A Gray Tsunami

Further adventures in water system consolidation

I didn't get to write to you last week, as I was at a conference and otherwise immersed in water system concerns. This, week I get to tell you all about it. Writing this newsletter keeps me honest. Mostly Water subscribers are represented in each of the groups of people—state and county staff, commissioners, neighboring water systems, and others—with whom I work and whom I write about. Just as in our island community, where most of us behave in traffic because that might be our neighbor we just flipped off, I have nowhere to hide. I think of you, my subscribers, as my accountability partners. If you're reading and are not among them, here's a button to become a subscriber. If you feel moved to support my work, which is otherwise unpaid, there's a paid option.

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This post is about community. OK, on a technical level, it's about drinking water system problems against a backdrop of climate change, but the solutions don't happen without community. If you didn't catch it when it came out, you could read "You might want to move your wells" as an introduction to this piece, as well as for the why.

Because control of a common pool resource like drinking water should remain in public hands; because running a public water system is one of the few remaining areas of life where people from different political and social backgrounds must work together for the common good; and because building trust, relationships, and community is the point.

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This month, I found myself on a stakeholder panel for a series of three workshops on the Climate Resiliency Sub Element of the Comprehensive Plan, required by the State Department of Commerce as part of the county's comprehensive plan update. The first workshop was on sea level rise. For a primer on the sea level rise issues our island is facing, you can read An Imperfect Storm.

In short, Island County is home to half of the most at-risk beach front properties in Puget Sound. There is no state-wide or sound-wide plan to deal with them. It's left to the counties. King County, home to Bellevue and Seattle, has property tax revenue from Microsoft, Amazon, Costco, and Boeing that they can use to buy out these properties in the county's Vashon Island. Island County, however, relies on property taxes from those same companies' executives' 6000-square-foot beach front mansions, and is hardly in a position to do the same. Those hanging on to family beach cabins in between the mansions are left both high and dry, and low and wet. Shoreline public infrastructure and natural habit seem destined to become collateral damage. Beach front property owners were conspicuous by their absence among the invited stakeholders.

What's needed is a community conversation about the future. As Elizabeth Rush shows in Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, solutions work better when the community is involved in crafting them. What will the beach look like in 10, 20, 50 years, and how do we get there from here? It's not happening. People see few options other than to defend their properties with armor. Their views easily follow. If government can't position itself as part of the solution, it's going to be seen as part of the problem. Sea level rise comes back to bite us in the consolidation discussion further down.

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Following the sea level rise workshop, I headed out Wenatchee in central Washington for a conference on funding for infrastructure projects. As part of the consolidation effort, we've been working with the group from the Department of Commerce whose conference this was. It was wonderful to meet in person so many I'd only met on zoom calls or through phone or email.

There's talk in the water business of a gray tsunami. Usually said in the context of the wave of retirements of baby boomer generation water system operators, it's equally true of the volunteer boards than run many of them, and increasingly of their physical infrastructure - the wells, pumps, and distribution systems.

Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, there's a once in a generation funding bonanza right now that has the potential to address these issues and save the day. The problem is the lack of pipelines and programs to get that money to where it's needed. The federal government has sent that money to the states, but the state agencies and counties are used to operating in an environment of scarcity, and don't have systems in place to handle abundance. Without someone at the front line pulling on the other end, they are pushing on a rope. The pulling falls to those aging and tired board members who are being asked to build a water system for a future they may never see. Encouraging and cajoling them into action falls to a few volunteer champions, for whom it can quickly become a full-time unpaid job. Yes, that's me over here, planting sequoias.

“Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest.”

— Wendell Berry

I had a sobering conversation and an inspirational conversation during the week. At the breakfast table one morning were the staff of a small Eastern Washington City, both of them. He's the public works department - everything from dog catcher to sewage treatment plant operator. She's the city clerk. She's paid minimum wage. She lives on the reservation, 32 miles out of town. She spends $100 a week on gas, and needs a new set of tires every year. One day a week, then, she's working just to pay for her car. Washington Initiative 2117 would cancel the state's Climate Commitment Act and with it part of the gas tax. I'm going to vote no on I2117, but I must do so knowing that it's going to hurt this lady much more than it hurts me. I must also remember that it's her tax dollars that are paying for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We have a duty to her to spend that money wisely.

I also met the mayor of small town in Eastern Washington, one of two devastated by wildfires in 2020. These were not forest fires. The towns are in the Palouse, the rolling dryland wheat country best known to those of those of us of a certain age from this beloved Windows 95 wallpaper.

One hot, dry, day in the summer of 2020, a spark from a combine harvester set fire to a wheat field, and gusty winds blew the flames into the town of Lind. That same wind blew a branch into a power line in Malden, resulting in a fire that destroyed 85% of the town's buildings. Meanwhile, the relentless march eastwards of irrigated alfalfa for dairies and export is displacing dryland wheat and pulling down the water table under these towns so much that their wells are now thousands of feet deep and are pulling up warm, salty water. Despite the same age challenges that we face here, these towns are meeting with each other and with the farmers to hammer out solutions.

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Since I wrote "You might want to move your wells", our engineer completed the consolidation study discussed there and recommended that we consolidate with our neighboring water system and relocate away from threats associated with development and sea level rise. The State Office of Drinking Water approved the report, but went further and suggested that we consider extending the consolidation to include other neighboring water systems, an idea that makes a lot of sense but is, of course, even harder to do.

Initial casual conversations with those neighboring systems revealed a level of interest in pursuing this further. There are issues with water rights and land use that are complex enough to earn a dedicated post at some point.

Here's sea level rise coming back to bite us. All of our neighboring water system’s connections and almost half of ours are on the most at-risk beach in the most at-risk county in Puget Sound. Two thirds of those members are second homeowners here and only drink the water a few weekends a year. They may be reluctant to invest in a water system for the ages when the existing ones may be good enough to outlast their homes. We're going to need a plan that works for everyone. It may not be one-size-fits-all.

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