Department of Ecology
Committees, Boards, and Workgroups

Washington State follows the prior appropriation, Western Water Law principles. Here as in other states, water rights are usufructory rights, which means that the water itself is a public resource held for all to use. However, the use of the right, once granted by the state, is a property right. This property right can be transferred between users – bought and sold – so long as there is no impairment to existing water rights. Generally, because of impairment concerns, this means that rights can be transferred downstream, but generally not upstream.

Significant concerns have been expressed about the impacts of water rights being sold by upstream, typically smaller farms, to buyers downstream that are often corporations and larger farms. When that happens, water scarcity and limited availability of water rights reduces the available water supply to the affected community. While each water right transaction is unique, large and highly publicized attempts by investment bankers to acquire large agricultural water rights and transfer them downstream to other farms and communities raises the question about what the economic, social, and environmental impacts are from these types of transfers. 

Legislative proposals introduced in the 2020 Washington State Legislative Session proposed to limit how water rights could be acquired and transferred. Some legislators suggested that there should be limits or prohibitions on out-of-state entities (such as investment banks) from being able to purchase water rights. It is likely that some of these concepts will be introduced in the upcoming legislative session, with the possibility that such restrictions could be adopted into law.

Water Rights Tracking System

January 19th Meeting Slides

• Water Rights Primer
• Water Market Basics

Background Reading

• Final findings and recommendations: Advisory Group on Water Trust, Banking, and Transfers
• Washington Water Law Primer
• The Water Report - Washington State Rural Water Strategies
• The Water Report - Instream Flow Management in Washington
• Landowner's Guide to Washington Water Rights
• Environmental Water Right Transfers
• Washington Water Rights Explorer
• Political Economy of Healthy Water Markets - AMP Insights
• Water Markets and Third Party Effects
• Water Banking and Water Marketing in Select Western States (2019 Evans project)
• Water Marketing: Literature Review (from the 2019 capstone team)

Secondary Economic Effects Literature

• Water Markets and Scarcity: Australia’s Murray Darling Basin and the US Southwest
• Improving the Viability of Alternative Water Transfer Methods (ATMs) in Colorado
• Managing Drought Risk in the Okanagan
• Water Markets and Freshwater Ecosystem Services
• Water Markets: Implications for Rural Areas of the West
• On the Marketisation of Water
• Liberal Theoretical Foundations for Government Intervention in the Water Market, Government Failure and Government Institutions in the Murray Darling Basin
• Alternative Water Transfer Methods: Review of Colorado Experiences
• All We Really Need to Know We Learned in Kindergarten: Share Everything (Agricultural Water Sharing to Meet Increasing Municipal Water Demands)
• Regulating the Australian Water Market
• Conflicts over Water in the Upper Klamath Basin and the Potential Role for Market-Based Allocations
• Increasing Streamflow to Sustain Salmon and Other Native Fish in the Pacific Northwest

Reference Materials

• Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy
• Routledge Handbook of Water Economics and Institutions
• Water Resource Economics
• An Introduction to Washington Water Law

Statutes

• RCW 90.03 - Water Code
  • RCW 90.03.380 - Water rights transfers
• RCW 90.14 - Water Rights Claims, Relinquishment, and Tracking
• RCW 90.42 - Trust Water Rights