FactCheck: Ecology reiterates no rainwater regulations in place

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Yakima Herald-Republic is starting FactCheck, a periodic feature to investigate the truthfulness and context of statements made in public settings. Its goal is to clear the air when statements have the potential to affect many people.

YAKIMA, Wash. -- A question posed to guest speaker state Attorney General Rob McKenna at the Yakima Ag Expo last weekend seemed to come out of the blue.

An Ellensburg resident said she'd heard rumors the state was planning to regulate use of rainwater. Was that true? After all, family farmers, she said, are already overburdened with regulations.

The question sent Mc-Kenna -- often mentioned as a gubernatorial hopeful -- scurrying for an answer. After all, a Republican candidate for governor can't appear unresponsive to the conservative agricultural voting base of Eastern Washington.

Within days, McKenna concluded there's nothing to it.

The state Department of Ecology, responding to media reports about the fear of rainwater regulation, felt compelled to issue a news release Tuesday saying no such plan exists. In 2009, the department concluded in a policy interpretation that a water right is not required to capture rooftop rainwater.

There is, however, one caveat. The policy, signed by former Ecology Director Jay Manning, said Ecology may impose restrictions if harvesting rainwater affects instream flow values or existing rights.

But Dan Partridge, spokesman for Ecology's water resources program, said such a move has never occurred and is highly unlikely.

One possible reason for restricting rainwater collection, he suggested, would be if a large, rural residential subdivision relied entirely on rainwater collection for domestic water.

Even then, the county or other state agencies may have issues with rainwater reliance because of an uncertainty that rain could supply enough water to meet the development's needs, a requirement under state environmental rules.

The rainwater rumor appears to have had origins in a plan by Kittitas County commissioners to allow cisterns to gather rainwater for home use where wells can't be drilled or an existing water right is not available.

The upper county area, west of Indian John Hill, has been under a moratorium for 19 months that prohibits new wells unless the landowner obtains a portion of a senior surface water right to offset their new use.

A market to purchase water for this offset is available but some areas of the upper county currently don't qualify because senior water rights in those areas already are limited.

Paul Jewell, Kittitas County commission chairman, said Ecology officials have told him the state won't interfere with the county's still-developing cistern plan.

"We have been assured by Tom Tebb (Ecology regional director) that Ecology is not intending to object in any way shape or form," Jewell said Wednesday. "Ecology has been up front with us and we are moving forward under that assumption."

A cistern is an above-ground or below-ground storage tank often used to collect rainwater. They have been used for centuries.

The county is pursuing the cistern idea as an alternative source for residents who can't obtain mitigation water.

Jewell said the county is working through a series of issues before the cistern plan is ready for adoption sometime this year.

* David Lester can be reached at 509-577-7674 or dlester@yakimaherald.com.