Hangman (Latah) Creek Watershed

Planning Unit Meeting

Spokane County Conservation District

December 28, 2004

Chair:              Walt Edelen, Spokane County Conservation District (SCCD)

Present:          Keith Holliday, Department of Ecology

Dee Bailey, Coeur d’Alene Tribe

                        Gary Ostheller, Triangle Grange

                        Peter Grunte, Landowner

                        Bruce Carmack, Landowner

                        Bill Rickard, City of Spokane, Environmental Programs

            Shallan Dawson, Spokane County Conservation District

            Reanette Bows, Spokane County

            Rick Noll, Spokane County Conservation District

AGENDA

The meeting was called to order at 9:05 a.m. The Hangman Creek Water Resources Management Plan has been out for comment since November 16^th and the comment period was extended from December 16^th to December 22^nd.

Comments received to date have been compiled into a matrix and was handed out with priority ranking from the Planning Unit and the general public.

Response to Comments

The planning unit began reviewing and discussing the comments from the public meetings and comment period. The first few comments were approved with the recommended changes. Other minor changes were approved without discussion. The following changes were in response to comments made by the state caucus after extensive discussion. The comments have been numbered in the matrix and are referred to in the minutes.

Comment #27

The Use Attainability Analysis comment was discussed, as it is part of the TMDL process. There is a TMDL group already active and they could recommend this analysis. Bill thought it appropriate for this group to also make the recommendation for Ecology to do the analysis. The planning unit agreed that the recommended beneficial uses might not be achievable. The discussion of UAA should come after the discussion of the TMDL. Walt will work on acceptable wording that will allow this group to support recommendation of an UAA if determined necessary by the TMDL group, or the implementation group.

Comment #30

Recommendation R1.a strategy 1 violates state law due to the existing process in which water rights are issues, and by possibly impairing or diminishing existing water rights. This recommendation was deleted.

Comment #32

Recommendation R2.a was modified to reflect that there may be more than two distinct sub-basins within the watershed that could be effected by ground water and this hydrology is not yet known. The recommendation will reflect that management of these specific units should be based on ground water if determined necessary by future studies. There will be two parts to this, identifying and managing designated management units.

Comment #33

Recommendation R2c. strategy 1 discusses regulation of domestic exempt wells, and as Keith noted, there is a lack of political will to implement this regulation. This strategy will take more time and funding than the plan has allocated. This recommendation could be tied to instream flow regulations. Keith also noted there are rules out for review for setting flow and reservation rights to be administered by local governments, and he will be distributing them to the group for review. The group was indecisive as to weather future domestic exempt wells should be regulated, or to only have municipal water rights be regulated. This issue could be addressed by zoning changes, but might not make enough of an impact on flow to be the only mechanism of control. Gary was not in favor of regulating domestic exempt wells, and had concerns about regulation if the basin was not split into sub-basins. Other members of the group thought it inappropriate to regulate municipal water rights, but not others in the watershed. It was decided that only future water rights could be regulated and this could be done with instream flow conditions or future designated management units based on hydrology. The issue was tabled and will be discussed at the next meeting.

Comment #34

Recommendation R3a is in violation of state law, although this guidance was required as part of this process. The planning unit recognized this recommendation does not require the state to follow the recommendation, but could be used in the future to designate water rights and other future legislation.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be January 5th from 9-12 am. The main agenda item will be to continue reviewing comments from the public comment period and the public meetings.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:00 p.m.