OLYMPIA – Fast-growing communities of the Spokane Valley will have greater assurance of an adequate water supply under a bill that cleared the Senate Wednesday, 27-21.

Senate Bill 6215, sponsored by Sen. Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley, allows certain legacy irrigation water rights to be approved for municipal water systems. The bill now proceeds to the House.

“This change will provide for well-planned growth in the greater Spokane Valley,” Padden explained. “For anything to grow, the first thing you need is water.”
Concerns are high in the city of Liberty Lake, where the population has tripled in the last 15 years. The state Department of Ecology has signaled that new water rights from the Spokane aquifer will be difficult if not impossible to obtain as a result of its new water rules for the area. One way to assure an adequate water supply is to use old irrigation water rights – the legacy of a century of farming in the Spokane Valley.

The hitch? When lawmakers passed a new water law in 2003, they established distinctions between municipal and some types of irrigation water rights, but did not provide a practical mechanism for an irrigation right to be recognized for a municipal purpose.

In Liberty Lake, for instance, the city purchased the Trailhead Golf Course in 2002 and with it, the right to 1,250 acre-feet of irrigation water. It hopes to transfer some of that water to other parks, and to use the wastewater in the Liberty Lake sewer and water system.

An amendment adopted on the Senate floor limits the application of the measure to the Spokane Valley area. Among those who testified for the bill in Olympia were Liberty Lake Mayor Steve Peterson, who said the bill will provide the community greater flexibility for planning — as well as the “ability to look into the future.” The bill also is supported by the city of Spokane Valley.