Aspect's Dan Haller Presenting on Water Law, Water Banking, and Water Rights - 9/28 & 9/29

Washington Public Utility District Association Conference - 9/28

On day two of this year’s WPUDA conference in Leavenworth, Aspect’s Dan Haller will be participating on a morning session panel titled “What’s a Water Bank and How Does it Work?” During the afternoon sessions, Dan will be giving a Water Rights 101 presentation.  Public Utility District's manage numerous water rights over domestic systems, dams, hatcheries, and Parks, which put them in a unique position to participating water Banks to accomplish their overall District. Protecting District water rights is a key priority to ensure they are available for multiple District business needs.

Yakima County Bar Association - 9/29

Dan will be giving a presentation on the Hirst decision and how it affects Eastern Washington water rights to the Yakima County Bar Association September 29th. The Hirst decision changed the regulatory framework of County rural building permit and land use policies and is prompting numerous changes from new regulations, moratoriums on building, creation of water Banks, and water write transactions.

From Water Wars to Water Policy – 100 Years of Washington Water Code

This year marks 100 Years of water rights in Washington state. In parallel with this centennial, water rights have received a flood of recent attention in the public eye, primarily because of the role the Hirst decision has played in halting the state’s $4 Billion capital budget.

Image credit: Washington State Department of Ecology

To take the pulse of the water managers, policy makers, and others who steer water law in the state, Aspect conducted a reporter’s roundtable to hear thoughts on Washington water policy today and for the future. Read their account in this month’s “The Water Report”, as well as a fascinating look back to the pre-code, wild west era where dynamite was occasionally preferred as a dispute resolution tool for water management.

Also, be sure to check out the excellent story map and video series developed by the Washington State Department of Ecology on this topic. Lastly, the water code centennial will be the center of attention of next month’s American Water Resources Association – Washington Section (AWRA-WA) State Conference,  October 3, 2017 in Seattle, Washington.  
 

Looking Forward to StormCon – August 27-31

Aspect is excited to attend and present at the 16th Annual StormCon, August 27-31 in Bellevue, WA this year. This national conference, organized by Forester Media, offers a vast curriculum of workshops, certifications, and presentations focused on surface water quality. A diverse range of topics will be available over six tracks ranging from cutting edge research and technologies to lessons learned managing stormwater in various settings. Aspect’s Tom Atkins, Senior Associate Engineer, and James Packman, Senior Hydrologist, will be presenting on three topics at this year’s event. 

On Tuesday, August 29th, James Packman will be presenting with Beth Schmoyer from the City of Seattle on the design and testing results of an R&D pilot project to develop a new suspended solids fluvial sampling device (a.k.a. sediment trap). Later in the day, Tom Atkins will be presenting on the systematic approach and successful strategies that were used to achieve stormwater regulatory compliance at Maxum Petroleum’s diesel fueling and petroleum fuel/lubricant shipping and receiving facility located on Harbor Island in Seattle.

During the Wednesday, August 30th sessions, James will be presenting again, this time alongside Greg Vigoren from the City of Lakewood on the results of a regional evaluation of municipal stormwater source control inspection data. The project is part of the western Washington Stormwater Action Monitoring program and is the first time a regional evaluation of this type of data has been done in Washington.

Possible Solutions for the Future of Icicle Creek Basin Water Resources

The 200-square-mile Icicle Creek basin in central Washington is the heart of the region’s agricultural, fisheries, and outdoor recreation resources. For years, the competing demands of stakeholders has resulted in a critical need to improve the basin’s conditions to reliably supply water to a variety of concerned groups.  Mike Kaputa, Director of Chelan County’s Natural Resources Department, recently wrote an in-depth article for The Water Report covering the complex web of conflicts and possible emerging solutions for this highly scrutinized water basin. Read the article HERE

Reducing Power Costs, Conserving Water, and Increasing Crop through On-Farm Irrigation Efficiency

Thanks to bountiful hydropower electricity, residents of North Central Washington benefit from some of the lowest power rates and live in one of the best fruit-growing regions in the United States. Successful fruit growers in the region are constantly pushing the envelope to reinvest in their crops and rediscover ways to economically maximize yield. Because regional power rates are so low, an often-overlooked opportunity for growers is optimizing pumping-related power costs. 

Power use can be a key tool to uncover significant cost savings and opportunities to gain water, and thus potentially expand fruit operations. Discussed in detail below, performing a power use analysis and implementing infrastructure efficiency improvements could potentially save a grower tens of thousands of dollars in energy costs and reduce water use by hundreds of acre-feet. In some cases, water saved can be used to expand orchard operations or be sold for profit. 

As this hypothetical apple farm scenario shows, a power and water audit has the potential for growers to identify opportunities to reduce power costs and save water at the same time

What Drives Pumping Energy Use?

Pressure and flow are the two primary factors that go into pump power costs, but there are other factors to consider. For example, the age and quality of pumps and motors influences their operating efficiency. A premium-efficiency motor may operate above 90 percent efficiency, whereas an older motor that hasn’t been rewound in a while may be only be 80 percent efficient (or even lower). Pumps have a range of efficiency also. A new properly sized pump operating at its best efficiency point could provide 80% efficiency. An older pump with worn impellers might provide efficiencies of 70 percent or less. 

Pumps operate most efficiently within a narrow range of flows, and efficiencies decrease rapidly when asked to operate outside that range. For example, a pump that was sized to deliver 500 gallons per minute (gpm) at 80 percent efficiency may only perform at 70 percent efficiency when operating at 400 gpm. 

Water Savings in Piping and Sprinkler Upgrades

Piped conveyance systems also contribute to overall system efficiency. Not only can hydraulic problems result in wasted energy, but losses and leakage can result in wasted flow. While 10 percent leakage in pipes is common (and acceptable), improving to a 5 percent leakage rate is achievable—and tremendously valuable. 

Finally, watering application efficiency (i.e., emitter type) can contribute dramatically to the total power bill. For example, a traditional impact sprinkler may be 75 percent efficient, while low-volume sprinklers may be 85 to 90 percent efficient. 

Impact Sprinkler (75 percent efficient)

Low-volume Emitter Sprinkler (90 percent efficient)

How to Save a Tree Fruit Grower $20,000 and 440 acre-feet of Water

Clearly, there are many opportunities to tighten up the “wire-to-water”, or in this case “wire-to-fruit,” efficiency. To help illustrate potential savings, consider a ranch with 500 acres of apples in North Central Washington. Hypothetically, the crops alone could take as much as 3.5 acre-feet of water per year. In this case, let’s assume that the irrigation method is with solid set over-tree impact sprinklers fed off an older series pump with an overall lift of 450 feet and an annual energy cost of approximately $57,000 (Current System; Table 1). Compare this to an optimized system with a premium-efficiency motor, properly-sized pump, limited leakage, and efficient emitters (Optimized System; Table 1).

We find that the estimated pump-related power costs could be reduced by one third—about $20,000 in savings! This is due both to a lower water volume being pumped and better efficiencies of the pumps and motors. While there are certainly valuable applications for running over-tree watering applications (e.g., cooling), innovative practices such as installing shade cloth can help mitigate burning effects on fruit in lieu of sprinklers.  The cost of making that conversion could be justifiable if the benefit includes significant power or water savings.

What to do with the Surplus Water? 

In this example, not only has the grower now saved considerable expense related to power costs, but has also managed to save 440-acre feet of water. In water markets, the consumptive use savings have the highest value; and in this instance, approximately 170-acre feet of the water saved is considered consumptive use. Assuming this water is associated with a perfected (certificated) water right, there are a number of ways this grower could benefit:

  • Market the water and transfer through a transaction (note: current value of water is in the $2,500 per acre-foot range). 
  • Spread the water and plant additional acreage.
  • Protect the water for future use through temporary trust donation (relinquishment protection).
  • Seed a water bank for use in other locations. 

Optimizing Your System Makes Sense from Many Perspectives

There is considerable value in looking at ways to better optimize your power and water use. Financial savings can come in the form of lower energy bills simply by modernizing and properly maintaining your system. However, the rewards of conserving water are not limited to lower power bills. In many cases, it is important to consider the market potential of water savings also. The first step to any of this is a power and water use analysis in consultation with a water resources professional.  
 

The Hirst Decision: The Water Law that Halted WA's Budget

While critical to water use and supply in Washington state, water rights typically keep a low profile in the public eye. That's all changed over the last couple of weeks as the Hirst decision has made the headlines as a key political sticking point that has, for now, stopped the state's $4 billion capital construction budget from being approved.

With the spotlight on this landmark water use decision, Aspect's Dan Haller was interviewed by the Yakima Herald to help understand it. The article also hears from builders and counties grappling with what Hirst means for them. 

Read it here:  Reporter's Notebook: Wondering about the Hirst decision, the state Supreme Court water use case that became a key political tactic in Olympia? Read this primer.

The State of Water Banking in Washington -- Aspect at Law Seminar International

Aspect's Dan Haller will be presenting on the practical implentation issues of Water Banking in Washington State at Law Seminars International on Tuesday July 25 in Seattle.

With water policy presently in the forefront of the state's political arena, water managers across the state are hunting for better solutions to manage water supply. Water banking is a relatively young but promising water policy approach that builds a framework, based in science, of transferring and using water across a municipality.

Water banking has promise because it's better at solving one-to-many water authority issues than traditional water transfers and can be more advantageous under the water code than traditional transfer.

Dan will be presenting alongside Peter H. Dykstra, with Plauche and Carr LLP and Kristina Nelson-Gross with the City of Sequim.

Visualizing the Gender Wage Gap at the 2017 ESRI Conference

In the map-making world of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), ESRI is the de facto software of the industry. To keep up on all things GIS-related, Aspect’s GIS crew attends conference and networking events, including this year’s annual ESRI User Conference in San Diego.

Aspect's Senior GIS Analyst Robyn Pepin (far left), other members of WWGT, and ESRI President Jack Dangermond (middle) at the 2017 ESRI User Conference.

This year, Senior GIS Analyst Robyn Pepin attended the conference representing both Aspect and Washington Women in GIS and Technology (WWGT). Several members of Aspect’s GIS staff participate in WWGT -- a group who together promote a diverse work community by providing support and opportunity for women to advance their spatial careers. 

At this year’s conference, WWGT submitted a poster to ESRI’s annual contest: Washington State Gender Wage Gap in the Work Force. This poster was designed to encourage a data-driven conversation surrounding the gender wage gap and included the history of women’s contribution to the technology field. Aspect’s Kaitlin Schrup contributed a historical timeline graphic to the poster, and Robyn Pepin presented the group’s poster with other WWGT members

To learn more about WWGT, check out their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WashingtonWomeninGISandTechnology/ 

Check out a story map about the poster here: http://pot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=9978dbd4bbb94c338b32bbb5f08430d7
 

Groundwater Models: A Powerful Tool in the Hydrogeology Toolbelt

Meteorologists have them. Economists have them. And so do hydrogeologists. Complex computer models, backed by powerful processing power, help us understand and predict weather, wall street, and water. Indeed, groundwater models as predictive tools to forecast water movement and availability are a critical part of a hydrogeologist’s toolbelt.

Recently, Aspect hydrogeologists Seann McClure and Aaron Pruitt attended and presented posters at groundwater modeling’s premiere conference: MODFLOW and More, hosted in Golden, Colorado.

Seann (left) and Aaron (right) in front of their posters at MODFLOW and More

MODFLOW, the three-dimensional groundwater model developed by the USGS, is the industry standard for simulating and predicting groundwater conditions, and has been used to simulate everything from the impacts of climate change on groundwater/surface water interactions to the fate and transport of groundwater contamination to the intrusion of seawater into deep aquifers due to water supply developments. The conference is held every two years by the Colorado School of Mine’s Integrated Groundwater Modeling Center, and draws an international list of attendees from the consulting, academic, and government spheres to discuss all things MODFLOW and groundwater modeling.

Seann and Aaron each presented a poster describing Aspect groundwater modeling work. 

Applying Modelling Techniques to Evaluate Wetland Restoration Options Next to One of the Nation’s Busiest Airports

Seann’s poster presented on Aspect’s years-long work at Lora Lake wetland restoration, located adjacent to SeaTac Airport. The presentation, Groundwater Modeling to Support Wetland Restoration of a Former Peat Mine, discusses groundwater modeling completed to evaluate alternative cleanup scenarios at a former peat mine-turned-suburban lake located next to the SeaTac Airport’s new Third Runway. The lake has historically received stormwater discharge impacted by dioxin/furans and is being restored to a scrub-shrub wetland to remediate contaminated lake sediments through capping and filling in the lake. The groundwater modeling, sediment cap, and wetland restoration is part of a larger environmental remediation and construction effort led by Floyd|Snider on behalf of the Port of Seattle that also includes excavation of impacted sediments in the neighboring parcel.

Groundwater Modeling to Help Bolster Water Supply Resiliency for the City of Seattle

Aaron’s poster presented Aspect’s work on assisting a large Puget Sound public agency with predicting water supply availability in an urban area. The poster, Solving the Water Supply Puzzle: MODFLOW and Uncertainty in the Context of Mitigated Water Rights, focuses on the complexity of quantitative analysis necessary to satisfy permitting standards under Washington’s water rights regulations. Recent State Supreme Court decisions constrain mitigation options to those that meet a high bar of being “in-kind, in-place, and in-time”. This means any change to water levels or flows in a closed basin, no matter how small, is considered an impairment, and therefore grounds for rejection of a new water right. This stringent benchmark is even more difficult to deal with when it comes to using numerical groundwater flow models. Groundwater modeling requires simplifying assumptions about the system, which adds a layer of quantitative uncertainty on top of this already rigorous standard. In support of Seattle Public Utility’s effort to permit a future groundwater supply source as a component of resiliency planning, Aspect used MODFLOW to explore various water rights permitting strategies to determine the most defensible approach to in-time, in-place, and in-kind mitigation that balances water rights protections with the agency’s need for new water supply options. 

A Call to "Engineer with Soul"

Aspect’s Principal Geologist Dave Cook recently wrote a compelling opinion piece in The Seattle Times about the need for engineers and scientists to do more, be more, and say more. Dave is encouraged about the country’s scientific and engineering future because more and more scientists and engineers are multiculturalists, sensitive, and empathetic.

Read it here.

Controlled Atmosphere Storage: Keeping Northwest Fruit in Season Year-Round

In the Wenatchee Valley, it’s a common source of pride that Washington is the top producer of apples and pears in the nation. But with so much fruit coming off the trees at roughly the same time each year, have you ever wondered how crisp, crunchy apples and pears are available in the grocery store year-round? Or what enables people across the country—and around the globe—to recognize Washington as the source of the world’s best tree fruit varieties? Enter the technology of controlled atmosphere (CA) storage.

The Wenatchee Valley – the nation’s top apple and pear producer – keeps grocery aisles around the world stocked year-round by using massive, specially constructed warehouses designed to slow the ripening process.

A quick background on tree fruit: as apples and pears ripen, they take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Years ago, researchers determined that by limiting oxygen, introducing a little nitrogen, and lowering the temperature, the ripening process can be slowed. To apply this concept at a scale large enough to support Washington’s apple and pear industries, packers build enormous warehouses capable of holding multiple-orchards-worth of fruit within special airtight, refrigerated rooms. This gives shippers the flexibility to releasing fruit incrementally throughout the year, and allows you and I to enjoy a crunchy Honeycrisp apple in the middle of February, months after it was picked.

Building a CA-storage warehouse involves three special considerations: they must be massive, they must be stable, and they must be built quickly. Once fruit is off the trees, it gets hauled in bins that can weigh upwards of 900 pounds when full. Moving these bins requires big equipment (like forklifts and semi-trucks) and efficient storage requires stacking them up to 12 high—that’s a lot of weight! To maintain precise control of the atmosphere within these buildings, the rooms must remain airtight. This means that the foundation and walls must not shift, settle, or crack. Finally, market demands for additional storage capacity often drives the need for new CA warehouses to be built on short notice, with expedited timelines.

One full fruit bin can weigh 900 pounds. Stack those bins 12 feet high, and the need to engineer stable foundations for the warehouses that hold these bins becomes critical.

To meet these rigorous requirements, CA-storage warehouses are typically constructed out of giant precast concrete walls supported by cast-in-place concrete foundations capable of supporting substantial floor loads—up to 1,000 pounds per square foot. Designing for this type of stability requires the expertise of a geotechnical engineer for understanding how soils beneath the building will behave when loaded. By studying the local geology, excavating test pits, and drilling cores, geotechnical engineers can specify how wide and stout the footings and floor slabs should be at a given site.

Aspect geotechnical engineers Nick Szot and Erik Andersen have guided the design of several CA-storage warehouse projects for industry leaders like Blue Bird, Gebbers Farms, McDougall and Sons, and Peshastin Hi-Up. Aspect is proud to be the tree-fruit industry’s local, responsive firm for geotechnical services in the Wenatchee Valley and central Washington, and for our role in bringing Northwest pride to homes across America and around the world. 

300 Spokane Residents Turn Out to Hear About Hirst Water Rights Decision

Aspect’s Dan Haller and Carl Einberger helped Spokane County (County) officials present on the relevance of the "Hirst" Decision to a packed public meeting on May 19th. Over 300 local residents showed up to hear the County and Aspect go over:

  • The context that led up to the Hirst decision, including some understanding of the evolving interpretations of Washington State water rights law;
  • The role of watershed planning and hydrogeology studies in the Little Spokane basin;
  • Why the County has been proactively planning to implement a water bank; and
  • How a water bank works.

As counties across the state continue to grapple with the implications of Hirst and what it means for property owners and developers in rural areas, Aspect expects public outreach efforts to continue to help guide the conversation over this evolving topic and legislation.

Aspect Stormwater Team Presents at MuniCon 2017

Aspect is proudly sponsoring and presenting at this year’s Washington State Municipal Stormwater Conference (MuniCon), May 16 & 17 in Yakima, WA.

On Day 1, Senior Associate Engineer, Tom Atkins and Senior Project Hydrogeologist, Andrew Austreng will be leading a discussion on infiltration testing requirements from the Stormwater Management Manual for Western Washington.

During Day 2, Senior Hydrologist, James Packman and Greg Vigoren, City of Lakewood, will be presenting an evaluation of Western Washington Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination (IDDE) data. Later in the day, Principal Engineer, John Knutson and Project Engineer, Erik Pruneda, along with Rob Buchert, City of Pullman, will be presenting on designing and constructing Low Impact Development (LID) retrofits in low permeability soils.

Aspect’s Tom Atkins and Senior Hydrologist, Bryan Berkompas will also be displaying poster presentations. Tom will be providing a poster on assessing the feasibility of stormwater infiltration at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. While Bryan’s poster demonstrates a hydrologic performance evaluation of ten bioretention facilities across the Puget Sound region through a project funded by Stormwater Action Monitoring.

The conference is presented by the Washington Stormwater Center, in partnership with Yakima County and the Department of Ecology. This unique conference focuses specifically on addressing high-priority issues and challenges faced by municipal NPDES permittees statewide. Learn more about the conference at: http://www.wastormwatercenter.org/municon2017/.  

Aspect at the 2017 WA Hydrogeology Symposium

Aspect's Tyson Carlson and Andrew Austreng will both be presenting at the 11th Washington Hydrogeology Symposium in Tacoma this week (May 9-11). Senior Project Hydrogeologist Andrew Austren will discuss his Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) work on the Columbia Plateau. Andrew will present on his work for the City of Othello and how the City aims to stabilize aquifer levels and support well yields under current and future water demand.

Associate Hydrogeologist Tyson Carlson will present at a Thursday workshop on Training for Water Rights Analysis – Certified Water Rights Examiners (CWREs).  This workshop offers a refresher for CWREs on Washington water law. Tyson’s presentation will focus on how to write a proof of examination.

Taking place in Tacoma, the Hydrogeology Symposium is one of the Northwest's foremost meeting place for hydrogeologists and groundwater professionals in the academic, regulatory, and business worlds.

Aspect Honored to Be Part of Several APWA Projects of the Year

Aspect was honored to be involved with several projects that won top honors at the 2017 APWA-WA Conference in Tacoma, Washington.

In the Structures category, Kitsap County Public Works’ Bucklin Hill Bridge and Estuary Enhancement won Project of the Year in Washington State as well as a National award from the APWA. The City of Wenatchee’s 2016 Pedestrian Safety Improvements project also won Project of the Year in the Environment category.

See Kitsap County's time-lapse construction footage below.

The Bucklin Hill Bridge/Estuary Project rehabilitated the Clear Creek estuary to allow for smoother fish passage and also widened the road to reduce traffic congestion. Working with the OTAK-led project team from 2010-2016, Aspect performed the geotechnical work to replace the 72-inch-diameter culverts with a four-lane bridge.

For the Wenatchee Pedestrian Safety Improvements project, Aspect worked with the City of Wenatchee and WSDOT to collect and review the logs of subsurface explorations previously completed near the project area for other studies.  Using this data allowed the City to save money by forgoing additional explorations and Aspect to develop geotechnical recommendations to support design and construction of a large cantilevered signal pole for pedestrian crossings.

Chris Augustine Presents on Key Concepts in Thermal ASR Systems at AWWA

Aspect’s Senior Hydrogeologist Chris Augustine will be presenting on his work on developing a thermal Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) system at this year’s annual Pacific Northwest Section American Water Works Association (AWWA) conference in Kennewick, WA.

While at another firm, and collaborating with Boise White Paper, LLC (Boise) and the Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology), Chris worked on a Wallula, Washington project that would store cold Columbia River water in the winter and spring months and then recover the stored water during the summer months when the temperature of the Columbia River becomes warmer. 

His presentation will focus on the goal of the project to reduce operational costs for cooling of process water and reduce surface water diversion during the summer to meet the target yield of 4,000 gallons per minute.

Learn more here: American Water Works Association

You can get there from here: Ending post-closure activities at old landfills

After landfills stop accepting waste, they transition into a post-closure period of typically 30 years or more. Towards the end of the post-closure period, landfill managers try to terminate or modify monitoring requirements in compliance with criteria and regulations.  Data collected on settlement, leachate generation, groundwater quality and landfill gas production are evaluated to demonstrate if monitoring activities can be terminated or reduced.

In one example of successful post-closure transition, see Seattle’s South Park Landfill before (2007) and after (2016) closure. The landfill was capped and redeveloped as a parking and storage facility.

On April 26 at the 2017 NW Regional SWANA (Solid Waste Association of North America) Conference in Tulalip, Aspect’s Peter Bannister will discuss his experience at closed landfills in eastern and western Washington and lessons learned that have set these sites up for terminating or reducing post-closure activities with regulatory certainty.

Learn more and register here.

Competition and Opportunity: Panel on Affordable Housing and Contaminated Sites in Puget Sound

Just like everyone else in today's real estate market, Puget Sound housing authorities, non-profits, and entities are looking for property in a region that has become very expensive. That has resulted in stiff competition from all purchasers – private and non-profit --for developing even contaminated sites, which only adds to the already high cost of development. Into this mix, money for affordable housing is tighter and lending requirements more conservative. Conversely, outside the Puget Sound region, contamination commonly puts property values under water, leaving key land underutilized.
 
However, affordable housing success stories are happening and showing that buying and redeveloping a brownfield property can lead to homes; more productive use; a cleaner environment; jobs; and retail.  On April 20 in SeaTac, Aspect’s Dave Cook and Jessica Smith join Ken Lederman and Jacquie Quarré of Foster Pepper PLLC for a panel discussion hosted by the Association of Washington Housing Authorities (AWHA). The group will cover the potential of brownfields sites for Housing Authority entities from the regulatory, legal, and environmental perspectives and present several recent affordable housing development stories, including Rainer Court and the Mt. Baker Housing Association.  
 
Learn more about AWHA here.

How Dirty is the Dirt: Ripple Effects of Proposed Solid Waste Handling Regulations

The difference between “clean” and “dirty” dirt may become a lot more complex if new solid waste handling regulations take effect in Washington state. The state’s Department of Ecology (Ecology) has proposed significant revisions to Washington Administrative Code (WAC) Chapter 173-350, which governs how solid waste is managed. The proposed changes, which will be formally proposed later this year, will affect a number of solid waste practices, but the key revisions with the most significant implications concern creation of a new section establishing and standardizing criteria for managing the movement, reuse and disposal of soil and sediment  that is considered “clean” under the state’s Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA) but may have trace levels of contaminants (draft WAC 173-350-995).

Excavated soil from Seattle City Light’s new Denny Substation in South Lake Union. Under proposed new solid waste regulations, managing, hauling, and receiving this soil will likely be much more complicated for engineers, redevelopment teams, and landfill operators.

With the Puget Sound region by some counts leading the nation in development projects – which all generate dirt during construction excavation that must be reused or hauled away – establishing soil management protocols will likely have significant ripple effects in the business and regulated community. Consider just one urban skyrise, as this article on construction dirt does. A typical downtown Seattle building project could potentially generate 250,000 cubic yards of soil (equal to 25,000 dump truck loads) that must be removed from the site. The new soil and sediment criteria would potentially mean higher sampling costs, more complex soil management plans, additional reuse constraints, and greater soil volumes filling up limited landfill space.

How managing “Dirty” Dirt would change

Contaminated sites are regulated under MTCA, which provides screening criteria for defining impacted soil. Soil with contaminants below MTCA screening levels is considered “clean”. Currently, the end use of “clean” excavated soil is largely determined by criteria set by individual receiving facilities—gravel mine, landfill, reuse site, etc. These facilities may all have different standards for what level of impacted soil they will accept. The new proposed regulation would change that, formulating the screening process for “clean” soil and creating formal soil reuse and disposal acceptance criteria. This means that “clean” soil (albeit with low levels of contaminants at concentrations protective of human health and the environment) would now need to go through rigorous sampling, laboratory analysis, evaluation, and jurisdictional health department permitting just to be hauled away. This would be a big change from the current process, where this same “clean” soil can be reused as fill because it is deemed “protective” of human health and the environment, per MTCA.

Implications of new regulations

At the heart of the update is the intent to formally regulate soils that are not perfectly clean. Ecology hopes the rule update will streamline management, decrease delays in soil movement, reduce the potential for creating new cleanup sites, and reduce environmental damage. Practitioners see the implications of these proposed rule updates as increasing the cost of development projects, slowing development schedules, creating a regulatory quagmire, and causing landfills to fill with soil that could be put to use elsewhere.  

Kittitas County: Leading the Charge on Water Banking

On April 12, Aspect’s Dan Haller will co-present with Kittitas County Commissioner Paul Jewell on the future of Kittitas County Water Resource Management. Kittitas County has been at the heart of the state’s recent water banking approach with the most mature and heralded water bank in Washington. Over the past 10 years, they went from the staunchest opponent to exempt well management to the unquestioned leader in the State, with broad state, local, and tribal endorsement of their transformation.

Over the years, Aspect has helped the County develop the program, including an innovative "over the counter" water rights program.

The presentation will be at the Starlight Lounge in Ellensburg and hosted by the Washington Chapter of the American Water Resources Association (AWRA).

For more details and to register click here.