ECOLOGY BLOG: Water Law 101 Episode 3
Water Law 101 Episode 3
The balancing act of water management
The following article is a transcript from the podcast "Water Law 101." Listen to the original audio.
Intro: This is water law 101. I’m back with Mike Gallagher Southwest Regional manager for Ecology’s Water Resources program. Water Law 101 is meant to be an introductory level discussion of water law in Washington State. But even at the simplest level, managing water rights can be very complicated. Mike, at the heart of your job is really a resource management job. This is really kind of an amazing balancing act that you have to do in order to manage this shared resource throughout the state. Can you kind of give me some details on what it takes to manage our water resources?
Mike: Sure, thanks Jimmy. As I’ve mentioned, water is managed, in the state of Washington, under the prior appropriation doctrine: “first in time first in right”. When we get a water right application we have to balance that application with the existing use of water already in that particular watershed or from that particular aquifer, balanced with, maybe an instream flow regulation, other water uses, the amount of annual rainfall, the amount of flow in that stream that’s based on snowpack or not snowpack and the demand for the water. Primarily our demand and our need for water is highest in the summertime, when the supply is at its lowest. So there’s that balance as well.