Irrigation Bill Moves to Senate

I'm Bob Larson. A Moses Lake Representative is "hauling the water" for folks in Eastern Washington with a handful of bills he's managed to push through the House.

One of the bills Tom Dent has pushed through is HB 1578, which is a common-sense approach to using irrigation waters ...

TOM DENT ... "I was kind of working with the irrigation districts back in Eastern Washington and what that's about is it allows the irrigation districts to enter into a public private partnership. It gives them the authority to do that. And the reason that they want to be able to do that is to put power generating stations in the canals and larger. There is some there now, but they want to go larger than they are and use some of that energy. You know, we have water running down these canals and that's energy. Let's convert that water energy into electricity. So, I'm excited about that bill. It went off unanimous and I'm looking forward to moving that through the Senate."

Dent says it will be especially helpful if there is a lack of funding to generate profits that could be used for maintenance and operation of the irrigation district system and help it pay for itself.

The Washington State Water Resources Association testified in favor of the bill in committee.

The bill has now been referred to the Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee for consideration.

Dent has also passed a bill that would help small forest landowners make their property fire wise, and an Elk management project.