As many communities across the nation have discovered, we must be vigilant in maintaining water purity and make sure our government representatives are applying due attention to addressing current challenges and preventing future ones. With increasing population and the effects of climate change, our supplies of fresh water are under stress. Abundant and pure water assures healthy people, safe recreation, healthy wildlife, and productive agriculture.

Our legislative goals for the 2020 session were to continue improving the quality and abundance of our state’s water including municipal water, ground water, and in-stream flows. Four bills appear on their way into Washington law. Bills we supported but did not pass we hope will be revived in the next session because they will continue progress toward ensuring clean and healthy water in Washington.

For other water-related bills see the companion page on Rivers & Forests. 

Click on Bill # for detailed information.  See UPDATES below.

Bills the League Supported That Have Been Signed Into Law

• HB 1860 Addressing lead in drinking water in schools. No amount of lead contamination is safe, especially for children, and our schools should have the purest water available. This passed the House Committee on Education, but the Appropriations Committee increased the maximum lead levels from 5 ppb to 9 ppb and made other changes including delaying the option to lower the level until 2030. These changes began to attract opposition. School administrators expressed opposition to the amended version due to the additional effort schools would face in testing and reporting. We had concerns about weakening the requirements and documented those concerns to the  Early Learning & K-12 Education committee. We hope a strong version can pass next session.
• SB 6278 Water withdrawals for commercial bottled water production. This bill limited water extraction from critical sources merely for the purpose of bottling for commercial sale. It exempted water used for value-added beverages such as soft drinks and tea.  The beverage industry testified against the bill due to concerns that the precedent will lead to more restrictions on their opportunities for business growth and limits on choice for consumers. We maintain that small community water supplies will be better protected and the Department of Ecology will have needed authority to limit or approve such water rights when indicated by conditions. The House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources declined to move this bill forward.  
• SB 6342 Chemical contaminants in drinking water. Required the Department of Health to refine the upper limits for PFAS contamination in water systems and requires the water systems to monitor for these contaminates. A substitute bill was introduced in the Senate that required the Department of Health to refine the upper limits for PFAS in public water systems, but removed proposed requirements to regulate chromium, and dioxane. Risks of not acting include continued PFAS exposure to water system customers.  Potential costs of the bill include contaminate testing for PFAS and reacting to findings of contamination. The bill passed the Senate. The House Environment & Energy Committee passed a substitute bill that decreased the number of water systems required to perform testing to those near known PFAS contamination, delayed the implementation schedule, and authorized the Department of Health to determine corrective action and notification for exceedances. The House Appropriations Committee did not act on the bill.
• HB 1853 Developing and coordinating a statewide don't drip and drive program. Non-point runoff, such as motor oil dripping from vehicles, is a primary source of pollution in our streams, lakes, and shorelines. This bill expands to statewide a program that reduces auto fluid leakage by encouraging leak identification and repair. The short-term cost avoidance of not maintaining motor vehicles to minimize leaks is more than offset by the cost transferred to those who depend on clean water sources, plus the future liability of purifying needlessly polluted water. The House Committee on Transportation passed a substitute bill which delayed some key milestones. That bill passed the House and the Senate Environment, Energy & Technology Committee, but the Senate Ways and Means Committee declined to act.

• HB 2550 Establishing net ecological gain as a policy for application across identified land use, development, and environmental laws. This bill is part of the Healthy Habitat, Healthy Orcas priority of the Environmental Priorities Coalition. State policy to change from no-net-loss to a standard of net ecological gain for development and land use actions. The intent is to ensure development actions show a parallel improvement in the habitat for wildlife such as salmon. A  substitute bill passed the House Committee on Environment & Energy, but the House Appropriations Committee declined to take action by cutoff. Proponents indicated that the opposition to additional regulation would lead to a long debate on the House floor and consume time available for voting on less controversial bills. This is a big disappointment for progress on our environmental health.

• HB 1747 Risk-based water quality standards for on-site non-potable water systems. Unfortunately, this bill was not assigned to a policy committee in 2020, so it died for this biennium. We hope to revive the concept in 2021.

• SB 6147 Replacement of shoreline armoring. This requires considering the least impactful alternative for protecting fish life in residential projects intended to replace marine shoreline armoring, such as sea walls or other measures to protect structures from shoreline erosion. The requirements represent a step toward improving shoreline habitat over time.  The bill passed the Senate and was pulled to the House floor, but no vote was taken.

• HB 2603 / SB 6494   These bills address water rights management and transfers, topics which are very complicated, shaded by decades of practice, and steeped in case law. We will continue our analysis. Neither bill passed their chambers of origin so are dead for the biennium, but the details will probably be refined and appear again in 2021.   

• SB 6036  Providing opportunities for drought mitigation using trust water rights. We opposed this bill because we believe the Department of Ecology is in the best position to assign available water rights to the optimum uses. It was never scheduled for a committee vote.