S-2800.1  _______________________________________________

                         SENATE BILL 6097

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      56th Legislature     1999 Regular Session

By Senators Fraser, Swecker, Spanel and Eide

Read first time 04/15/1999.  Referred to Committee on Environmental Quality & Water Resources.

Proposing to establish authority to achieve adequate streamflows and lake levels to protect salmon stocks and water systems.

    AN ACT Relating to streamflows; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  The legislature finds that adequate streamflows and lake levels are necessary for protecting and recovering salmon stocks and for achieving the state's high standards for protecting perennial water systems declared in the 1971 water resource fundamentals.  To achieve adequate flows requires as a predicate that flow levels be expeditiously adopted.  The establishment of these levels should occur as early as possible in streams and rivers in which salmon populations are in danger of extinction.  Once levels are established, measures should be implemented to ensure that existing flows are not diminished below these levels, and that further measures are taken to restore streamflows currently experiencing seasonal or periodic levels below these established levels.  It is therefore the purpose of this act to provide additional authority in the state's water code to undertake these measures and to provide guidance to administering agencies in establishing priorities to address critical needs such as restoration of depressed salmon stocks.

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