Friday afternoon, Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Ira Uhrig refused to dismiss the challenge to a conditional use permit that would have allowed the extension of water services outside of the urban growth area that Bellingham and residents of Squalicum Valley alleged were unlawful and violated the state's Growth Management Act and the Whatcom County Comprehensive Plan.

Whatcom County and the Lake Whatcom Water & Sewer District brought the motion to dismiss on the grounds that the city and the residents lacked standing to bring the case.

But then, in an unanticipated move by the court, sua sponte, based on the discretion of the court, Judge Uhrig unexpectedly remanded the case back to the Hearing Examiner largely because the county had failed to properly notify the public and concerned parties of the hearing on the appropriateness of allowing these urban levels of water service into rural lands.

This means that the proceedings are reopened for supplementation of the record to include the arrangements between the water district and Vineyard Development that county attorneys previously suppressed during the proceedings before the county council.

The court showed visible displeasure with the water district's less than candid assertions that the extension to the Lake Whatcom Treatment Center was not part of a larger plan to provide water services outside its boundaries.

The reopened hearing will also allow introduction to the record of argument that LWW&SD has no right to water at present to make any new hookups.

This is an enormous rebuff to the county administration that has turned a deaf ear to citizen concerns that development in the watershed, and particularly the development currently being promoted on Squalicum Mountain, threatens the drinking water of tens of thousands.