Wise stewardship is critical
Published 4:25 pm Thursday, April 15, 2010
Even in this soggy region, water has value.
The city of Everett’s vast water rights — its Sultan Basin source supplies about 80 percent of Snohomish County’s drinking water — represents a considerable economic opportunity. A local company’s interest in securing 5 million gallons a day to run a bottling plant makes that clear.
Controlling most of the region’s water supply is also an enormous responsibility. The city forecasts that it has plenty of water into the next century, but that presumes wise stewardship.
With both realities in mind, and after spending more than a year exploring a possible 30-year water deal with Tethys Enterprises, Mayor Ray Stephanson decided this week that the economic rewards to the city didn’t justify the large commitment of a finite resource. Tethys, which had pitched a plan to create more than 1,000 jobs at an average annual wage of $58,000, wouldn’t agree to linking its water entitlement to the number of jobs it created. So Stephanson pulled the plug.
That decision, he repeated Thursday, is final.
“The quid pro quo was jobs for water,” Stephanson said.
It was the right call. The city’s water supply is too valuable to risk on a venture with so much uncertainty.
City Council President Paul Roberts said the company’s job projections didn’t seem to add up. For him, Tethys’ refusal to back them up contractually confirmed those doubts.
Some may read the city’s decision as an unwillingness to help the private sector create jobs. On the contrary, negotiations never would have gotten this far had city officials not been trying diligently to put a deal together.
Last month, the City Council unanimously approved Stephanson’s proposal to offer businesses a $1,000 tax break for each new full-time job created in the city, up to a $500,000 cap.
And in an effort to keep Navy jobs here, the mayor will meet with officials at the Pentagon next week to push for a commitment to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln with another aircraft carrier. The Lincoln is scheduled to leave Everett in 2013 for mid-life refueling of its nuclear reactors.
As for the city’s water, Stephanson and Roberts say it’s time to proactively consider terms under which the city would be willing to sell some of its excess supply to a private entity — encouraging uses that are environmentally responsible and sustainable, and that can fuel job growth.
Everett’s water supply is big and valuable, but it’s not limitless. Like any finite resource, it needs to be managed prudently.
