Representative Condotta sponsors Water Rights Amendments
Being that this ended up as sort of a legislative roundup day, our very own Representative Cary Condotta has also been very busy. While he has not introduced property tax legislation (although I would bet he is aware of and supportive of other efforts), he has been very busy as well. His bills cover topics including: the family leave program, use of industrial insurance funds, veterans services, a variety of business tax related issues, license plates and many others. But, since this is a real estate blog, we are going to talk about his bills in this session regarding water rights!
He is a secondary sponsor on two bills, House Bill 1268 concerning relinquishment of water rights and House Bill 1334 concerning water resource management on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
House Bill 1268 eliminates partial relinquishment of a water right back to the state for lack of use. As I read it, if a property owner does not use their entire water right for a period of 5 years, but still uses a portion of it for its intended purpose, they do not automatically relinquish part of their water right. Some pertinent language from the bill “a person shall not be deemed to have voluntarily failed to beneficially use said water right if the person has continued to use at least a portion of said right for the established purpose of use.”
This is a good bill if I understand it correctly.
As it see it, it would greatly benefit ag users and developers of land. The current law could cause partial relinquishment of water rights in a developing project where a parcel has been divided up into lots. Some lots may not sell, construct and install irrigation for several years. During planning and construction of the development, it can easily have been several years to obtain all the planning, engineering and permitting for the project. So, a parcel owner may have lost their water rights unwittingly but the development would have still used part of their water over that period.
Likewise, ag users may not use all of their allotment each year. But a low water year, which may not come for a five year span or more, could still destroy their crops if their full water right was not maintained.
House Bill 1334 is also a benefit to agricultural land owners. Existing law may discourage water conservation in the Columbia river basin through relinquishment of conservation savings and that avoiding such relinquishment and facilitating transfer of such conservation water savings can assist in meeting the water supply needs of irrigated agriculture while protecting Columbia and Snake river streamflows.
It directs the department of ecology to aggressively pursue the development of storage, conservation, and other actions to provide water supplies to benefit both instream and out-ofstream uses.
Discussion Area - Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.