As Groundwater Issues Increase Across State, Futurewise Wins for Water Quality in Grays Harbor, Walla Walla, and Yakima Counties

You may have read the headlines with the recent bad news about Washington’s drinking water sources.  On June 7th the United States Geological Survey issued a study that showed that 8 in 10 of the wells in the Columbia Plateau showed a decline in water levels over the last 25 years.  Many declines were over 100 ft and some as great as 300 ft, with the largest and most widespread declines in the state in the Yakima River basin, and spanning the Idaho border in the Pullman-Moscow area. In May 2010, the United States Geological Survey issued a report that sampled public water supply wells in the United States including wells in Washington State.  More than one in five of the well water samples contained contaminants at concentrations greater than human health bench marks. In February 2010, the Washington State Department of Ecology, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies issued a report finding that almost 20 percent of the wells in the lower Yakima Valley are contaminated with nitrates and over 2,000 people, many of them poor and minority families, are drinking well water with contamination levels above health based drinking water standards.

Years before these studies were released, Futurewise started working to protect our state’s drinking water supplies.  Futurewise recently won three appeals addressing county failures to protect drinking water sources in Walla Walla, Yakima, Grays Harbor Counties. In Walla Walla and Yakima Counties, the county decided not to protect aquifers that are important drinking water sources from pollution caused by new development.  Washington’s forward thinking Growth Management Act required all counties and cities to protect underground reservoirs of drinking water, referred to as aquifers, by either 1991 or 1992.  Unfortunately, many counties and cities have failed to fulfill this basic duty of protecting our families’ and businesses’ drinking water supplies.

In Yakima County the situation is so dire that 12 percent of wells studied in the Lower Yakima Valley don’t meet drinking water standards due to heightened levels of nitrates, leaving many dependent on those wells for drinking water at higher risk for a number of serious health conditions.  Bacteria contamination has also been detected in some of the area wells.  Likely sources of the nitrate and bacteria contamination include urban and rural residences, land development, and certain agricultural activities.

In Walla Walla, there have also been documented cases where the area’s shallow gravel aquifer has been contaminated with nitrates and bacteria. The likely sources also include urban and rural residences, land development, and certain agricultural practices. Thousands of wells pump drinking and irrigation water from this aquifer, so the consequences of widespread pollution are quite significant.

Futurewise won a major victory with the Yakima and Walla Walla County appeals, when the Eastern Washington Growth Hearings Board agreed with Futurewise that the two counties must designate and protect the aquifers on which people depend for drinking water and that farms depend for watering stock and irrigation. In Walla Walla County, the Citizens for Good Governance played a major role in the appeal. In Grays Harbor County Futurewise and our local partners appealed Grays Harbor County’s failure to update it critical areas protections by the deadline in state law. We settled with the county with an agreed update schedule and the county has now adopted their first countywide protections for the aquifers on which many Grays Harbor County residents and businesses depend for drinking and potable water.

There’s still much to be done, however, and it is clear that this issue will continue to grow in importance and immediacy for Washington State. The University of Washington has projected that the changes resulting from global warming will reduce the water available to homes and farmers. Reductions in groundwater stores in affected areas can have devastating long-term effects on local farmers dependent on them for irrigation, and the contamination of water sources used for drinking water is a major public health issue. Cleaning up contaminated aquifers is costly and is often paid for by state and federal taxpayers. 

Even beyond the potential effects on agriculture, human health, and quality of life for local residents, changes in groundwater levels can have significant ecological ramifications. Groundwater plays an important role in supporting wildlife habitat and in sustaining the water cycle, as groundwater sustains many wetlands and provides the base flow for many streams and rivers. Clearly, preventing pollution of our drinking water sources statewide is the best solution.  Futurewise intends to keep fighting hard to ensure that in the future protecting groundwater stores from contamination and overdraft will be a top priority for counties and cities across the state.