County mulls options to acquire water rights in Chehalis Basin
Power generation company TransAlta currently owns the water rights for its coal-fired Centralia Power Plant operations
Excerpt from The JOLT News:
Thurston County is looking to acquire up to 2,650 acre-feet of water rights in the Chehalis Basin.
The Board of County Commissioners, together with the Community Planning and Economic Development Department, discussed how much they could purchase and how they could acquire the water rights during a meeting Thursday, September 7.
Power generation company TransAlta currently owns the water rights for its coal-fired Centralia Power Plant operations.
The Centralia Power Plant is expected to close in 2025, so the company is making its water right available for purchase at $2,750 per acre-foot.
Associate Planner Bryan Benjamin said that staff reviewed recent water rights purchases of other entities in the state and found that a comparable purchase would be typically priced around $10,000 to $25,000 per acre-foot.
Benjamin said that the acquisition of the water rights would be a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” due to its low cost and the purchase being a one-time flat fee. He also noted that purchasing these water rights from the company is a “proven concept” as Centralia and Chehalis are already jointly under contract to purchase around 6,720 acre-feet of water rights from TransAlta.
Benjamin briefed the board on three possible scopes of action to determine how they could acquire the water rights. The three choices are non-exclusive and can all be pursued by the county should the board give the signal.
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