The Washington State Dairy Federation stepped up a campaign Friday to stop the state Department of Health from imposing new requirements on farms that supply water to up to four residences and 25 people.

In an email to legislators, federation policy director Jay Gordon said the department was undercutting a law intended to spare farms the expense of being regulated as public water systems.

Gordon said in an interview he was trying to up the pressure on the department. “Nothing else has worked,” he said.

“This is a major policy change, and it’s not going through any of the normal channels of a major policy change,” Gordon said.

The Legislature in 1991 adopted the “same farm exemption,” allowing a farm to supply water to a limited number of residences and people without meeting the engineering standards of a public water system.

The Health Department says the Environmental Protection Agency wants it to tighten oversight over the exemption.

EPA has said it’s concerned unregulated water systems on farms are violating the Safe Drinking Water Act by serving too many people for too many days.

In response, the Health Department plans to require farmers to get a letter of approval from the department and reapply every five years for the exemption.

The requirements are not in the law passed by lawmakers, nor in regulations adopted by the department. The department proposes to adopt the requirements in a “policy statement.”

The policy would limit the exemption to “single-family residences,” rather than the more general “residences” stated in the law.

Farm groups are concerned the policy will affect some farmworker housing and complicate getting occupancy permits from county officials, as well as making farmers subject to bureaucratic delays or denials.

Also, farm groups say, the Health Department has bypassed the normal rule-writing process that would have forced the agency to justify the rule and respond to public comments.

Health Department spokesman Roberto Bonaccorso said in an email Friday that EPA has “requested informally” that department propose legislation. “This type of revision takes several years,” according to Bonaccorso.

“The policy update can be accomplished in (a) shorter time frame and implemented accurately to address EPA’s concerns regarding unregulated public water systems and unclear description of the exemption criteria,” he said. 

Gordon said being in a hurry doesn’t justify ignoring the law.