Stop the Phony Water Crisis. The citizens of Washington call for a legislative correction of Hirst that goes beyond the concepts of “fixes” or “solutions”, which must be founded in long-established water law and constitutionally guaranteed rights. The legislature must correct the GMA to correct Hirst.
Until a legislative correction is passed into law, and private properties are once again made whole, we call for a moratorium on all purchases of land by the state. Citizens have had their properties severely devalued because of Hirst, Foster, Swinomish and Postema. These properties are vulnerable to buy out, and this is a conflict of interest by the state. The state cannot on one hand devalue property, and on the other offer to purchase it.
In Stream Flow Rules are inferior rights and must not give Ecology authority to determine the adequacy or availability of water for domestic use. It is widely known Flows calculations are faulty. Water policy must be based on water law, reality, and science, not basin wide modeling or policy.
Water banking must not occur unless the water is obtained from a right that is in the exactly same aquifer that it is contemplated to be used for. Water used in water banks must be factual and legal for human domestic supply. Water bank promoters, purveyors, and managers must demonstrate they do not have a conflict of interests, and do not seek profit when using public monies.
People must not be damaged in their human, civil, and property rights based on the perceived needs of salmon. If salmon are endangered or threatened a moratorium on harvest must be established to allow time for a science based cyclical regeneration of their numbers to occur. The state and Ecology must focus on practices for which they are responsible and permitted that do damage to salmon.
All concepts, policies, and plans created through Ecology rule-making and the legislature must abide by water law, and must be constitutionally based. It must be established in law that “first in time first in right” prior appropriation is not inclusive of rules made by the Executive Agency Ecology which include a right to a river of flow levels. Water law must be applied equitably to all citizens.
The exempt statute (RCW 90.44.050) must stand whole in its rightful place in law, and the right to the use of that exempt water must not be harmed or curtailed without clear, factual, proven, and individual case by case evidence of a perceived environmental harm. Any proposed remedy for that case by case basis must be based on nexus and proportionality. Families shall not be forced to prove they do not harm the environment with an exempt well, individual families cannot prove a negative stating they do not harm a stream by one molecule of water. It is government that must prove a harm is done by an individual well to comply with Hirst until the legislature is able to correct Hirst. An individual taking of the fundamental and legal right to make a beneficial use of domestic water must be based on an individual proven harm and requires due process of law.
Legislators: Please allot time for CAPR Representatives and members to discuss this in depth with you when they call for an appointment.
January 3, 2018