2016

Unpermitted Water Use in Whatcom County’s Agricultural Sector

Envs 422 Final paperRio Digby

Tables of Contents

1. Abstract 2

2. Introduction 2

Literature Review

3. Data Sources 5

4. Methods 6

5. Results 9

6. Discussion 13

7. Literature Cited 15

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Abstract:

Whatcom County’s agricultural sector uses water from the Nooksack River. The instream flow requirements of the Nooksack are not being met, causing the Department of Ecology to not accept new water right applications. It is believed that many agricultural properties are using water without having the legal documentation to do so. In this study, I pinpointed locations where this might be occurring. I used NAIP imagery from 2006 and 2011 to classify the evolution of agricultural lands to determine where potential illegal use of water is taking place and I also used Landsat Imagery to conduct an NDVI to show where high vegetation is taking place under the areas I classified that potentially do not have a water right. My results are preliminary and a suggestion to for further investigation by the Department of Ecology.

Introduction/Literature Review:

Whatcom County is known for its agriculture, specifically for red raspberries, milk and

overall dairy production [4]. Majority of the agricultural practices in Whatcom County are

located in the North West region due to flat lands with good soil, there is virtually no agricultural

practices on the east side of the county. Farming within the county has been practiced for many

generations, where the farmers have extracted water from the land for the purpose of irrigation.

In our county there are two main ways that farmers can get water for their crops, one is from the

Abbotsford-Sumas Aquifer and the other is the surface waters of the Nooksack River and its

tributaries [3] [8].

To make the allocation of water ‘fair,’ in 1985 the Nooksack Instream Resources

Protection Program for WRIA 1 was created through the State of Washington Department of

Ecology [3]. With a creating a definition for ‘instream flow’ through the Nooksack Instream

Resource Protection Program it puts a water right on rivers to protect fish and other living

organisms that wouldn’t survive without the water in the Nooksack [2]. With the implementation

of this law Whatcom County and the Department of Ecology took this to mean that it was set in

place to protect land developers and therefore hasn’t necessarily practiced the protection of

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wildlife. This is only one example of the government and the Department of Ecology not doing

their job when it comes to water rights.

Since 1985, all farmers have had to either have a claim, permit or certificate to use water

for on their land, which is known as a water right and defined “legal authorization to use a

predefined quaintly of public water for a designated purpose. This purpose must qualify as a

beneficial use… such as irrigation, domestically water supply, or power generation” [1]. Water

rights are given out by the Department of Ecology and are subject to the relinquishment law

which is that farmers have to use all of their water rights over a five year period or they get the

water right taken away [8]. This means that if a farmer finds a more efficient way of irrigation

and uses less water at the current state of time but does not want to lose part of their water right

because they might need it down the road, they will use the water anyway to have it not taken

from them which makes it so farmers cannot really practice conservation of water.

Water rights have continually been a problem in Whatcom County for the wildlife and

the Nooksack River, the regulation set on the farmers and the Lummi Tribe. To this day federally

reserved tribal water rights have not been defined [6]. The 1855 Treaty of Point Elliot with the

Lummi Tribe states the Nooksack River should always have sufficient quantity and quality to

support the Lummi Indian Reservation and to sustain their way of life. With their water right not

yet defined, Whatcom County and the Department of Ecology are not complying with the

standards set in the Treaty [6]. When water is being used without legal documentation, water is

being taken away from the Lummi Tribe who are the original settlers on our land in Whatcom

County.

The scarcity of the water in the Abbotsford-Sumas Aquifer and the Nooksack River is not

necessarily the problem, it is the allocation of the water and the ruling behind it. The other

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problem comes from the contamination from agricultural practices. Pesticides are getting into the

multiple shallow aquifers and ground water, increasing the levels of nitrate. All of the problems

mentioned above are hopefully going to be addressed in the near future, however, water rights

and the overall natural water resources in Whatcom County have continually been a problem.

For my project, I chose to look at agricultural lands and water rights to see where there are

possibly lands using water for irrigation without the legal documentation to do so.

It is very likely that some farmers are using the water from the Nooksack River and the

Abbotsford-Sumas Aquifer without the legal document to do so, therefore, it has motivated

community members such as Eric Hirst to look into this illegal water use. Eric Hirst brought the

idea of this project to the Center for Economic and Business Research where I intern and was

assigned lead on the project. We created this project to document agricultural lands that

potentially do not have a water right. The purposes of this project are (1) to develop a

methodology to identify the extent of unpermitted water use in the agricultural sector in

Whatcom County and (2) to quantify the extent of unpermitted water use. Estimations of

unpermitted agricultural water use include “up to 70%” and “30 to 60%.” [7] The degree of

noncompliance with state law varies greatly, with some water use differing from its right only in

the location of withdrawal/diversion or application, but some water uses lack any right at all.

I conducted this project in the hopes to suggestively define parcels of land that do not

have a water right to help recognize that the Nooksack River is a viable resources to many

people and animals within the county and it is a way of life for some, therefore, showing acres of

land that could be using water from the Nooksack without the legal documentation will hopefully

motivate the Department of Ecology and Whatcom County to do their job in regulating water use

to protect wildlife, nature, the Lummi Tribe, farmers, and Whatcom County’s citizens.

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However, it is not possible to make definitive statements about who is and is not using water

legally, my work is just the beginning of making those allegations.

I completed my analysis in three steps to look at lands that potentially do not have a

water right through ArcGIS software. I used CCAP (Coast Change Analysis Program) Data,

GWIS (Geographic Water-Right Information Systems) Data, Zoned Agricultural lands Data,

NAIP (National Agriculture Imagery Program) Imagery, and Landsat 7 Imagery for this project.

Data Sources:

1. CCAP Data

I downloaded CCAP data from the USDA Geospatial Gateway website. CCAP data is

developed by NOAA and classifies land into different cover types such as ‘High Intensity

Development’ by using Landsat imagery. I used this data to compare to the water rights data to

find areas that potentially do not have a water right. I extracted the agricultural lands out of the

raster and converted it into vector format to do the comparison. The only limitations with this

data is that it shows where there are agricultural lands through satellite imagery, however,

agriculture might not be practiced on those lands.

2. GWIS (Geographical Water-Right Information Systems) Data

GWIS data is from the Washington State’s Department of Ecology’s GIS webpage. I

downloaded the geodatabase that the website provided and used the shapefile containing water

rights. I extracted all the ground and surface water rights and excluded the application water

rights. This data gave very high amounts of acreage for the dataset. Once I clipped the water

right data to the extent of Whatcom County, it gave a reading of 1,213,160 acres which is too

high for actual acreage of land used for privately owned lands. The high number of acres could

be because there a multiple overlapping water rights in the dataset so when calculating acres

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double counting happens. This high reading sets a limitation to using this data and other

limitations are that the Department of Ecology doesn’t update this data enough nor shares the

purpose of each water right.

3. Zoned Agricultural Lands Data

Whatcom County Assessor’s office website shares the Planning and Development

Services’ GIS data where I downloaded ‘Current Zoning’ geodatabase. The data came as zoned

lands for Whatcom County as a whole and I extracted only zoned agriculture lands. The

limitations that came with this data is that even though a land is zoned agriculture does not mean

agricultural practices are taken place there. Also, agricultural practices occur on other lands that

are not zoned agriculture, and using this assessor data for the project excludes those lands.

4. NAIP Imagery

I found NAIP Imagery on the J Drive, however, I also downloaded it myself from the

USDS Geospatial Data Gateway. The files came as .sid which are raster files of imagery of

Whatcom County. I used NAIP imagery from 2006 and 2011.

5. USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observation and Science Center) Landsat 7 Imagery

I downloaded the Landsat 7 Imagery from glovis.usgs.gov. I zoomed into the section of

Washington that my focus is on, Whatcom County, and downloaded “L7 ETM + SLC-off (2003-

present)” data. This data came as raster files for each of the bands and I used bands 4 (red) and 5

(NIR) to conduct the NDVI>

Methods:

All analyses were conducted through ArcGIS programs such as ArcMap and ArcCatalog.

Also, I broke my project into three different sections to show the results of lands that potentially

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do not have a water right in multiple ways. Below the methods section is broken into three parts

to explain each process.

1. CCAP Data, GWIS Data, & Zoned Lands Data

Figure 1: This is the model I made to get to the final results of where there are agricultural land that potentially do not have a water right. The steps below explain the processes of this model.

I took CCAP data from NOAA that has land classified into different types of lands such

as ‘High Intensity Development’. I extracted the ‘Pasture/Hay’ and ‘Cultivated’ land cover types

through Extract by Attributes with SQL of Class_Name = ‘Pasture/Hay’ OR Class_Name =

‘Cultivated’ with an output I name CCAP_PasCul. I chose those land cover types because that is

what NOAA’s website determines agricultural lands as. I then converted the CCAP_PasCul layer

into vector data (polygons) and clipped it to the extent of Whatcom County, which gave me a

result layer that I called CCAP_pasculWC and it included 110,550 acres of land.

I then took GWIS data from the Department of Ecology and it has a layer called

WA_DOC_POU1 that has a column in the attribute table called WR_DOC_NR that includes

‘any of the possibly water right document number formats.’ I extracted all the ground and

surface water from the layer to exclude the applications by the Select Layer by Attribute tool

through SQL of WR_DOC_NR LIKE ‘G%’ OR WR_DOC_NR LIKE ‘S%’. I name the output

WR_DOC_GS and then clipped it to the extent of Whatcom County and named that

WR_GS_WC and it included 1,213,160 acres of land.

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Next, I used the Erase tool to find the areas where the CCAP claims there is agricultural

land but there is not water right. I erased WR_GS_WC from the CCAP_pasculWC to get parcels

of land that the CCAP_pasculWC says there is agricultural lands but there is no ground or

surface water right and named the result CCAP_R. which has 561,205 acres of land.

The last data I used was from the Whatcom County Assessor’s website on zoned land

with the county. I used a layer called Current_Zoning from the Planning and Development

Services page that divided Whatcom County into different zoned sections. I extracted all the

agricultural lands out of the layer by the Select Layer by Attribute tool through SQL of

WCPLAN = ‘Agriculture,’ and I named that out Agland which includes 85,922 acres of land.

The final step I conducted was to clip the erase result of CCAP_R to the extent of the

zoned agricultural lands, Agland. I did this to grab all the lands that fit within the zoned

agricultural lands in Whatcom County. I named the result of this CCAP_RC and it included

7,584 acres of agricultural lands that potentially do not have a water right.

2. NAIP Imagery

The analysis conducted with the NAIP Imagery was a visual one. I took the final result

from the first analysis of CCAP_RC, which are the lands that potentially do not have a water

right and put it on top of both the raster satellite images for 2006 and 2011. I then created a new

dataset within my geodatabase to edit in focus areas for my analysis. I then edited the new

feature class I created and made polygon around the areas that I wanted to compare on the 2006

image and 2011 image. I did this process by zooming into all the parcels of land that I classified

as potentially not having a water right and picking out ones that differ in the seven year gap

between 2006 and 2011, or looked like irrigation was happening on the land. Finally, I chose

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three areas of interest to interpret what was going on, on those parcels of lands and how they

have changed in the seven years.

3. USGS EROS Landsat 7 Imagery

USGS EROS’ Landsat 7 Imagery downloaded as multiple raster .tif files that represented

different bands. For the NDVI I focused on band 4 and 5. I brought the band raster files into

ArcMap and used the tool Raster Calculator to conduct the NDVI. The SQL for the NDVI is as

follows

((Float("LE70470262016128EDC01_B5.TIF")Float("LE70470262016128EDC01_B4.TIF"))

/ (Float("LE70470262016128EDC01_B5.TIF") + Float("LE70470262016128EDC01_B4.TIF"))).

Which is (Near Infrared – Red) / (Near Infrared + Red). The reason I used ‘Float’ is because it

retains the values to stay between -1 and +1 which is what we want as the result of the NDVI

because values that are closer to -1 are bare land types and values that are closer to +1 are high

vegetation land types.

Results:

1. CCAP Data, GWIS Data, & Zoned Lands Data

The final results of the CCAP analysis of the last output of CCAP_RC is 7,584 acres of

land. Therefore, 7,584 acres of the zoned agricultural lands of 85,922 acres, potentially do not

have a water right which equates to 8%. This result is suggestive and preliminary to where there

are land that perhaps do not have a water right in the agricultural sector. I do not claim that the

properties that I highlighted are final results to where there are lands that are practicing irrigation

but do not have the legal documentation of a claim, permit or certificate to use water from the

Nooksack River and the Abbotsford-Sumas Aquifer. Below is the map I created showing the

final results in dark green.

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Figure 2: This map shows the results of the first analysis I conducted to find lands that potentially do not have a water right. The dark green color are the areas that potentially do not have a water right, the light green is all the water rights in the zoned agricultural lands, and the medium green is the extent of the zoned agricultural lands in Whatcom County. It reports that approximately 7,584 acres of agricultural land potentially do not have a water right.

2. NAIP Imagery

The results of the NAIP imagery are three locations that I chose within the two images

from 2006 and 2011. The locations that I chose are shown in Figure 3 and blown up as three

individual images. The first location I chose looks as if it is used for agricultural purposes

continuously from 2006 to 2001. The second location I chose does not look like agricultural is

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practice on that land at all. With this, it shows that further classification needs to go into the

results and why I reiterated that the results I’m providing are preliminary and suggestive. The

last location I chose looks like agriculture was practiced on the land in 2006 but not anymore in

2011.

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Figure 3: Within this image are the three locations I chose out of the lands that potentially do not have a water right. The locations are shown in the satellite imagery images of 2006 and 2011 Whatcom County and then again in a blown up version of the individual locations.

3. USGS EROS Landsat 7 Imagery

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The results of the NDVI are high levels of vegetation under where I classified lands that

potentially do not have a water right. I wanted to show visually that irrigation is being practiced

with high vegetation growth under the results that I found in the first analysis.

Figure 4: This is the results of the NDVI. The dark green is where there are high levels of vegetation and the purple is where there is bare land as either cement or sand. On the left is the full Landsat 7 satellite imagery scene of the upper left washing and part of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. The right image is zoomed into my focus area of agricultural lands in Whatcom County.

3. Final Results

The final result of these analyses is the poster I created to display the whole project. The

poster is divided in to the three analyses sections and an modified version of the model I created

to conduct the first analysis.

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Figure 5: The poster I created and presented at the Association of Washington Geographers Conference at the University of Washington on May 21st, 2016.

Discussion:

This is an ongoing project that I’m working on with Eric Hirst and the Center for

Economic and Business Research here at Western Washington University. Eric Hirst hopes are

that the Lummi Business Council will take this project over and incorporate it in the work they

are already doing to get Whatcom County’s government and Washington State’s Department of

Ecology on board with the regulation on water rights.

The first analysis I conducted is as only as good as the Department of Ecology’s water

right data is, which is not that great. I could not separate water rights by their purpose such as

irrigation or for dairy or domestic use because the Department of Ecology does not provide that

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data in the attribute table for their water right polygons. The data is not up to date and it doesn’t

give valuable information needed to really define where there are areas that are potentially using

water without the legal documentation.

Overall, this project needs to be continued but my analyses provided the first stepping

stones into approaching Whatcom County’s agriculture sector and the water right issues that

come along with that. We have enough water within the county but we have laws that regulate

the water that do not work for our agriculture sector and are not fair to the Lummi Nation

because their water rights have not yet been defined. This is a problem for Lummi, farmers,

wildlife, and the health of a natural resources like the Nooksack River. The goals of the Lummi

Nation are to work with government and the Department of Ecology to come up with a fair and

sound agreement for Whatcom County’s water use by July 2017, meaning that the government

and the Department of Ecology will have to start doing their jobs in regulating the water use and

major change the laws of water rights around farming for the conservation of water and fairness

to new and old properties with water rights.

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Literature Cited:

1. "Water Rights | Water Resources Program | Washington State Department of Ecology." Water

Rights | Water Resources Program. Washington State Department of Ecology, 2016. Web.

<http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/rights/water-right-home.html>.

2. Melious, Jean O. "Whatcom Watch Online - Water in Rural Whatcom County." Water in Rural Whatcom County. Whatcom Watch Online, Feb. 2015. Web. <http://www.whatcomwatch.org/php/WW_open.php?id=1814>.

3. "Publication Summary." Nooksack Instream Resources Protection Program (Water Resource Inventory Area 1). Washington State Department of Ecology, Nov. 1985. Web. <https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/publications/SummaryPages/8511001.html>.

4. "Agricultural - Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism." Agriculture. Bellingham Whatcom County Tourism, 2016. Web. <http://www.bellingham.org/activities/farms-agriculture/>.

5. "LexisNexis® Academic." Ecology Grants Improve Water Supplies, Support Jobs 13 Counties To Benefit From Water Banks, Stream Flow Enhancements. LexisNexis, 24 Dec. 2015. <http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/?verb=sr&csi=8058&sr=HEADLINE>

6. Ballew, Tim. "Community Conversation: Collaborating to Solve Whatcom's Water Problems." The Bellingham Herald, 22 Aug. 2015. Web. <http://www.bellinghamherald.com/opinion/article31693898.html>.

7. Hirst, Eric. "Community Conversation: Steps to Bring Water Use into Compliance with State Law." Bellinghamherald. The Bellingham Herald, 18 Sept. 2015. Web. <http://www.bellinghamherald.com/opinion/article35498838.html>.

8. "Water Management and the Future of Farming in Whatcom County." Whatcom Family Farmers, 15 Feb. 2016. Web. <http://www.whatcomfamilyfarmers.org/water-access.html>.

9. "USGS Washington Water Science Center - Whatcom County." USGS - Science for a Changing World. U.S. Department of the Interior, 18 June 2013. Web. <http://wa.water.usgs.gov/projects/whatcom/>.

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