By Jessica Keller

The Courier-Herald

The city of Buckley gained a huge victory in its battle with the Department of Ecology for more water rights.

The City Council voted to accept a settlement proposal from DOE after briefly discussing the matter in executive session.

Prior to the settlement, the city was under imposed limitation from DOE and couldn't withdraw more than 706 acre feet per year from Buckley's combined sources.

Under the new settlement, this agreement gives Buckley the ability to draw 896 acre feet per year of water from South Prairie Creek through its surface water and 458 acre feet per year from its ground water. Combined, the city now has almost double the water rights it had before.

The agreement does not come without conditions, however, and the city still has work to do before it will gain the additional water right.

According to the agreement, the city has to install a water flow control valve on its South Prairie Creek diversion, subject to engineering feasibility, to reduce the quantity of surface water diverted from the creek to only the volume needed to provide water to the city and Rainier School through the Department of Social and Health Services. The city will also have to report its usage, and the water used by Rainier School, weekly, with the understanding that occasionally excess water will be needed to keep the system operating efficiently. According to the agreement, that excess water will not be held against the city.

City Administrator Dave Schmidt said the valve should cost between $8,000 and $15,000, assuming a valve can be installed and have the city's water system run effectively. But before a control valve can be installed, the city has to go through an environmental review to determine the impacts of installing the valve.

He said while he is pretty sure it is feasible to engineer the water valve, and still have Buckley's water system run effectively, the city may run into opposition with environmentalists because a control valve would essentially prevent water from draining into Spiketon Ditch, endangering fish within the waterway.

He said if the city is challenged, it may have to take extra measures to satisfy any opposition before going ahead with the water control valve. Schmidt did say, however, the city has a few options as to what it can do, including moving any fish that live in the ditch to nearby waterways or redirecting the flow from Spiketon to another water course.

Schmidt said with the water rights settlement, and when the city's waste water treatment plant goes online, the city should be able to easily meet its 20-year growth projection.

But even after all the immediate work is completed, the city has to look at building a second water reservoir and possibly adding a few more wells. Schmidt also said the city is going to continue looking at getting additional water rights down the road.

The city has been bargaining with DOE since it rejected Buckley's initial application for water rights in May, 2003. The city almost reached an agreement in May, but was concerned with a number of limitations DOE placed in the agreement.

"We were concerned with the 'thou shalts' DOE placed in that agreement," Schmidt said.

The water granted to the city was basically the same, but the city was concerned there was no lee-way when it came to controlling the amount of water the city received from South Prairie Creek. There was no allowance for necessary excess run-off needed for the system to work.

"So there was a lot of small technicalities that we wanted to make sure were in there before the council agreed upon it," Schmidt said.

Overall, he thinks the appeal was a success and said everyone was pleased with the outcome.

"Well, it helps us meet what the state is requiring us to do, and that's plan for growth," he said.

Jessica Keller can be reached at jkeller@courierherald.com