Re:Groundwater Forum

["Brent Capener" <cape@moscow.com>]

    I also attended the two Ground Water forums, and would like to thank online those who are spending much time and effort on this issue for putting on this public showcase.  To those that missed out: it was well presented, well attended, informative, and the free carrot cake and cider didn't hurt either.

    A couple V2020 questions  were answered during these presentations.  Why aren't county reps. more concerned about Naylor Farms' application, since most rural residents rely on wells for their domestic water supply?  Answer:  There are essentially three different 'communities' of water below us - ground level, upper aquifer, lower aquifer.  Almost all rural wells use ground level; Moscow and Pullman use  the upper and lower aquifer.  Naylor Farms' have applied for rights to the two aquifers, therefore their use would effect the cities, but not county residents on private wells.  Why are these negotiations between Naylor Farms  and the cities of Moscow and Pullman  still off limits to the media and public?  It was explained that if the meetings were open to the public or announced 'real time' to the media the discussions very likely would fall into an 'us versus them' adversarial battle with little hope of resolve or compromise.  Kind of like V2020 when it gets heated up about something.   Our  city reps. chose to go the path of listen, talk, reason, and resolve, within a limited group setting.

    About the water dept. "making a profit".   I interpreted Mark as stressing that the water dept. budget should be kept in the black, rather than largely in the red has it has been in the last several years, and would rather use the phrase "building reserves".  I do share Garrett's concern about revenue flow influencing pricing policies.  Last year's increase of the base rate while leaving the consumption rate the same was all about revenue, and I believe very misguided.  The city fears that if the price of consumption increases, use will decrease, thereby resulting in insufficient revenue.  Although this is a valid concern, I believe it is overblown somewhat.  We are not yet in 'panic mode'. A small adjustment in the pricing schedule would make little difference to the dept.'s revenues or to consumption rates, but might yield a little data to extrapolate from. 

    

                                                                               BC

 

 

Small print: Info provided here is 'as interpreted by me', not official by any authority