North Bend a step closer to more water access

Published 10:29 am Thursday, October 2, 2008

The state Senate Ways and Means Committee has approved lifting North Bend’s 7-year-old development moratorium that has prevented the city from creating new housing due to its inability to provide enough water for new construction.

The Substitute Senate Bill 6150 is currently in the Senate Rules Committee waiting for a full Senate vote before the session ends on March 9.

The 2006 Public Works Trust Fund project, which includes SSB 6150, is co-sponsored by Sen. Cheryl Pflug, (R-Hobart).

“It’s crisis time for North Bend,” said Pflug. “The water rights application was made when the city was planning for the future and its anticipated need for more water. The future arrived seven years ago when the city was forced to adopt a development moratorium.”

SSB 6150 would provide North Bend with $3.4 million for drilling, testing and development of a new municipal water supply well, as well as for the construction of a 21,200-lineal-foot diversion pipeline from the South Fork of the Tolt River Reservoir to the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River,

On Feb. 2, Pflug brought together officials from North Bend and the Department of Ecology to help DOE officials fully understand North Bend’s water situation.

“I don’t anticipate any problems for the North Bend project as this bill progresses through the process,” Pflug said. “It is a high-priority need that must be met.”

The Public Works Trust Fund is a way for local governments to get low-interest loans for infrastructure on things related to utilities, noted Penny Drost, who oversees Senate Republican Communications.

The process of finding a new water source has been in development, but working with special interest groups and government entities, as well as observing regulations about land, fish and wildlife and endangered species, has made the process extremely difficult, Drost said.

“Once they get this project approved, if there are no appeals, then the city can have new development,” Drost said.

She added that the city will have to find a way to allow and manage growth so that it does not end up in the same predicament down the road.