OLYMPIA — Washington House Democrats are advancing a bill requiring public works projects to benefit salmon and have a “net ecological gain,” a vague standard the Farm Bureau warns could spread to private land.

House Bill 1117 doesn’t define net ecological gain, besides requiring road, sewer and other projects to aid salmon recovery. Fish and Wildlife, other state agencies and tribes would write the rules.

The bill’s prime sponsor, Skagit County Rep. Debra Lekanoff, said the “very essence of net ecological gain” incorporates “a standard of leaving it better than how we found it.”

“Shifting from (a) no-net loss standard to one of net ecological gain will start us on the road to improving our environment rather than keeping the status quo,” Lekanoff said.

The bill exempts projects on private land, but that could be changed by future legislatures, Washington Farm Bureau government relations director Tom Davis said.

The bill’s vagueness gives state agencies a free hand to block projects, making it impossible or too expensive to satisfy net ecological gain, he said.

“I think it is irresponsible for legislators to approve this standard when it’s undefined,” Davis said. “Why would legislators want to pass such vague legislation?”

Fish and Wildlife endorses the bill. “We feel a great urgency for the passing of this policy,” the department’s conservation policy director, Jeff Davis, told a House Environment Committee hearing.

The Democrat-controlled committee was expected to pass the bill Thursday, recommending its adoption by the full House.

Democrats have rejected Republican amendments to make “net ecological gain,” a voluntary goal rather than a mandate.

Although the bill does not define net ecological gain, there is an example of the standard at work.

The Washington Legislature in 2018 ordered regional committees in some watersheds to draw up 20-year plans to set aside water for new domestic wells, while also achieving “net ecological benefit.”

The law responded to the state Supreme Court’s Hirst ruling, shutting down well drilling in rural Washington.

The Okanogan watershed plan, accepted by Ecology in January, allocates 203 acre-feet for new wells and 2,666 acre-feet for fish, a 13-to-1 ratio.

The plan depends heavily on buying a 2,524-acre ranch and its senior water rights of 1,294 acre-feet a year for between $7.9 million and $8.5 million.

The net ecological benefit from buying the ranch is projected to be one adult chinook salmon and two adult steelhead a year, according to the plan approved by Ecology.

In all, the plan is projected to cost at least $13.6 million and produce another 119 adult steelhead and 18 chinook salmon a year.

“In a lot of ways, it’s a lot of money for little benefit,” Okanogan County Farm Bureau President Dick Ewing said.

The plan does not immediately threaten agriculture in the north-central Washington county, Ewing said.

In the long run, however, agriculture may be tapped for water for new residents and for net ecological gain, he said.

“You want growth,” Ewing said. “If they need water, they could squeeze farmers for more efficiencies or offer rude prices for their water rights.”