Deal on Oregon water fund struck
An agreement about the key functions of a $10 million Oregon water supply fund was struck recently, but the specific rules have yet to be ironed out.
Two task forces spent five months negotiating over the basic operations of the fund, which state lawmakers approved in 2013.
The groups have now answered fundamental questions about the level of environmental scrutiny for water storage projects and the process for developers to obtain money.
In the coming months, though, a new committee must turn those concepts into detailed rules that meet the approval of state water regulators.
Only then can the $10 million fund begin disbursing grants and loans to water projects in the state.
The funds were originally supposed to become available by the spring of 2015 but that timeline now looks onerous under even the most optimistic scenario.
A rulemaking advisory committee, which is expected to consist of former task force members, will try to hammer out the specifics by early April, then receive public comments and submit its proposal to the Oregon Water Resources Commission in June.
This schedule is particularly challenging because the rulemaking process will coincide with the upcoming legislative session, a busy time for task force members who lobby for various interest groups.
While task force members have outlined concepts for governing the fund, tricky details must still be haggled over.
For example, the system for determining whether projects are worthy of funding is subject to further debate.
During the final task force meeting on Jan. 16, members agreed they have not yet reached consensus on scoring and ranking methods and decided to temper recommendations for such a system in a report to legislators.
They also decided to shelve discussions about handling projects that request a disproportionately large portion of the $10 million in available funds.
Recommendations for how lawmakers should vet future state-funded water projects were scrapped from the report after some members said such suggestions exceed the scope of the task force.
“We can’t tell folks in the capitol how to do things,” said April Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress.
The most contentious aspect of the water supply fund pertains to the amount of water that can be withdrawn from streams during peak flow periods.
The topic is controversial because irrigators don’t want burdensome environmental hurdles to discourage developers from using the fund.
Most task force members have agreed that projects will be analyzed based on a “matrix” of possible environmental impacts and available stream data. Those with major potential effects on streams that haven’t been closely studied will receive the most scrutiny.
A couple of task force members who represent irrigators did not endorse this strategy, but they remained neutral and so the proposal will now move forward to rulemaking.