Court rulings favoring a new southeast Washington vineyard and the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association likely will be appealed by the Department of Ecology, an agency spokeswoman said Friday.

A Benton County, Wash., judge concluded last month that Ecology made up a rule when it barred Loyal Pig LLC from drawing from the Columbia River to irrigate 89 acres of wine grapes. Loyal Pig obtained the water from another farm that had cut back on irrigation. Ecology argued the water-right transfer was based on outdated information that didn’t show whether the farm still had the water to give.

A different Benton County judge had already overturned Ecology’s denial and granted Loyal Pig the water. The most recent ruling has broader implications because it faulted how Ecology evaluates whether a water-right holder has water to transfer to someone else.

Ecology was disappointed in the latest ruling and probably will appeal both decisions, spokeswoman Brook Beeler said in an email.

Darryll Olsen, board representative of the irrigators association, said Ecology should abandon thoughts of taking its case to the Court of Appeals. The rulings merely affirm that water-right holders who cut back on consumption have a full five years before losing their unused rights, he said.

“It’s a big deal,” he said. “It was from the very start a wreck. It’ll be in the interest of everyone to just drop it.”

Loyal Pig and the irrigators association sued Ecology after the agency in 2017 rejected Loyal Pig’s application to acquire a water right from Columbia East LLC. The water had historically been used to irrigate about 300 acres of potatoes, corn, wheat and alfalfa, but the farm cut back on water use as the surrounding area developed, Olsen said.

The Franklin County Water Conservancy Board endorsed the water-right transfer based on a 2014 analysis  of Columbia East’s water use between 2009 and 2013. Ecology, however, wanted to know how much water was used between 2011 and 2016, citing a law that calls for evaluating water-right transfers on the most recent five years.

Loyal Pig and the irrigators association argued that Ecology should use the 2014 information. The state’s “use it or lose it” law gives inactive water-right holders a five-year grace period. Being forced to provide more recent data would have effectively led to an early relinquishment of water rights, they argued.

Judge Jacqueline Shea-Brown agreed. She signed an order Nov. 27 stating that Ecology’s refusal to grant a five-year grace period amounted to a rule. Since Ecology adopted the rule without public notice, it violated the state’s Administrative Procedure Act, according to the order.

Ecology staked its position on a law that allows “spreading” — the practice of revising a water right to irrigate more acres with the same amount of water.

To determine whether water was available to spread, Ecology said it needed to know how much water Columbia East consumed over the previous five years.

Without the latest information, Ecology maintained it couldn’t tell whether Loyal Pig’s irrigation would increase water use and possibly impair other water rights.