QUILCENE — A plan to build a town water system has hit a roadblock that at least one county official thinks is to big to leap over.
“The way they are thinking is discouraging,” said Jefferson County Public Utility District No. 1 Commissioner Wayne King on Monday after learning that the state Department of Ecology had turned down a plan to transfer part of a water right owned by the U.S. Forest Service to the utility district for the water system.
Tom Loranger, section manager for Ecology’s water resources program, ruled the part of the water right belonging to the Forest Service for its Quilcene Ranger Station couldn’t be transferred to the utility district.
Even if Ecology had ruled in favor of the transfer, it would have meant 12½ gallons of water per minute could have been used to supply businesses and the public in Quilcene.
The Forest Service’s water right is for 50 gallons a minute, but Ecology determined that only one-fourth was being used.
“The water right is intended to be adequate for the domestic needs of that facility,” Loranger said in a letter to Forest Service officials.
“That portion of the water right that is currently not being put to use cannot be transferred to another party.”