Water Heroes 2018

Sara Foster, Laura Leigh Brakke, David Stalheim, Eric Hirst, Wendy Harris

These five honorees started out as concerned citizens who simply saw an issue and asked what they could do. Their tenacity eventually brought them to the Washington Supreme Court where they stood up for Washington’s waters on behalf of all of us and won. In 2015, the Foster decision confirmed that the Department of Ecology—responsible for managing the state’s waterways—cannot issue new water rights that will permanently deplete protected flows in rivers and may not use non-water environmental restoration projects as a basis for issuing water rights. In 2016, the Hirst decision reaffirmed that new wells may not impair more senior water users, including instream flows. Both of these bills ultimately resulted in improved protections and management of our state’s rivers and streams.