10/11/2022 - PacketUtilities Committee Meeting Agenda
October 11, 2022, 5:00 p.m.
Remote access:
hgps://us02web.zoom.us/j/82798985840
• Foster Pilot Project — Update
• JLTF request letter
• Water Rights Purchase Letters
• Augmentation - City of Bremerton
• Splash Pad Retrofit — Update
• Basin 7 Sewer Uparades
• Sroufe Project
• Annual Road Project — Pottery
• Water/Sewer/Storm Compliance Program
• Compliance Team
• Compliance Codes
• Cross Connection
• FOG
• Source Control
• PFAs Testing
o COPO 2022
o McCormick 2023
Next Meeting: TBD
Future Agenda Items:
• Well 13 and PRV's
• McCormick Sewer PS #1 Repairs
• Option to Levy Excise Taxes on W/S
• Bay Street - Street Lighting & Marquee
• Bay Street Utility Plan
• Water System Fluoridation
• Sanitary Side Sewer Policy
DocuSign Envelope ID: ED2619A5-9802-48BB-B7CB-AADB7F5DAF15
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CITY OF PORT ORCHARD
Office of the Mayor
City Hall • 216 Prospect Street • Port Orchard, WA 98366
Voice: (360) 876-4407 • Fax: (360) 895-9029
rputaansuu@portorchardwa.gov
www.portorchardwa.gov
September 19, 2022
Sen. Judy Warnick, Co -Chair
Joint Legislative Committee on Water Resource Mitigation
316 Legislative Building
Olympia, WA 98504
Rep. Steve Tharinger, Co -Chair
Joint Legislative Committee on Water Resource Mitigation
314 John L. O'Brien Building
Olympia, WA 98504
RE: Task Force Recommendations from City of Port Orchard
Dear Senator Warnick & Representative Tharinger:
Thank you for the opportunity to present you with comments and recommendations from the City of Port
Orchard (Port Orchard) for your Task Force report to the Legislature. We appreciate the extensive
commitment of time and effort that you and others have given to the Foster Task Force over the last five
years. As one of the Foster Pilot Projects, we are sharing with you our perspective and experience with
flexible mitigation standards and recommending changes to make this a less complicated and more
predictable pathway for other water right applications.
Port Orchard has a rapidly growing retail service area in Kitsap County. Our aging water system
infrastructure and the integration of the McCormick Woods water system into the city system requires
new high -capacity wells situated in deep aquifers where impacts to instream flows and fish resources can
best be minimized. Through the Pilot Project applications and associated water system and mitigation
planning, we are doing our best to conserve water, to decrease impacts from existing water rights by
switching to deeper aquifers, and to mitigate impacts to several creeks in a meaningful manner that is also
consistent with the purpose and intent of the Foster Pilot Project authorizations.
We are requesting that your final Task Force Report recommend legislation to broaden the types of
mitigation options that cities like Port Orchard can utilize, and to require science -based standards for the
use of groundwater models to determine impairment of surface waters. The Legislature could also
address regionwide mitigation of cumulative small or de minimus impacts from municipal water systems
that cannot reasonably be addressed by individual water right applicants.
DocuSign Envelope ID: ED2619A5-9802-48BB-B7CB-AADB7F5DAF15
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The Port Orchard Pilot Project and Kitsap Reeional Groundwater Model
Port Orchard is one of five designated pilot projects and has provided several presentations about its
applications and mitigation plan to the Task Force. The most significant problems encountered by Port
Orchard in this process have been with use of the USGS ground water model for the Kitsap basin. Our
hydrogeologists have identified numerous errors in the USGS model, including the complete absence of
the deep aquifer that was discovered when drilling our new Well No. 13. We have attempted to resolve
those errors scientifically by eliminating modeled impacts that our scientists have determined are within
the model error limits of the Kitsap model. The Department of Ecology, however, does not agree with this
approach and appears to consider erroneous model results as impairments requiring mitigation.
Ground water models are not perfect science, but they are increasingly relied upon by the Department of
Ecology to predict impairments to instream flows and closed streams that require mitigation. Models are
not precise tools for predicting the effects of long-term ground water withdrawals on surface water flows
and levels. Several kinds of errors in models lead to erroneous or imprecise results, including 1) input
values that only approximate real world measurements, 2) lack of data, particularly for deeper aquifers, 3)
limitations of the modeling algorithm that cannot fully represent natural, physical processes, and 4) errors
in parameter estimations selected by the modeler during the calibration process. These types of errors are
particularly an issue when Ecology mandates (in our case through preliminary permits) the use of regional
models created by the USGS to define small, local impacts from individual applications, a task they were
not designed for. More discussion concerning errors in ground water models will be provided in a separate
letter to the Task Force by our hydrogeology consultants.
Port Orchard has met with Department of Ecology officials to discuss how model errors in the USGS Kitsap
model can be scientifically estimated so that predicted streamflow impacts within "model error limits" can
be disregarded in Port Orchard's mitigation plan for its Pilot Project applications. Ecology officials,
however, have informed us that all model results must be considered as impairments requiring mitigation.
In other words, even what scientists consider to be model errors will be considered as evidence of
impairment by Ecology. This is an unscientific use of the science of ground water modeling because it fails
to address errors inherent in the models themselves.
Science used in an unscientific manner is not science, it is policy masquerading as science. The impact of
this is to require more and more mitigation without a demonstrable impact to streams.
Ecology's unscientific use of ground water models could jeopardize approval of Port Orchard's Pilot
Project applications. This issue should be addressed by the Task Force and the Legislature as part of any
workable set of reforms to ground water permitting. Specifically, we are requesting action items in your
final Task Force report to insure that scientific methods like groundwater models are not used in an
unscientific way to require mitigation without proof of impairment.
Using Municipal Water Rights to Augment Instream Flows
A major portion of Port Orchard's in -kind (Tier 2) mitigation plan is to directly augment the flow of several
impacted creeks with water piped from municipal water systems. This mitigation method has been
approved by Ecology for Port Orchard's water system in the recent past, but not since the Foster decision.
Streamflow augmentation is the only reasonably available in-kind/in-place/in-time mitigation method for
several local creeks that are projected to be impacted by Port Orchard's requested groundwater
withdrawals. However, the Department of Ecology has questioned whether Port Orchard's already
permitted water rights, or those of neighboring water systems, can be used for stream augmentation
mitigation without changing their purpose to include mitigation, another set of water right change
applications that could take years to process. We believe that Ecology's interpretation is overly technical,
could delay decisions on Port Orchard's applications for years, or could force Port Orchard to fund more
DocuSign Envelope ID: ED2619A5-9802-48BB-B7CB-AADB7F5DAF15
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expensive and less beneficial out -of -kind or out -of -place mitigation in order to meet the Pilot Project
mitigation standards.
SPECIFIC REQUESTS/RECOMMENDATIONS
Port Orchard requests that the Foster Task Force recommend that the 2023 Legislature pass legislation: (1)
addressing the model error issue and requiring Ecology to use ground water models in a scientifically -
sound manner that accounts for model errors and imprecision; and (2) broadening the allowed types of
mitigation for pilot projects and other new applications and groundwater permit changes to include
streamflow augmentation from municipal water systems without needing to change municipal water
rights. Port Orchard also supports making the flexible mitigation standards for the Foster Pilot Projects a
state-wide standard or broadening the availability of those standards to other ground water dependent
municipal water systems. This would help water purveyors and municipalities throughout the state comply
with GMA plans using mitigated water rights and achieve planned urban growth that protects rural areas
and watersheds from overdevelopment.
All water right applicants should be allowed to utilize a flexible mitigation sequencing process like the
mitigation sequencing currently allowed for the Foster Pilot Projects. This would result in mitigation that
can improve stream flows and habitat to benefit instream resources, rather than being limited to the rigid
and unworkable "in kind, in time, and in place" Foster standard that makes both water supply and
beneficial mitigation nearly impossible to achieve.
Our state's overreliance on groundwater models to determine impairment, without accounting for model
errors, is unscientific and dramatically increases the cost and complexity of mitigation. That said, there
may small impacts to surface waters from additional groundwater development that do not rise to the
level of impairment, and we appreciate the concern that multiple cumulative impacts of this sort across a
watershed could impact instream resources over time. The Task Force could address this problem at a
larger scale similar to the way it addressed permit -exempt well impacts in SB 6091. In Part 1 of this bill, the
Legislature directed significant funding into planning and implementing mitigation to offset exempt well
impacts caused by growth in rural areas. We believe that there is a stronger policy rationale for state
legislative action to ensure the availability of mitigated water supply necessary for urban growth. This
could be achieved through a collaborative process at the watershed or sub -watershed level, focused on
mitigating cumulative impacts and working with municipal purveyors to improve stream flows and habitat
in a meaningful way.
Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions.
Sincerely,
DocuSigned by:
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CITY OF PORT ORCHARD
Robert Putaansuu, Mayor
cc: Members, Joint Legislative Task Force on Water Resource Mitigation
26t" Legislative District delegation
Alison O'Sullivan and Tom Ostrom, Suquamish Tribe
Erica Marbet, Squaxin Island Tribe
Carrie Sessions, Executive Policy Office
Laura Watson, Director, Department of Ecology
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Basin 7 is anticipated to have -2,150 ERUs at
final buildout. Existing ERU count is -150 ERUs.
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Property.
-540 ERUs are within this subbasin.
The Tallman Properties is the only
known development proposal at this
time.
Existing 6" force main has the
capacity for approximately 1,200
ERUs. Capacity to be increased
with second force main once
capacity is reached.
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South Basin to be served by a single
pump station on the Krueger Property and
a few privately owned grinder pumps.
-1,610 ERUs are within this subbasin.
Known development proposals include
Stetson Heights, McCormick West, Rush
Properties, and Krueger Properties.
0 Legend
New Pump Station
Existing Pump Station
• �� Gravity Line
- - - - Existing Force Main
Basin 7 North
Basin 7 South
DRAWN BY IDS
DATE 12/12/19
SCALE
DRAWING NUMBER 01
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Pottery
Two -Lane (with Center Lane or Median) Principal, Minor or Collector Arterial with
Bike Lanes
DO -I I Tor 1 nree lane Dross section
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PFAS AND PFOS IN DRINKING WATER
PFAS chemicals include PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctane sulfonic
acid). HAS are found in people, fish and wildlife all over the world. Some PFAS do not break
down easily and therefore stay in the environment for a very long time, especially in water.
The Environmental Protection Agency says exposure to two types of PFAS chemicals — PFOA
and PFOS — may cause birth defects, cancer and thyroid issues, among other health problems,
when present in drinking water.
The four major sources of PFAS are: fire training/fire response sites, industrial sites, landfills,
and wastewater treatment plants/biosolids. PFAS can get into drinking water when products
containing them are used or spilled onto the ground or into lakes and rivers.
PFAS Explained I US EPA
PFAS — Frequently Asked Questions (ca.gov)