?

I believe you should be transporting any treated water not sold back to its point of origin, up into the headwaters of the watersheds you took it from in the first place.  It's time for urban water users to participate fully in maintaining instream flows.  It's not going to be cheap, but it's you moral obligation to do so.

Please feel free to visit www.olywater.org to learn more about what your rural neighbors are expected to do to maintain instream flow rules, and how some of them are working to develop a better process for doing so.

    Norman MacLeod
    241 Sand Road
    Port Townsend, WA  98368