A couple of thoughts:

It would be wise for the court to extend the claims filing period in the adjudication case.  The Department of Ecology picked a big fight here when they sent summonses to 30,000 people.  The case is going to take a while, a long while, and the court should be concerned about the viability of the outcome if there are not a sufficiently proximate number of affected parties

Folks who live in the country with single family wells should especially want to get their water claims adjudicated.  If they don't, when they go to sell someday, they may find that a title report reveals that they don't have a water right.  In the old days, everyone just assumed that if there was a well on the property, there was a water right.  Won't be the case any more when this adjudication is complete, at least formally.

"Negotiation" at this juncture is premature, because all the relevant parties don't have to come to the table.  But the adjudication sets up a process where negotiation can be meaningful.  The McCarran Act (where Congress waived the sovereignty of the US allowing state court judges to de"Watermine federal and tribal water rights) enables the setting of a judicial "negotiation table" at which contesting parties can negotiate their advocated interests.  Resolution of their differences can be proposed as judicial orders.  That's the way most adjudications get finished.  Where the parties cannot resolve things, the court must "split the baby." 

This water adjudication is about more than just whether cities have enough water to serve their growing populations, whether farmers have enough water to generate profit, or at least sustenance, from their agricultural property, or whether tribes' treaty rights are correctly respected.  It's also about environmental and species quality under conditions of climate change.  And it's about the public good.  "Water belongs to the public," afterall.  RCW 90.03.010 

RCW 90.54.020 says:  "(1) Uses of water for domestic, stock watering, industrial, commercial, agricultural, irrigation, hydroelectric power producxtion, mining, fish and wildlife maintenance and enhancement, recreational, and thermal power production purposes, and preservation of environmental and aesthetic values, and all other uses compatible with the enjoyment of the public waters of the state, are declared to be beneficial.

(2) Allocxation of waters among potential uses and users shall be based generally on the securing of the maximum net benefits for the people of the state.  Maximum net benefits shall constitute total benefits less costs including opportunities lost.

(3) The quality of the natural environment shall be protected and, where possible, enhanced as follows:

(a) Perennial rivers and streams of the state shall be retained with base flows necessary to provide for preservation of wildlife, fish, scenic, aesthetic and other environmental values, and navigational values.  Lakes and ponds shall be retained substantially in their natural condition.  Withdrawals of water  which would conflict therewith shall be authorized only in those situations where it is clear that overriding considerations of the public interest will be served.

Myself, I intend to stick up for these legislatively declared policies.

Mr. Verbree makes a good point.  Whatcom County is resplendent in its supply of water through precipitation.  (I remember it falling on my head when I picked berries in the rain in the 50s. There was no artificial irrigation then.) However, we don't know the impact of growth in water use demand of residential single family wells, municipal or irrigation for agriculture.  We don't know whether the list of water uses permitted or certificated by Department of Ecology is complete, incomplete or accurate.  We don't know the future of climate change impact.  We do not know the water-volume demand implication of the "share water in common, 50/50" and provide habitat for fish to make that meaningful implication of the 4th generation of the Boldt decision.  We do have some threshold statistics from a 1960 report about the Nooksack (but that is, of course, limited in not covering the rest of Whatcom (WRIA 1) that Ecology has implicated in its adjudication case).  We don't know with much precision where groundwater interacts with surface water.  We do know that the Nooksack floods intermittently.  And we do know that population growth and I-5 population expansion won't stop at Skagit.  But especially what we do know is that the Nineteenth Century water management approach of prior appropriation is an inelastic, arbitrary, outdated, useless way to give folks like Mr. Verbree the choice to live a free and active life in the resplendent environment which is Whatcom.  And we know that the salmon and the Orca who eat them weren't consulted when the Gilded advocates of the prior appropriation doctrine adopted the notion (originally in California to benefit the mining interests) in the 1850s.  Fortunately, the Washington State Legislature adopted the "Maximum Net Benefit" concept in the 1970s.  The only legal question is whether a judge will find that it applies retroactively to the water rights that were created between 1917 when the Water Code was passed and the 70's (including those statutorily exempt from permitting).  This MNB concept would allow for finding a way, likely through negotiation, to enable all of the several newly listed "beneficial uses" of water to be served, so as to find benefit for all of them.  Not easy.  A Court-appointed Referee would help.  Such a complex task is most difficult with an Us v. Them approach.  It takes conversation, deference and compromise to find Maximum Net Benefit.  I wish Whatcom well in finding it.

A much better way to be addressing this problem is through a growth management approach, looking at water supply, demand and usage as a necessary component of growth.    Looking at the socio-economic, ethnic  attributes, desires and environmental aspiration of the county's population.  It's better approached from a county planning approach than a state list of senior rights approach.  And it is better approached without judicial formalities.  But we must now work within the judicial structure initiated by Ecology.  As a prior assistant attorney general myself, in two states, I can't imagine an equivalent lawyer abandoning full representation of  a client objective endorsed by the State Legislature.  Thanks, Mr. Verbree for speaking your mind.  James Davenport