Wheat harvest, 1907. Scott Collin’s great-grandfather moved to the Five Corners area in covered wagons that year and homesteaded the original family home. The family well was originally drilled in 1907. The well has been in operation since that time. (Scott Collin family archive)
The New York Times
Industrial farms could leave eastern Wash. with dry wells
By Scott Streater, Greenwire
April 9, 2009
Scott Collins' family has been farming in arid eastern Washington since his great grandfather first homesteaded the 1,500-acre, dry-land wheat farm more than a century ago.
But the 58-year-old Collins fears he may be the last of four generations on the farm.
That is because the groundwater he and his family depend on could be in jeopardy if a proposed cattle feedlot and other industrial-sized projects like it are built in his rural Franklin County. . . .
Washington State promotes
mining water from ancient aquifers
-- disregards lessons of the past and 5,000 gallons per day limit on family wells --
State creates loophole giving unlimited water to factory farms
In 1946, one year after the Legislature enacted the groundwater code, the Department of Conservation published an overview of the groundwater code, which described the groundwater exemption statute as:
INDIVIDUAL DOMESTIC SUPPLY EXEMPT. The Ground Water Code exempts from administrative control the withdrawal of public ground water for any purpose where the quantity is less than 5,000 gallons per day. This exemption was provided to relieve the small water user of the formalities and costs of obtaining water for his household and domestic needs. Five thousand gallons per day will supply ample water for household use for a family, their garden and lawn irrigation, and stock water. The Department of Conservation interpreted the statute as limiting all exempt uses, including stock-watering, to 5000 gpd.
The agency believed the statute's purpose was to supply “small water users” with water, and the agency considered 5000 gpd an “ample” amount for such users. The Department of Conservation's interpretation limiting all exempt uses to 5000 gpd was consistent with the Bureau of Reclamation's estimation that maximum water use for small family farms would not exceed 1500 gpd.
for more on the legislative history behind Washington’s permit exempt wells and to read CELP’s comments to the County Water Board, click here.
Charles and Jenny Jones family photo on their homestead, 1928. (Jones family archive)
On June 30, 2009, Five Corners Family Farmers joined CELP and Sierra Club in filing a lawsuit challenging the 2005 Attorney General Opinion that purports to authorize unlimited use of water for livestock purposes, including large dairies and feedlots. The case is now pending in Franklin County Superior Court. Five Corners and its allies are represented by Janette Brimmer and Kristen Boyles, attorneys with Earthjustice’s Seattle office.
On November 23, 2009, Franklin County Judge Carrie Runge ruled that Five Corners and its co-plaintiffs have standing to bring this lawsuit. On April 2, 2010, ruling from the bench, Judge Runge reversed her decision and dismissed the lawsuit because our injury claim was “speculative.” Besides, she said, the 1945 statute exempting livestock watering from a permit was “clear and unambiguous.”
As our attorney, Janette Brimmer, noted after the trial, “These folks can’t wait until their wells go dry. There’s no fixing it when that happens.” (See: AP story in Seattle Times) Brimmer noted that in 1945 lawmakers intended this water to go for family homesteaders - not industrial feedlots such as the 30,000 head cattle feedlot located amidst our wheat farms and threatening our domestic wells and our future.
Five Corners Appeals Air Quality Permit
In September 2009 Five Corners filed an appeal of the air quality permit issued by the Department of Ecology to the Easterday Ranches feedlot. The appeal challenges the failure to require Easterday to comply with current air toxics standards, failure to consider the cumulative effects of the multiple CAFOs and feedlots in the vicinity of the Five Corners’ family homes, and several other issues.
Five Corners Family Farmers is represented by Spokane public interest attorney Karen Lindholdt in our air quality appeal. For more on this appeal, click here.
