[Vision2020] aquifers

[Mark Solomon]

For Immediate Release
All Media
December 14, 2004

PALOUSE WATER CONSERVATION NETWORK
CONTACT:	MARK SOLOMON

Water Coalition asks IDWR to try again

(Moscow)	Moscow water conservation advocates today filed a 
Petition for Reconsideration of Idaho Department of Water Resource 
Director Karl Dreher's December 1 rejection of their request to 
designate aquifers supplying Moscow with drinking water as imperiled. 
Petitioners are Palouse Water Conservation Network, Friends of the 
Clearwater, Sierra Club Palouse Group, and Idaho Conservation League. 
By law, IDWR must respond within 21 days. Petitioners filed their 
original request more than one year ago.

"We are asking Director Dreher to reconsider whether a slight change 
in the rate of decline in the water level of one well out of eleven 
justifies his determination that stabilization of the aquifer is 
taking place," said Mark Solomon, spokesman for the petitioners. "All 
indications are Moscow has only 10-15 years to solve its water supply 
problem before wells start to run dry. We once again ask Director 
Dreher to help Moscow address this vital issue today while time is 
still on our side, not when crisis hits."

The petitioners are also critical of the part of the Director's Order 
creating yet another advisory group with no authority to implement 
any actions. The Citizen Advisory Group would be advisory to the 
Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee, itself an advisory group with no 
powers other than to coordinate research of the Palouse aquifers. As 
the petition states, "Creating an advisory committee to an advisory 
committee that has demonstrated its inability to see its 
recommendations implemented is a triumph of redundant failure."

The entire petition may be viewed at:	http://www.pwcn.org

Background:
Idaho Code 42-233A provides authority to the Idaho Department of 
Water Resources (IDWR) to designate and manage groundwater 
withdrawals for aquifers that are being depleted. It is a 
well-researched fact that the deep Grande Ronde aquifer, providing 
the majority of the City of Moscow's and the University's water 
supply, is declining one to two feet per year. There is no known 
recharge of this 10,000 year-old water source. The University and the 
City also utilize the upper Wanapum aquifer that does annually 
recharge, but has a known capacity that is estimated will be exceeded 
within fifteen years. The Wanapum currently provides 30% of Moscow's 
water supply. To manage the acknowledged over-consumption of 
groundwater in the Palouse sub-basin, the University, the cities of 
Moscow and Pullman and Washington State University entered into an 
intergovernmental agreement in 1987 now known as the Palouse Basin 
Aquifer Committee. Efforts of PBAC to reduce decline in the Grande 
Ronde aquifer have not resulted in any measurable success.

On November 20, 2003, a coalition of Moscow civic and environmental 
groups petitioned IDWR to designate the Grande Ronde aquifer 
underlying the Moscow area as a Critical Groundwater Management Area 
and the Wanapum aquifer in the same area as a Groundwater Management 
Area.

For more information go to: http://www.pwcn.org
-30-
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20041215/4a42bc12/attachment-0001.htm