HB 2800 - DIGEST

(SUBSTITUTED FOR - SEE 1ST SUB)

     Finds that an application to withdraw ground water filed with the department serves overriding considerations of the public interest when all of the following criteria are met:  (1) The application is either filed or held, through assignment or otherwise, by a city with a population no greater than five thousand at the time the application is filed;

     (2) the city has a sole source of firm water supply and that source might be at risk of failure due to contamination or to source location factors including but not limited to steep slope and other geologic hazards;

     (3) the city has a comprehensive plan approved under chapter 36.70A RCW and the plan includes an urban growth area that the city will be required to serve;

     (4) the city's current water supply is insufficient to meet the future demand forecasted in the plan throughout the ten-year period beginning with the adoption by the city of the plan;

     (5) the city has no currently available reasonable alternative source or supplier of water to meet the demand; and

     (6) the city has identified a permanent alternative firm supply of water to meet the forecasted demand that the city reasonably expects to become available within ten years of the date of the adoption by the city of the plan.