Clallam County League members, from left, David Brehm, Jeene Hobbs, Barbara Vanderwerf and Ann Soule, remind drivers along Old Olympic Highway in Sequim near the Dungeness River about wise water use. Photo courtesy of the Clallam County League.
By Kären Wieckert, Water Issue Chair, LWV of Washington
Reliable, clean water is fundamental to our communities as well as agriculture, fisheries, the economy, and natural ecosystems. Decisions about its future must consider the health and resilience of entire watersheds. Which is why both the League of Women Voters of Clallam County and of Washington welcome Washington’s Water Future↗️, an initiative brought forward earlier this year by Gov. Ferguson and the Department of Ecology.
The initiative addresses a critical issue: How should Washington prepare for increasing pressures on its water resources from climate change, population growth, drought, flooding, changing snowpack and competing demands?
Spurred on by the Clallam League’s extensive work on this issue over the past decade, the state League provided written comments to Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller. The League offered support for the agency’s emphasis on collaboration and its recognition that the future requires input from tribal, state and local governments; agricultural interests, water utilities, businesses, environmental organizations, and communities.
The LWVWA noted that its endorsement for action is informed by science, long-term watershed needs, environmental impacts, costs and benefits, and meaningful public involvement.
We also recognize the need to protect water quality and aquatic ecosystems, to provide reliable water supplies while protecting water for fish and wildlife, and to recognize Tribal treaty rights and sovereignty. Likewise, the League values the prioritization of conservation and efficiency, the incorporation of climate change considerations into long-term planning, and support for locally developed solutions within strong statewide environmental protections.
League of Clallam County, which has studied and conducted water management in the Dungeness watershed, also submitted comments to Ecology, highlighting how conditions there illustrate the challenges and potential solutions with broader statewide relevance.
The League of Clallam County and the Dungeness
Over the past decade, considerable efforts by state, local and Tribal governments, irrigators and other interests have worked to develop the Dungeness Instream Flow Rule↗️ and a basin‑wide management framework.
Nonetheless, the Clallam League has identified warning signs: extremely low river flows, declining snowpack and glacial mass, reduced summer flows and aquifer recharge, declining groundwater levels, potentially over-allocated water rights, and uncertainty about whether existing mitigation programs are achieving their intended results.
Clearly, the tools for managing water have not kept pace with management tasks.
The League calls for updated groundwater characterization, expanded monitoring, better water-demand projections, additional snowpack research, and development of a comprehensive integrated forecasting model.
We also recommend that conservation, reclaimed water, improved irrigation efficiency, off-channel storage and managed aquifer recharge be parts of a more resilient water strategy.
We support both a statewide policy and watershed-level knowledge. The state can provide funding, standards, scientific resources and environmental protections. Local watershed experience can reveal where existing rules, models and programs are succeeding — and where changing conditions have overtaken the assumptions on which they were built.
While the state League Lobby Team and members from Clallam County will closely track water programs and funding for those programs during the 2027 legislative session, we encourage local Leagues to follow the Clallam League's focus and closely monitor water issues in their local watersheds.
Volunteers are needed to help inform this work and are encouraged to email Water Issue Chair Kären Wieckert to help.
