Okanogan Court issues landmark water right decision regarding efficiency and waste.

Click here for court decision.

News Release

July 16, 2007

Contact:John Arum, Attorney, Ziontz Chestnut Varnell Berley & Slonim

206-448-1230 (office)

Rachael Paschal Osborn, Center for Environmental Law & Policy,

509-328-1087 (office)

Spokane – Okanogan Wilderness League (OWL) today announced a legal victory in a decision issued by Okanogan County Superior Court.  The decision finds that Methow Valley Irrigation District has been wasting water along its ditch and must upgrade its facilities in order to protect instream flows in the Methow River.

“The Methow River and endangered salmon will benefit from this important decision,” said Rachael Paschal Osborn, attorney for OWL and director of the Center for Environmental Law & Policy, a group that works on water law issues in the Columbia basin.  Osborn continued,  “The law is clear and re-affirmed by the judge: water right holders may never waste water.”

In 2002, the Washington Department of Ecology issued an enforcement order directing MVID to stop wasting water.  Nearly 80% of the water diverted by MVID from the Twisp and Methow Rivers was being lost through leaky canals.  In a tortuous set of appeals, MVID appealed the department’s enforcement order.  OWL also appealed, arguing that the Department had not gone far enough.  OWL prevailed and in December 2004, Ecology issued a second order further reducing MVID’s water right diversion.  MVID again appealed.  Today’s decision resolves the second appeal.

MVID’s diversion of water has de-watered the Methow and Twisp Rivers, creating fish passage problems for endangered salmon and steelhead.  The water diversions also deplete flow downstream, limiting water availability for other water users in the Methow Valley. 

In his July 13, 2007 order affirming the administrative order, Judge Jack Burchard of the Okanogan County Superior Court states:

[In 1993] our Supreme Court clearly defined the essential water rights concepts of “beneficial use,” “reasonable usage,” “water duty,” and “waste.”  The law concerning the waste of water can be summarized in four principles:

1.No appropriation of water is valid where the water simply goes to waste.

2.An appropriator who diverts more water than is actually needed for the appropriators’ actual requirements and allows the excess to go to waste acquires no right to the excess.

3.A particular use must not only be of benefit to the appropriator, but it must also be a reasonable and economical use of the water in view of other present and future demands upon the source of supply.

4.While customary irrigation practices common to the locality are a factor for consideration, they do not justify waste of water.

OWL challenged Ecology’s original enforcement order because it failed to require that MVID any make capital improvements to its leaky, unlined canal system, despite the availability of extensive public funding for irrigation efficiency improvements.  Arum said “We are pleased that Court has reaffirmed that MVID must bring its antiquated system into line with modern irrigation practices.  This will provide benefits for both people and fish in the Methow Valley.”  

“Given the water supply crisis that is being precipitated by climate change, it is essential that all water users be as efficient as possible,” said Osborn, continuing, “This decision confirms that water efficiency is mandatory, not optional.”

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