[Capr-announce] FW: Water Meter Wars update - Lewis Co Commish meeting 7 12 2010

[Jeff Wright]

For those of you who are involved in water rights issues or want to become
more educated in the area, you will find attached a group of files dealing
with those issues.  They deal with hearings and issues mostly in southwest
Washington, for now at least.  We apologize for the hodge-podge nature of
this post but given that there are some meeting announcements attached, felt
it best to get this out.  See the message below.

 

There has been talk for some time that the State would put meters on private
water wells and it appears that the Department of Ecology is ramping up that
effort.  It is another illustration of the western maxim the "he who
controls the water, controls the land".

 

Jeff Wright

Secretary / CAPR

 

____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________

 

 

PRESS UPDATE:  WATER METER WARS
MONDAY, JULY 12, 2010

Dear Press                                               

This is an update from the Olympia Tea Party on the "Water Meter Wars".
Numerous tea party and citizen groups across the State are now involved in
this issue and that number is growing as word spreads.  Metering wells and
closing of the water shed are the two driving issues behind this.

Representatives from Several groups attended the Lewis County Commissioners
meeting this morning.  About 1/4 of the audience came to express their
concerns over the proposed amendment to the Washington Administrative Code
(WAC) granting Ecology "the right" to require any water user to meter their
well.  The rest of the crowd was there for other matters.

During this morning's meeting it was pointed out that what started out as
code requirements for commerical water users is now trying to be extended to
residential water users in what appears to be an underhanded fashion.  There
was much concern expressed about an over-reaching bureaucratic power grab.

The Lewis County Commissioners voted in the affirmative to oppose well
metering in a resolution which they had drafted.  The citizens expressed a
great deal of skepticism as to how effective the Commissioner's resolution
would be, but also thanked the Commissioners for opposing the loss of their
property rights.  They delivered their own "cease and desist" order at the
meeting in addition to the Commissioners resolution.  

Additionally, I've attached information from the two meetings which caused
Ecology to extend the comment period.  The Morton meeting was attended by
200 to 450 citizens depending upon whose estimate you believe.  Even if it
were just 200 citizens that is an extraordinary number of concerned
citizens.  Reading the Ecology transcript is instructive.  Only public
comment was taken at this meeting and Ecology did not give its expected
presentation to promote the WAC revision.  I was unable to attend the Morton
meeting but by all accounts it was a "barn-burner".  Rather than schedule
another meeting in Morton the next meeting was scheduled in Longview at 2 PM
in the afternoon (undoubtedly out of consideration for the convenience for
Lewis County residents?).

WEDNESDAY NIGHT 7:00 PM MEETING IN MOSSYROCK
All are invited to a citizens meeting Wednesday night, 7:00 - 9:00 at the
Mossyrock High School Gym.  Speakers include:  Vic Khovos, Ryan Right
(hydrologist), and Tracy Swetz of Silver Creek will be explaining the
process and terminology surrounding this important issue.

THURSDAY 2:00 PM MEETING IN LONGVIEW (next to last public comment meeting!)
Cowlitz County Building
207 - 4th Ave
3rd Floor, Room 305
Longview, WA 98626


Yours truly,

Ken Morse
Olympia Tea Party organizer     www.OlympiaTeaParty.com
360-923-1080

Cc:  Olympia Tea Party, Other Tea Party groups and interested citizens

Olympia Tea Party is a not-for-profit organization involved in citizen
activism defending the Constitution and protesting the $13+ Trillion US
National Debt.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/private/capr-announce/attachments/20100713/f5eb2072/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/private/capr-announce/attachments/20100713/f5eb2072/attachment-0001.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 5-27-10 Morton hearing v1.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 95835 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/private/capr-announce/attachments/20100713/f5eb2072/attachment-0003.pdf 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: WRIAs 25-26 Longview.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 106720 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/private/capr-announce/attachments/20100713/f5eb2072/attachment-0004.pdf 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Lee Grose Resolutions0001.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 965360 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/private/capr-announce/attachments/20100713/f5eb2072/attachment-0005.pdf 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: EmsrevisionCeaseandDesist2007.11.10.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 26112 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/private/capr-announce/attachments/20100713/f5eb2072/attachment-0001.doc 
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded message was scrubbed...
From: <emily at greenovativebuilders.com>
Subject: Meeting @ Mossyrock gym. Wednesday July 14th Metering domestic
	wells???
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:53:26 -0700
Size: 11483406
Url: http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/private/capr-announce/attachments/20100713/f5eb2072/attachment-0001.mht