HomeMy WebLinkAboutpublic comment waterAll humans need clean water to sustain us. Despite the universality of this fact, water
insecurity is a challenge faced by many of East Jefferson County’s residents, even landowners. In
low rain years like this one, many members of our community are stretching their raincatchment
supply to its last drops, which contributes to use of the Quilcene campground spigot. This is
particularly true in the south county area, where beachgoers now enjoy frequent days with
temperatures over 85 degrees. I encourage all the decision-makers involved in this discussion to
imagine a scenario where your daily life does not allow you to access water by simply turning a tap.
Now, imagine you have a terrible case of diarrhea, or a recent surgery or injury requires you to keep
a wound clean, or you’re menstruating, or you have a new baby. Could you knock on your neighbor ’s
door to shower? What would you do?
In order to address this fundamental insult to the mental and physical well-being of our
community, I suggest the following interventions:
1) Steward and invest in formal partnerships with local public health workers and RNs,
community groups, and the PUD to establish regular mobile “water drop” routes that
are reliable and more accessible to people without private transportation; these could
also offer harm reduction supplies and other outreach services already in motion.
2) Collaborate with area food banks to establish an area where community members can
wash produce and dishes. Identify a part of the food bank shelving where foods that
require minimum water and kitchen facilities to prepare are specifically showcased.
3) Develop infrastructure and secure funding from government and other community
stakeholders (such as the mill, which uses an enormous amount of water per day) to
support solutions such as shower and laundry facilities at the Quilcene community
center and potentially other locations.
4) Consider expansion of public water lines.
5) Offer free or subsidized water storage containers in a variety of sizes.
6) Install and maintain barrier-free community water filling stations.
I will now share some of my experience and research as evidence for these suggestions:
In my practice as a community health worker and more recently as an RN, I have worked
with a population of adults experiencing inadequate access to resources such as water and housing
in both urban and rural areas. I myself am currently unhoused. Although I am not someone who
experiences financial disparity, I am unable to find a housing solution that meets my needs and for
which I meet requirements. Despite my substantial regular income, rental agencies require a single
person to make triple the monthly rent and don’t allow unmarried people to combine incomes. Many
private landlords refuse to allow me to rent because I have a (documented) service dog – this is
most likely illegal, but I don’t see a secure future in taking a cantankerous landlord who lives on the
same property as me to court. As a result, I have to camp or stay with friends in Quilcene or
elsewhere in East County, sometimes off-grid. My current situation requires me to use other
community member’s houses to bathe and cook. Once the rain begins, it will be even more
challenging to tend to my basic needs while attending work and graduate school. This precarity
compounds the mental health challenges I live with, creating an additional burden on the community
and the healthcare system.
Recent research by our county’s public health workers highlights residents' environmental
and climate concerns related to water insecurity and contamination, as well as the prevalence of
poverty particularly in the south county area (Jones et al., 2025). As we are all aware, rainfall has
been far below historical levels, impacting our aquifers and causing those who utilize rain catchment
systems to find new solutions. Property owners now increasingly must haul in water as wells dry up
or become salinated -- one Quilcene resident reports to have even paid $21,000 dollars to drill a well
over 300 feet, only to find a salty stream (personal communication, September 2025). These
concerns will continue to grow in tandem with wildfire and air quality concerns; the situation is
unlikely to improve within our lifetimes.
Rural context magnifies the impact of water insecurity on poor people, especially those living
in inadequate housing or who are unhoused: few public sources exist, shelters are limited (and all
require sobriety), and outreach services are stretched across a vast geographical area (Jones et al.,
2025). In my professional role, I consistently encounter individuals struggling to manage chronic
health conditions related to not having adequate safe and consistent access to water and housing. A
typical patient is a man in his 50s with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes, hypertension, recurrent
cellulitis, PTSD, and a history of substance use who sleeps intermittently in encampments, a vehicle,
or occasionally in an abandoned property. He stays in town when possible to be close to services,
but when his car is working he seeks out more rural areas like Quilcene where he can more easily
avoid private property and run-ins with people or police. Like others in this community, he lacks
reliable access to potable water: no plumbing where he sleeps, limited public sources that can be far
away or inaccessible, and periodic reliance on untreated water. Inadequate water limits the ability to
clean wounds, perform foot care and personal hygiene, prepare food, and stay hydrated — which all
contribute to poor diabetes control and higher infection risk. Chronic health issues are difficult to
manage under the best of circumstances, and are compounded by the structural barriers common in
rural communities (Pace et al., 2022).
Considering these facts, we need water access across the county that is free and easy to
access, especially in Quilcene. For people living in poverty like much of south county, even paying
for gas and maintaining a safe working vehicle is a significant financial burden. Asking these
individuals to pay anything for public water when they are already taking on the costs of hauling and
storing it is likely to further contribute to a sense of scarcity and corresponding issues. Many people
experiencing housing in our area are recently unhoused due to changing economic factors and the
extremely high cost of living – even more are just a paycheck away from homelessness. The county
(or perhaps the mill, our greatest water consumer) taking on this nominal financial burden is likely to
have a number of cascading positive effects, reducing overall expenses rather than increasing them.
The report by our county’s public health workers also reveals widespread concerns about
mental health in our area. While water insecurity may not appear directly tied to mental health, it is
foundational for rural people who are underhoused, like much of Quilcene. It is often said that “you
feel how you look,” underscoring how the ability to care for one's hygiene is integral to mental
well-being. Rural people who are inadequately or unhoused report poor water access contributes to
feelings of shame, stress, social exclusion, and diminished dignity (Ballard et al., 2022). The
cascading effects of poor hygiene also lead to stigma and further social exclusion, especially for
older adults, people struggling with addiction, and those who menstruate, further limiting already
scarce opportunities for employment and housing (Jensen et al., 2020). Like water access, mental
health is a bipartisan and cross-class issue that impacts all demographics. Our community should do
everything we can to address it.
Water insecurity in rural areas acts as a social determinant of health, intersecting with
housing instability, poverty, transportation barriers, limited healthcare facilities, food deserts, and
high cost of living – all of which impact mental health and social functioning. Water access is not “just
plumbing,” but a fundamental axis of health equity in rural populations. Meaningfully addressing
Quilcene’s water insecurity requires allowing the most impacted community residents to lead the way
in developing pragmatic, population-relevant solutions as suggested above. Working with public
health grounds these efforts in the lineage of public health nursing, which, in tandem with upstream
work with community agencies and policymakers like yourselves, supports our shared mission of
protecting our community’s health. Together, these steps shift our focus from chasing symptomatic
issues exacerbated by structural barriers, toward prevention and reduction of existing challenges by
improving access to the most basic of natural resources that makes the land we call home so
special: fresh, clean water.
References
Ballard, A. M., Cooper, H. L. F., Young, A. M., & Caruso, B. A. (2022). 'You feel how you look':
Exploring the impacts of unmet water, sanitation, and hygiene needs among rural people
experiencing homelessness and their intersection with drug use. PLoS Water, 1(5), Article
e0000019. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000019
Jones, B., Gibson, E., Wyrsch, A., Hinkley, L., Guerette, J., and Casanova-Perez, R. (2025,
January). East Jefferson County environmental and climate health threats and adaptation
opportunities. Jefferson County Public Health.
https://jeffersoncountypublichealth.org/DocumentCenter/View/20734/East-Jefferson-County-Environ
mental-and-Climate-Health-Threats-and-Adaptation-Opportunities---January-2025-
Jensen, L., Monnat, S. M., Green, J. J., Hunter, L. M., & Sliwinski, M. J. (2020). Rural population
health and aging: Toward a multilevel and multidimensional research agenda for the 2020s.
American Journal of Public Health, 110(9), 1328-1331. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305782
Pace, C., Balazs, C., Bangia, K., Depsky, N., Renteria, A., Morello-Frosch, R., & Cushing, L. J.
(2022). Inequities in drinking water quality among domestic well communities and community water
systems, California, 2011‒2019. American Journal of Public Health, 112(1), 88–97.
https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306561