INSIDE

Water district imposes moratorium

By Meg Olson

The Point Roberts water district is responding to an unprecedented run on water connections with an unprecedented freeze on new hookups.
At a special meeting July 20 water commissioners voted unanimously on a temporary moratorium on new connections while district staff evaluate whether the connections the state will allow them are even enough to serve homes now under construction.

“This just can’t go on,” water district manager Dan Bourks told commissioners, explaining that on July 15, 30 new water connections were applied and paid for, drawing the total remaining connections left to almost 50. Bourks said the news of a limited number of water connections remaining under the district’s water comprehensive plan had sparked a rush to buy connections for undeveloped parcels, leaving the possibility that people building homes or on failing wells wouldn’t have access to water. “We just didn’t foresee the panic and we need contingencies,” he said. “The legal limit of 2,050 gave me the legal authority to start denying hookups.” The moratorium made it official and will stay in place until October 20 of this year but can be extended.
The next step, according to commissioner Arthur Wilkowski, is “to get a handle on the situation and classify the need groups. A house nearing completion has more intent to hook up than a lot.” With 46 connections remaining of the 2,052 the state allows the district under the current comprehensive plan “based on the source capacity available from the Greater Vancouver Water District (GVWD),” Bourks says he expects the district “should be able to cover homes under construction or permits just released.”

Water district attorney John Milne joined the meeting by phone and cautioned commissioners about how they prioritize who can get one of the precious few remaining connections. “When you have a limited resource there are several federal laws, for example, the principle of equal protection. People similarly situated are entitled to equal treatment,” he said. “These are a precious commodity, a valuable asset. There are some distinctions the law will allow you to recognize and some the law won’t.”

“We’re looking at people caught in the process versus those who want to speculate on future scarcity,” Wilkowski said. Milne said the first step would be to accurately identify how many connections were left, how many people might have a critical need for water now, and what contingencies needed to be put aside for public use or emergencies.
“There is also the question of what constitutes a commitment,” Milne said referring to the certificates of water availability used by the county in the building permit process. Parties applying for permits in past months have had these filled out by the district to “indicate the resource was available at the time,” Bourks said, but he had been unable to determine how many were now linked to permits in process. “In my opinion it’s not a contractual commitment,” Milne said. “It’s simply a county planning tool. However, perhaps the district will consider these as commitments.”

Bourks said staff was starting to work on a revised district comprehensive plan to submit to the state and district engineers had some hope of eking more connections out of the current water supply. Bourks said the state already based connections on an estimated peak demand of 410 gallons per day per equivalent residential unit, as opposed to the average of 800 in communities throughout the state, in recognition of the seasonal use of many properties. “The question is will they go below that number and there may not be a lot of latitude,” Milne said.

Derek Pell, assistant manager of the state’s drinking water program in the northwest regional office, acknowledged 410 gallons of peak demand was about as low as they go. “There are some systems that are lower but it’s pretty rare,” he said. “These are usually systems with no outside irrigation.” Pell said with a maximum daily draw amount allowed under the contract with the GVWD, the district could get more connections by building more storage and saving water to handle peak demand. “The question is how much storage do you want to build compared with the price of renegotiating the contract?” he asked.
With 4,524 legal parcels existing on the Point, 1,000 of them marina slips, Bourks speculated the district wouldn’t need much more water to serve the community’s long-term needs. “We need about 1,500 more hookups to serve all the parcels. However some of those are unlikely to develop,” he said.

“We have an obligation to the community to ensure long-term supply,” Wilkowski said. “We can’t just go ‘sorry, it’s done.’” Commissioner Sue Johnson was concerned that with more water from Canada the only long-term way out, “they’ll just say no.”

Wilkowski suggested they cross that bridge with more information about other pieces of the puzzle. “We have to go there but we have some work to do before,” he said. Commissioners agreed to set an August 4 special meeting to look at current need for water to serve existing development and progress with a comprehensive plan update that could earn the district more leeway. “We need to give people some answers, even if the answer is sorry we don’t have the answer,” Wilkowski said.