PORT ANGELES — Residents of the upper Fairview Water District have been granted a temporary reprieve on the North Olympic Peninsula’s strictest outdoor watering ban because of high fire danger and risks posed by Fourth of July fireworks.
At the same time, residents fight to solve their water shortage permanently.
The Clallam County Public Utility District and state Department of Ecology announced an agreement Thursday to allow residents to water their outdoor gardens, grass and other landscaping to provide a green, wet, defensible space in case of a wildfire, said Mike Howe, PUD spokesman.
The temporary outdoor water allowance will expire at midnight Sunday, after which Level 4 water shortage restrictions imposed on June 10 will come back into effect, Howe said.
Ecology ordered 566 customers of the upper Fairview Water district to be put under a Level 4 water shortage restriction which limits residents to indoor-only water use, and asked that residents reduce their indoor use as much as possible.
Two new wells went online in June, which provide water to lower Fairview Water District customers, but there is no system in place to pump that water to customers who live at higher elevations.
PUD officials met with state Ecology, Health and Fish and Wildlife officials on Wednesday to discuss options for the water district.
Discussion was about short-term problems such as the high fire danger, possible medium-term solutions to address the summer water restrictions, and long-term solutions for eliminating future water restrictions.
A decision from the state agencies about their possible options is expected to be available Monday or Tuesday, Howe said.
Level 4 restrictions imposed by Ecology were based on the rapidly-falling Morse Creek, which, until mid-June, was the primary water supply for about 1,300 customers.
Morse Creek’s flow was at 35.3 cubic feet per second (cfs) on Wednesday, according to the Ecology creek flow monitoring station.
If the creek’s flow is reduced to 25 cfs, the district may no longer draw water from the water diversion above Morse Creek Falls.
That restriction is in place to ensure enough water for fish in the lower reach of the creek, according to Ecology water rules.
The waterfall acts as a natural fish barrier, so fish need water only below that point, Mike Kitz, water superintendent for the PUD said Monday at a meeting attended by about 30 residents.
The PUD proposed pumping well water to the lower reaches of the river where the fish need it, theoretically allowing residents to continue using water from the upper stream without affecting fish, he said.
“We’re offering two-for-one. For every gallon we take from above the waterfall, we will add two gallons below,” Kitz said.
Kitz said the water replacement plan would not remove the Level 4 outdoor watering restrictions, but would prevent Level 5 water rationing.
Potential solutions include a $500,000 to $2 million pumping system to reverse the flow in the existing piping system designed to bring water from Morse Creek to about 750 lower Fairview customers, and a $10 million permanent new pump and pipe system.
“We’re not sure [reversing the water flow in existing pipes] will work,” Kitz said.
Neither system can be in place before the end of this summer, he said.
Residents noted that the amount of water typically used by the combined 566 residents is only about 1 percent of the streamflow at the 25 cfs level.
Their anger was divided between the PUD, for what they said was a failure to address a known problem a decade ago when it became known, and the state agencies who set the water limits.
PUD officials said they did begin addressing the problem 10 years ago, but that it takes time to navigate the permit requirements.
It took five years to get permits for phase 1 of their plan the two new $8 million wells, and several years to dig them, get them certified and hooked up to the system,which are the first phase of the mitigation plan.
The second phase, the $10 million pump and piping system, was on hold due to the cost of the project.
“The money we are talking about is your money,” Commissioner Will Purser said.
Commissioners said that if they had put in the system and raised rates, and the current “historic drought” had not happened, residents would be upset at higher bills for a system that was viewed as unnecessary.
“We were trying to act responsibly,” said Doug Nass, PUD general manager.
Residents at the meeting said they would be happy to pay higher rates for whatever is needed to build a reliable water system— including the cost of construction of a $10 million water pipe system to bring water from two new brand-new wells in the lower district to their hillside abodes.
“I am paying tenfold the higher rates to purchase water to make sure our plants don’t die,” said Patti Monson, a resident who attended the meeting.
Resident Carol Knebes said that the California drought is in its fourth year and that there is no guarantee the Olympic Peninsula’s drought will end after this year.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.