Washington Eminent Domain Lawyer | New Senate Bill had Eminent Domain Implications

In an interesting piece of news, the Washington State Senate recently passed SHB 1332, an act relating to the authority of a watershed management partnership to exercise powers of its forming governments. Watershed management partnerships are usually created by two adjacent or cooperating governmental entities to jointly manage a watershed district. The point of the bill is to clarify a couple of things: first, that by interlocal agreement two governmental entities may join forces to form a a watershed management partnership and that partnership may establish itself as a separate legal entity with the ability to contract and assume indebtedness; and second, that the watershed partnership itself, so long as the two local governmental entities have the power of eminent domain, may exercise the power of eminent domain, but the separate entity established may not.

Although this may sound ominous, it appears as though the legislature was acting to clean up what must have been a confusing conundrum for local governmental entities that want to try to get water to their communities and preserve the ability to get water to their communities. This bill just points out what should make sense, that two entities that join forces to work together that both have the power of eminent domain can exercise that power jointly.

For example, let's say Seattle and Bonney Lake want to join forces to make a watershed management partnership so that Bonney Lake can get water from Seattle (I'm just making this up, so take it as a purely hypothetical example). If the partnership was formed, it would be able to exercise the Seattle eminent domain power and the Bonney Lake eminent domain power simultaneously, so long as the power was exercised by the partnership and not any legal entity created via the partnership. In the example in the bill summary, they point out that Tacoma has exercised its eminent domain powers to provide water to Bonney Lake.

Where this gets interesting though is with the Cascade Water Alliance, which appears to be a conglomerate of cities trying to get water out of Lake Tapps by building a pipeline. Although plans have not yet progressed even as far as the environmental studies, it appears this bill might in the future allow them to exercise eminent domain to the possible detriment of other cities such as Bonney Lake, Auburn, Sumner, and Buckley, which aren't a part of the Cascade Water Alliance but are in Pierce County.

If your property is being taken through eminent domain in Bonney Lake, Auburn, Seattle, Sumner, Buckley, Lake Tapps, Tacoma, King County, Pierce County, or anywhere else in Washington, be sure to contact a Washington eminent domain lawyer as soon as possible. A Washington eminent domain lawyer will have a wealth of information to help you through the process and can be an invaluable resource.