Unlawful & Illegal

Unlawful & Illegal

Unlawful & Illegal. I'm Greg Martin with Washington Ag Today.

The fight continues over the Odessa Aquifer and in particular now a pair of attorneys have issued written opinions questioning the legality of the water service contracts including the "development fees" in those contracts being issued by the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District to Odessa Aquifer Irrigators. The Ag Networks David Sparks has more.

SPARKS: Both opinions strongly conclude that the ECBID is illegally charging irrigators/landowners excessive and arbitrary annual "development fees" which have no tangible bearing or relation associated with water delivery to the ground being served. The legal opinions also challenge the legality and legitimacy of the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District's development fee as part of its very expensive and highly questionable normalization and bonding proposal for bringing surface water from the East Low Canal to Odessa Subarea deep well irrigators.

Thanks David. Additionally, the ECBID is charging the initial landowners five or more times than any amount associated with the costs incurred to benefit them and such a charge appears part of the ECBID's general campaign against landowners building their own privately funded distribution systems. The Odessa Aquifer Privately Funded Project has been widely endorsed by many decision-makers as a viable, cost-effective and realistic option to immediately begin replacing the use of groundwater from the declining Odessa Subarea Aquifer. 

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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