Moses Lake staff outline multi‑decade plan to reduce reliance on deep basalt aquifer; council asks for legal, drilling and cost analyses

Moses Lake city staff told the City Council they are seeking a long‑term path to water security that would reduce the city’s reliance on the deep basalt aquifer and add new, sustainable supplies.

Assistant Public Works Director Lee Ramsey presented a white paper and a set of milestone targets from staff’s planning work. The paper proposes acquiring 12,700 acre‑feet of water rights from sources other than the deep basalt aquifer by 2056 and stepping down use of the deep basalt resource across three planning milestones. Staff described short‑term conservation goals and multiple long‑term supply options, and recommended continuing regional and state advocacy while pursuing technical and legal analysis.

The proposal matters because Moses Lake must serve population and industrial growth while managing an aquifer that staff said is stressed and increasingly costly to treat. “Our main goal is ensuring a resilient and sustainable water future for the city,” Lee Ramsey said during the presentation. Council members said they wanted clearer cost, feasibility and legal information before committing to any single route.

Key elements presented

- Targets and milestones: staff cited a planning target of 12,700 acre‑feet of new non‑basalt water rights to be in production by 2056. The white paper breaks that total into interim steps, including adding roughly 5,200 acre‑feet by 2036…