Landowners fined for illegal pumping

MOSES LAKE – Landowners near Moses Lake have been fined for illegally pumping more than 500 million gallons of groundwater from the declining Odessa aquifer.

In June, the Washington Department of Ecology issued cease and desist orders requiring the landowners and their lessee to stop pumping groundwater. Ignoring the orders, they continued pumping water illegally for three-and-a-half more months to water 530 acres of crops.

The Odessa aquifer has been rapidly declining since 1980. Groundwater has dropped more than 200 feet, forcing local farmers and homeowners to drill wells deeper to reach th...