Umatilla County Critical Groundwater Taskforce

Minutes of January 5, 2006 Meeting

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. CALLED TO ORDER: The January 5, 2006 meeting of the Umatilla County Critical Groundwater Taskforce (Taskforce) was called to order by Chairman Kent Madison at 2:00 p.m. in the Board Room at Umatilla Electric Co-Op in Hermiston, Oregon.

2. INTRODUCTIONS: Chairman Madison requested that the Taskforce members and public participants introduce themselves and sign-in. There were 15 Taskforce members, two staff members and approximately 15 public participants. (A copy of the sign-in sheet is attached to the original minutes and included by this reference.)

3. MINUTES: There were many typographical edits suggested to the November minutes. Charles Miller moved to accept the minutes with the edits as suggested by JR Cook. Rick Colgan seconded the motion and it carried unanimously. The December meeting minutes were not approved to allow time for all of the members to review them.

4. FARM FAIR: Chairman Madison stated that he was very pleased with everyone’s involvement at Farm Fair.

5. WEB PAGE COMMITTEE: Mr. Cook reported that the Critical Groundwater Resolution, the Statement of Goals and Principles and minutes through December 2005 are now on the web site. The web site does not currently have a counter and Mr. Cook would like to see how many hits we are getting.

6. GRANT WRITING & PROJECT REVENUE COMMITTEE: Mr. Cook reported that January of each year brings a new round of potential funding for the Ferguson Group. We have revamped the request this year. Last year we asked for $100,000 for the long term Needs Analysis through the Bureau of Reclamation. We did not get approved for that fundingt. We are more focused on looking at solutions and a conjunctive water management study. It is a long shot but we are going to try to get some federal funding.

Mr. Cook would like to see the Taskforce granting writing committee get together. Mr. Reed has sent Mr. Cook some grant opportunities such as the Water for the West grant. If we could get some of these smaller grants and show that we are making them work then we will probably have better luck with the larger opportunities.

Chairman Madison wanted to know if anyone on the committee has the time and expertise to do grants or if we need to hire someone to write the grants. Mr. Reed thinks that we probably have the expertise among the Taskforce members. Chairman Madison is concerned that we may miss grant opportunities if we do not have someone actively involved in pursuing them. He wants to make sure that the subcommittee will be able to handle that task.

Betty Klepper said that she has found that you have to have the project first before you can apply for the grants. Mr. Reed added that you have to have a project that someone wants to see done and that they will fund. We have to show that we have a valid need. It is critical that we have the Needs and Resource Analysis from OSU.

7. NEW PROJECTS COMMITTEE: The New Projects Committee met with the local irrigation districts and had some discussion on existing infrastructures and the capacity within those infrastructures. There is a lot of excess capacity, but they cannot pursue this further without the Needs Analysis.

They also talked a lot about the outreach campaign. The committee is hoping that one of Ms. Clarke’s grants will be approved so that we can get started on a serious outreach campaign. As an alternative plan they discussed breaking off into subcommittees to do the liaison functions.

8. COUNTY STAFF REPORT: Mr. Cook reported that he put a draft together of the 2050 Statement of Goals and Principles Definition of Terms. He found that about half of those definitions were not in the document itself. He will be having it put on the web site as a supplement to the 2050 Plan.

Ms. Mabbott reported that she met with Lane Shetterly, the director of LCDC and told him what the Taskforce was up to. Mr. Shetterly offered to bring the Economic Revitalization Team (ERT) out here. The state directors from a number of agencies meet monthly and in the field quarterly. Mr. Shetterly offered to bring himself and his group out to meet with the Taskforce and to have one of their meetings out here in the spring of 2006. Ms. Mabbott would like to see them spend an afternoon with the Taskforce and have a panel discussion with the directors of those agencies.

Mr. Cook spoke on the Big Look. The Big Look is one of the senate bills passed. It was the 30 year look at the land use program in the state of Oregon. The big piece of that is what are the big issues that affect the land use program or that negatively or positively impact land use programs locally. Mr. Cook thinks that it would be good to start thinking about some recommendations. This an opportunity to be heard by people who are looking at changing rules or upholding rules that are in affect at this time.

Harmon Springer announced that the Oregon Water Coalition (OWC) is holding its annual meeting on January 24, 2006 at the Conference Center in Hermiston. The purpose of OWC is to support the water resources and the proper use of water resources in the state of Oregon. There will be a number of informational presentations on water issues in the states of Oregon and Washington.

Mr. Cook wanted to discuss meeting frequency. Mr. Cook stated that we are getting to the point where we need to focus on outreach and subcommittee work. Maybe as we get into the summer months we may want to look at having meetings every other month.

Chairman Madison announced that he received an invitation to attend a meeting between the Tribes and Westland Irrigation District to talk about Phase III. The meeting is scheduled for January 31, 2006 from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the Tamastslikt Center. The letter was addressed to Chairman Madison but says Critical Groundwater Taskforce. Aaron Skirvin stated that the he believed that there were going to be specific invitations.

9. MIKE LADD PRESENTATION: Mr. Ladd of the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) gave a presentation titled Oregon Water Law and Basin Planning, An Evolving Process. He wanted to give an overall view of where we have been as a state.

President Jefferson signed the proclamation to send Lewis & Clark to start exploring the west. The ultimate goal was to populate the west and claim the Oregon territory. We saw quite a bit of activity from the federal side to encourage settlement of the west. There were programs designed to provide an opportunity for settlers to settle the land and put it into agricultural production and to populate the west. Once folks started settling the west miners came out and posted a notice to a tree to announce the use water for their mining operation. One of the primary considerations when people came to settle the land was the availability of water. Once the population grew and the demand on the resource grew there were fights, range wars and a lot of court battles.

Eventually there became a need to put some law and order into water resources management. They decided that they needed some process whereby people could register their water use in the state of Oregon. They passed a law requiring that people file their intention of their water use with the county clerk’s office. This did not work because it was not mandatory. Then in 1905 they established a new department of the state engineer’s office, which was the predecessor to OWRD. Again they tried voluntary means to register water use and it failed. In 1909 legislature passed the Oregon Water Code which was a mandatory means to register water use.

In 1955 the legislature passed the Groundwater Act which required people to file water rights for groundwater and they set up the Water Board for the state engineer’s office. In 1975 the state engineer and the board were combined and became OWRD. In 1985 they established the Water Resources Commission. Other key pieces of legislation were the In-Stream Water Rights Act of 1987 that allowed some state agencies to file for in-stream water for fish and aquatic purposes and the Water Rights Processing Act.

The four key provisions of the 1909 Water Code were beneficial use without waste, priority date, appurtency and the water right has to be used at least once every five years for beneficial purposes. Beneficial uses are irrigation, industrial, domestic, municipal and in-stream flows.

The permit system is a three step process. You file an application to see if you can get a water right. If they issue the permit then you have to prove the beneficial purposes to the extent that you use the water per that permit and then a certificate of water right is issued. That water right becomes appurtenant to the property and at that point the water can be taken away if it is not used for beneficial purposes at least once every five years. The other part of the process is transfers. The state is not issuing many water rights. With transfers you can change the place of use, the character of use, the point of diversion and the point of appropriation. They go through strict standards to determine whether they issue a water right. When an application comes in they look at things like it’s consistency with the basin program, water availability, rules of the commission, flow augmentation window, well construction rules and hydraulic connection rules.

There was a question and extensive discussion and opinions comparing the public notice process of the county and OWRD.

People that want to use water for domestic use up to 15,000 gallons per day, single industrial or commercial up to 5,000 gallons per day, lawn and garden up to ½ acre and livestock watering are not required to go through the permitting process. Legislature has exempted these uses.

Oregon water law is an evolving process. Since 1991 there has been 155 water bills passed through the legislature. The legislature will continue to amend and modify Oregon water law based on environmental and societal values and needs. Water resources planning in Umatilla Basin was adopted in 1964 and amended numerous times. The plan classifies which beneficial uses of water can be used from various sources of either surface or ground water. It can also withdraw sources of water from further issuance of water rights.

The Umatilla Basin Report done in 1988 was the documentation and dialog that occurred prior to the adoption of or amendment to the 1988 Basin Program Rules with Division 507. This was put together with two citizen committees, one from the Umatilla Basin and one from the Walla Walla Basin. These citizen advisory groups assisted in the planning effort and provided the background framework for adoption of the Program Rules. The rules involve six major issues: municipal water supply, interstate cooperation, in-stream flow needs, out-of-stream needs, water quality and watershed management.

Division 507 rules are what will set the stage on how OWRD will look at issuing water rights and accepting applications. Mr. Ladd envisions the Taskforce coming up with a set of recommendations because some parts in the Division 507 rules do not work right. They want to make those rules workable, including the possibility of amending the basin program. There is a lot of conflict between state and federal law such as the endangered species act.

In conclusion of where we have been and where we are going, we still have prior appropriation. First in time, first in right is still the law of the land. The existing water rights of record are still going to be protected based on priority date. There are some provisions in the law that allow a slight modification of that when it comes to other uses of equal priority such as municipalities and exempt wells. It may be that in Oregon the issues of exempt water rights will be revisited. Water management continues to evolve.

Ms. Mabbott added that she would appreciate the input of OWRD in helping the Taskforce when they see the Taskforce on the right track or heading the wrong direction. Doug Woodcock added that a couple of legislative sessions ago there was a statutory change that stated that whenever OWRD is going through the classification process and wants to adjust exempt uses it requires legislative review.

Mr. Reed added that he thinks it is important for the Taskforce to realize how small of a department OWRD is. They are regularly asked to increase the staff’s responsibilities and work load with no suggestions to increase staff size or compensations. Chairman Madison believes that we need to decide as community to supply the funding to create the staff needed in our basin.

10. ANNUAL REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE BOC: Mr. Cook reported that he has prepared an outline of the annual report. In the charter it states that the Taskforce is to give an annual report to the Board of Commissioners. The first annual report was presented last May which was an overview of what has been done to date. Mr. Cook has now begun to prepare a more detailed report. There has been discussion between him and Mr. Colgan not to focus so much on the last 24 months but to focus on the upcoming year’s activities. They foresee the next year being focused on getting the contract completed with OSU, development and implementation of the public outreach campaign, the 2050 Plan formatting and development and the long term resource and needs analysis. He has also created a timeline for 2006 to guide the Taskforce’s activities and a report on the Taskforce’s funding. The report also includes recommendations to the Board and what the Taskforce members are going to be expecting after they have made their final report to the Board. Mr. Cook expects that the Annual Report will be completed in February and would like to hear any comments or suggestions from the Taskforce members as soon as possible.

11. OUTREACH MATRIX AND AUTHOR/SPEAKER APPOINTMENTS: Mr. Colgan received a call from the East Oregonian about the Taskforce doing a monthly column. Mr. Colgan, Mr. Cook and Ms. Mabbott thought it would be good to have three or four authors from the Taskforce. The author of the column for the given month would write their column and submit it to staff. Staff would then review the column and submit it to the EO. The column is to be between 1,500 and 2,000 words. The authors could write the column from their points of interest that brings them to the Taskforce. The topics would be mentioned on the KUMA radio coffee hour to tie the outreach together.

12. ATTENDANCE REVIEW POLICY: Mr. Cook prepared a document titled Umatilla County Critical Groundwater Taskforce Protocols. The purpose of the policy was to attain maximum member attendance to regularly scheduled meetings. Ray Kopacz moved to accept the policy and Charles Miller seconded the motion. The motion was taken to a vote and the policy was approved unanimous.

13. TOPICS OF UPCOMING MEETINGS: Topics for February are expected to be OSU on the interim synthesis report or the County Assessor may present on funding options. Another possibility would be Phil Richardson’s DEQ mapping presentation.

14. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further time the meeting was adjourned by Chairman Madison at 4:59 p.m.

Signed for the Umatilla County Critical Groundwater Taskforce by:

_______________________________ _______________________________

JR Cook Annette Rambel

Taskforce County Staff Member Taskforce Recording Secretary