Deal Reached on Columbia River Plan
By Chris Mulick, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.
Feb. 14–OLYMPIA — The state House of Representatives approved an ambitious Columbia River management plan Monday night after lawmakers and Gov. Chris Gregoire agreed to pursue a 10-year, $200 million funding package for water storage, conservation and efficiencies.
House Bill 2860 was approved on a surprising 94-4 vote, an overwhelming tally given the historically controversial nature of writing state water law. The Senate is expected to take the bill up today.
“It’ll be on the governor’s desk by tomorrow night,” Sen. Erik Poulsen, a Seattle Democrat and chairman of the Senate Water, Energy and Environment Committee said after the vote Monday.
Just off the House floor, celebratory hugs were plenty following the vote. Gregoire and her husband Mike joined in minutes afterward.
“I’m just really excited,” Gregoire said. “It’s the lifeline for Central Washington.”
“This is a big hurdle,” said Rep. Kelli Linville, a Bellingham Democrat and chairwoman of the House Economic Development, Agriculture and Trade Committee.
The effort to draw up a guide to new Columbia River withdrawals began as former Gov. Gary Locke’s Columbia River Initiative in 2001. Talks began escalating last month after Republicans proposed a plan that, rather than focusing on withdrawals from existing flows, only applies to water that would be stored behind new water storage projects.
Two of every three buckets would be made available for water users and one would be put instream for fish for the state-funded portion of those projects.
The plan also calls for voluntary regional agreements that generally would rely on new conservation projects to offset new water withdrawals elsewhere.
But all bets were off unless that plan was adopted in concert with a funding package to actually begin work on new storage projects. And for now it appears as though Gregoire and negotiators have come up with one to make the management plan come to life.
Under the funding plan, which hasn’t yet been introduced and will require 60 percent supermajorities in both chambers, two-thirds of the funding would pay for new reservoirs directly. The remaining one-third could fund conservation and efficiency projects or additional storage.
In addition, the package includes $10 million that was approved last year plus another $10 million from this year’s construction budget to help get started. The funding package must be approved in order for the management plan to take effect.
“It’s truly a historic event,” said Rep. Bill Grant, D-Walla Walla.
Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, said the bill “benefits no one at the expense of someone else. Not anyone gets everything but we all get something.”
Rep. Bruce Chandler, R-Granger, said he’ll ask constituents to do something they’re not accustomed to.
“I’m going to tell my constituents to have faith in the Department of Ecology,” he said. “I’m going to tell them to have faith in us.”
Major opposition is not expected in the Senate.
“I think it is a major breakthrough,” Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, said of the package earlier Monday. “I’ve never been this optimistic before.”
—–
To see more of the Tri-City Herald, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.tri-cityherald.com.
Copyright (c) 2006, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.