Study looks at best option for North Bend to get water

Published 1:11 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

NORTH BEND – Seeking to determine the best way to proceed in North Bend’s efforts to obtain more water rights, the city will share the cost of a $7,500 study with the Sallal Water Association to decide on a source for additional water and the preferred method of mitigating any potential impacts to the Snoqualmie River.

The City Council granted its consent of the study, to be conducted by Golder Associates Inc. of Redmond, at a work study on Oct. 22. North Bend and Sallal will split the cost of the study, which will be completed before the end of the year.

The study is needed before the city can enter a “cost reimbursement program” with the state Department of Ecology (DOE). Under the program, the DOE would use an outside consultant to determine whether North Bend’s application for additional water rights – submitted 10 years ago – should be approved. The city would pay the DOE for use of the consultant.

If needed, more studies, prompted by the work of Golder Associates, could push the overall cost up to $12,000. Bob Pancoast, executive director of the East King County Regional Water Association, said Sallal is willing to spend a total of $6,000.

“[Sallal is] very much of the feeling, as I hope you guys are, that we are all in this together,” he said. North Bend wants to amend its water-rights application to include the Sallal service area.

The city has several options before it. Sources of additional drinking water that have been floated are:

* The city’s well as Torguson Park that has been potentially operational since 1995;

* More water from Mount Si Springs, which is the city’s existing water source;

* Water from the Cedar River Watershed;

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