Olympia…Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland, today praised passage of “the most important piece of water legislation this state has seen in decades” after the Senate gave final legislative approval to a bill that commits the state to increasing water storage to meet the needs of agriculture, municipalities and recreation. The bill passed 48-0.

Gov. Gregoire is expected to sign E2SHB 2860 into law in the next few days.

“This bill addresses the current and future water rights of the Tri-Cities and does so without hurting anybody else in the state,” Delvin said. “People have been working for a long time to bring about new storage facilities to increase the amount of available water, and this bill is a significant step in the right direction.

“Without water, we cannot continue to grow as a community, so I was happy to cast the deciding vote that moved the original bill out of committee so we could keep working the legislation and come up with the solution that passed unanimously in the Senate today,” he said.

Under terms of the bill, a key priority for the Columbia River Basin is development of new water supplies both through construction of new storage facilities and conservation measures. Two-thirds of the new water will be used for out-of-stream uses and one-third for in-stream purposes.

It also creates a Columbia River Basin water supply development account that is to be funded by $10 million appropriated by the Legislature last year, an additional $10 million from the supplemental capital budget the Legislature will approve in this session and an additional $200 million in bonding authority.

Finally, it authorizes the Department of Ecology to enter into voluntary regional agreements for new water only, and only along the Columbia River mainstem.

“We had a bad bill a couple of weeks ago, but we kept working the problem in a

bipartisan fashion and ended up with something much better and something that is very good for the Tri-Cities,” Delvin said. “The governor and Department of Ecology finally recognized that they were going to have to commit real resources to the storage issue if we were going to be serious about addressing our water problems.”

Delvin also thanked the Columbia Snake River Irrigators Association for its work on water issues over the years.

“The Legislature and the governor finally got the message this year,” Delvin said. “The association played a critical role in shaping the final legislation we passed today,” he added.

“Five years ago, I worked hard on a bill to ensure that West Richland would have the water it needed to continue its growth and development,” Delvin said. “It also established the ‘two line’ approach to reduce the backlog of 7,000 water rights applications.

“Water bills are always difficult and contentious. But as we did with the 2001 legislation, we kept this year’s historic water bill alive until we could get it done right, and the mid-Columbia area is going to be well served by that,” he added.