I have the honor of representing the appellants in a legal challenge to the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Dungeness River Basin instream flow rule, Magdalena Bassett, et al., v. Washington State Department of Ecology, Case # 51221-1-II. After a wait of over a year, the case is finally set for oral argument in Division II of the Washington Court…
Tag: Foster v Yelm
ESSB 6091 – Part 3: The Potential for Mitigation Flexibility in Water Rights Permitting After Foster v. Yelm
On October 8, 2005, the Washington Supreme Court reversed a water right permit issued by the Department of Ecology (Ecology) to the City of Yelm.1 The decision dramatically impacted the State’s water rights permitting program by denying authority to Ecology to allow any type of mitigation for potential impacts to adopted minimum instream flows (MIFs) other than 100% in-kind, in-time,…
Legislature Passes Hirst and Foster Fix, Authorizes $300 Million for Streamflow Restoration
After last year’s legislative deadlock that failed to adopt either a fix to rural water availability or a capital budget, the Washington State Legislature made quick work of a compromise bill, ESSB 6091,[1] which was the first bill signed into law in the 2018 session. The bill has many features, including: It requires updates to several watershed plans and new…
The Place for Ethics in the Resolution of Hirst and Other Water Conflicts in Washington State
This year’s legislative efforts to restore groundwater availability after the Washington Supreme Court’s decision in Whatcom County v. Hirst resulted in a partisan deadlock that also side-lined the state’s $4 billion capital budget. Economic impacts of the deadlock are now estimated to run to $11 billion and cause a $37 billion decrease in the value of undeveloped land,[1] which will…
UNDERSTANDING THE HIRST AND FOSTER DECISIONS – WHY DO THEY NEED TO BE FIXED?
The Supreme Court’s Hirst decision, the subject of legislative reform efforts and an impasse over the capital budget, is a very controversial barrier to water availability in rural areas. The Court’s 2015 decision in Foster v. Yelm is another controversial ruling that eliminated water right flexibility for mitigation banking and water availability for growing urban areas. Both of the Court’s…
Supreme Court Bruises Department of Ecology in Foster Opinion
On October 8, 2015, the Washington Supreme Court reversed a water right permit issued by the Department of Ecology (Ecology) to the City of Yelm. Two months later, the consequences of this decision are still being sorted out by Ecology, the Attorney General’s Office, and stakeholders. In the meantime, the State’s water rights permitting program has gone off the rails…