Lack of Capital Budget Hurts Washington Water Projects

When the Washington State Legislature failed to pass a capital budget, the state’s Department of Ecology said there are now some water projects that will need to be put on hold.

Joye Redfield-Wilder of DOE said the lack of a capital budget will impact more than $640 million of projects for water use in Eastern Washington.

“A budget delay like this costs time, it costs missing critical construction windows and opportunities to cost share on projects and could increase costs over the long haul for the taxpayers.”

The lack of capital budget means new projects won’t be able to start, but there is some money in the appropriations budget that will allow for some existing projects to be funded.

These water projects are designed to help farmers and streamflows for fish to help avoid the challenges like we experienced in 2015 where Redfield-Wilder said farmers had to put water back into the rivers.

“It’s these kind of partnerships that we want to keep going and having a hiccup like this, it just puts a delay on it.”

Refield-Wilder said they are looking for some federal funding but that will also be challenging because many federal programs are looking for state partnerships.

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