Airway Heights had speedy meeting

AIRWAY HEIGHTS —Airway Heights City Council made quick work of its agenda at its March 15 with work centering primarily around first readings of ordinances.

That one exception came with unanimous approval of the draft Airway Heights Strategic Plan that had been the subject of previous meetings.

Otherwise, council heard from planner Zach Becker who provided one more overview of the 2020 Zoning Map Amendment. In his presentation Becker showed changes over the past several years to the zoning map.

A public hearing opportunity took place during the segment with no input offered from citizens and this council approved the first reading.

The first reading of Ordinance C-956 relating to allowing of Adult Family Homes also had no discussion or questions from council and it too received unanimous approval. The same was true for C-957 amending the Comprehensive Plan; C958 dealing with Essential Public Facilities; Adoption of the Airport Overlay Zone in C-960; C-959 which allows manufactured homes to exist in the R-1 Single Family Residential Zone and C-961 regarding Transportation Impact Fees.

Of interest to both Mayor Sonny Weathers and City Manager Albert Tripp was a recent water rights application that came to light from an organization known as Crown Columbia Water Rights.

Earlier in the day on March 15, Weathers had been part of a Council of Mayors meeting where further information was shared to include the City of Colville putting their water consultant on the trail of Crown Columbia and investigate just what was happening.

It was determined, Weathers reported that Crown Columbia are, “Investors wanting to buy water rights out of the Columbia (River) for no specific purpose, or need at the moment and just hold it until time as such there is a need,” he said.

Weathers urged council to consider official comment which is being taken through March 19.

While Airway Heights does not pull its water from the Columbia River, “We don’t necessarily need a bunch of private competition” in an area of such high public demand.

Tripp said a review had been done of public information available online. “We were going to take a look at that particular application that that entity has made to acquire water within the state,” he told council.

The one thing that stood out to Tripp was how it pertains to the speculative nature on the future value of water to farming. Crown Columbia is looking to acquire in aggregate smaller water rights or water interests throughout the Columbia Basin, waiting before sending it on to end users such as wineries, farmers and hop growers.

Tripp said Airway Heights would provide preliminary comments to the Department of Ecology on the application.

Paul Delaney is a retired former Free Press Publishing reporter and can be reached at [email protected].