The article outlining the dispute about water at Bi-Zi Farms raises an interesting question (“Dispute over water permit could spell the end for sixth-generation Bi-Zi Farms,” The Columbian, Aug. 10).
The land was purchased by the Zimmerman family in 1872, seventeen years before Washington became a state. Their well was drilled around 1900, 17 years before Washington adopted a water code (1917). Now the Department of Ecology is refusing to grant him the water rights he applied for, demanding that he do expensive — and according to experts, essentially impossible — studies in order to (possibly) obtain them. It is true that he was (honestly) mistaken about his father having obtained the rights, but the state’s Draconian response is over the top.
But there is another question that comes to mind. The U.S. Constitution says, in Article I, Section 9, Clause 3: “No Bill of Attainder of ex post facto Law shall be passed.” This clause applies equally to the states and the national government.
I am not an attorney, but it seems to me that the actions of the Department of Ecology are a clear violation of this constitutional provision, and that the well drilled in 1900 should be grandfathered in with no further ado.
