Water rights and water wrongs

Development in Mosier

By Hollie Lund, Ph.D. , 1-07-07

The tiny town of Mosier lays five miles east of Hood River just across the border of Wasco County and within the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area. Founded as a farming community in the mid-1800’s serving primarily as a train depot for Mosier Valley orchards the town is now under intense pressure to grow.

We’re depleting our only water source and destroying our hillsides. It’s a great day in Mosier, Oregon. If you’re a developer.

In addition to the 34 homes being constructed in a narrow strip of land between a set of freight railroad tracks and the old Columbia Highway, Mosier has recently approved a 3-phase, 28-unit hillside development, and is awaiting the re-application of yet another subdivision.

Yet at the same time that all of this construction is going up around us, we (the residents of Mosier) continue to receive notices and workshop invitations related to our diminishing water supply. According to these mailings, our one and only aquifer has been “dropping at an average rate of 4 feet per year since 1974” and other water sources “will require exploratory drilling and expensive water treatment.” Not to mention the fact that “all the aquifers in the Mosier valley are declining.” The bottom line message, typed in large bold font is “This is why we need to meter! This is why we need to conserve!”

That’s right, up until recently (June to be exact), Mosier residents did not have water meters. Not only were we not charged based on our actual rate of usage, we had no way of even knowing how much water we were using. With our first “metered” water bill, my housemate and I learned that we were using nearly 26,000 gallons of water each month. Interesting since we never water our lawn, we turn the faucet off when we brush our teeth, and we don’t have a pool – or a rice field – in our backyard.

Unfortunately, we were not alone. Over the next two weeks, it seemed that every homeowner in town could be found digging holes in their yards to replace broken pipes. No wonder our aquifer has been dropping steadily for more than 30 years. For all we know, that could be when the leaks started.

So the good news is, we are no longer leaking our water away. (Astronomical water bills can be a powerful motivator.) And as a reward for our good efforts, the City has informed us that we now have the capacity to support 100 new neighbors! Was that the purpose of the metering and conservation—to replenish, or at least stop depleting, our only water source to develop? Will the amount of water we’re now saving due to the fixed leaks be enough to support all these new homes? Aren’t we still in the same position we were before?

Now I’m not unreasonable. If the City could tell us, with any degree of certainty, that our aquifer can in fact support all of these homes for more than a couple of years, I would probably be writing on a different topic. But they can’t. On two separate occasions (once at a Council meeting and once during a casual conversation), my housemate and I have questioned the mayor, Marc Berry, about the pace of Mosier’s development in light of these issues. He evaded the question each time, leaving us to wonder if anyone has a (justifiable) explanation for why we continue to allow these large developments in our town.

To Mosier’s credit, a watershed council is currently working with USGS to examine our groundwater supply, but as of mid-December they were still developing their methodologies. The city planner and engineer are also working to develop more stringent standards and regulations, but as of now (and as of the time that the 28 hillside properties were approved), there is nothing in place to guide construction and grading within the city. In other words, nothing to protect our hillsides from possible erosion, soil runoff, and other problems associated with hillside development. Such as reduced groundwater absorption. Hmmm…maybe a connection?

Hollie Lund is a resident of Mosier, Oregon. She is a Northwest native and teaches urban and regional planning at Portland State University. When she isn’t preparing for her classes or writing about local development issues, she can usually be found outside—enjoying her time in the Gorge—hiking, skiing, kayaking (sort of), or just watching the clouds roll by.

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