Hanford Water Users Seek More Water and Lower Fees
Water users on the old Hanford project take their fight against high maintenance fees to the State Public Service Commission.
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For three days this week, the state Public Service Commission held sessions in the Commercial Club rooms in Kennewick to hear testimony in a case that may affect every privately owned irrigation system in the state. The case involves water users on the old Hanford Irrigation project against the Blackrock Irrigation Power company and the Consumers’ Ditch company. The users are seeking relief from an annual maintenance charge of $7 per acre and request the water allowance be increased from 32 inches to 48 inches. The Hanford Irrigation Power company previously sold the lands and contracted to furnish 32 inches of water at an annual charge of $8 per acre until 1913. Since then, the assets were sold at a receiver’s sale, and the current companies have raised maintenance fees to $7. Water users argue that 48 inches are necessary to grow crops and that anything over $4 per acre is prohibitive, especially since the costs are being distributed over a small fraction of the 16,000 acres originally projected.
“They further claim that when they purchased their lands they had the right to believe that the entire project would be developed and that the annual cost of operation and maintenance would be distributed over the entire acreage.”
The struggle for water rights and equitable utility rates has been a cornerstone of Kennewick's history since its inception. Today’s debates over irrigation district assessments mirror these 1916 tensions between capital-intensive private infrastructure and the farmers trying to keep their land productive.
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