Olympia Report: Water, and the Nanny State
A family farm’s enduring feud with the state Department of Ecology spilled into Olympia this month where the Supremes may all but rewrite how it polices water rights.
This story begins in January of 2017, when Grant County farmer Ron Fode was vying for a nod from Ecology to irrigate his fields in lieu of owning the groundwater rights to do so. The agency shot down his bid later that February. Undaunted, Fode and his landlord spent the summer floating counterproposals by Ecology, namely working out a series of water rights transfers from neighboring properties. Ecology gave them a thumbs down on the basis that those rights had dried up.
Out in the Columbia River Basin, potato farmers like Fode have to tread a maze of state-issued water rights governed by everything from shifting groundwater levels to federal water deliveries. A host of groundwater rights in these parts fall under the label of “standby” or “reserve” rights, which only activate when federal water runs scarce. The dual-source system can leave farmers thinking they’ve got a green light to irrigate, only to learn that the “standby” status of their groundwater right has gone bad should federal water (theoretically) become unavailable for that acreage.
In this case, Fode applied to transfer a reserve water right. Ecology denied it on the basis that he had blown past its internal “office deadline” of Feb. 15 to request one. Fode couched this as a catch-22 where you only learn the rules by breaking them. Ecology has insisted their stated deadline was only one factor in rejecting his request.
https://www.postalley.org/2026/05/22/olympia-report-water-and-the-nanny-state/