S-4274.1
SENATE BILL 6322
State of Washington
69th Legislature
2026 Regular Session
By Senator Braun
AN ACT Relating to protecting the quality of public water supplies by directing the relocation of the Bob Oke game farm; adding new sections to chapter 77.12 RCW; and creating a new section.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that protecting public health and the safety of municipal and private drinking water supplies is a fundamental responsibility of the state. In 2024 and 2025, groundwater monitoring conducted by Lewis county, the city of Centralia, and the department of fish and wildlife identified nitrate concentrations in multiple private drinking water wells in the Fords Prairie area that exceeded the federal maximum contaminant level for nitrates. Subsequent investigation, including the Bob Oke game farm groundwater investigation completed in November 2025, confirmed that manure generated by pheasants at the Bob Oke game farm contributes to nitrate loading in the underlying aquifer serving residential and municipal water users.
The legislature further finds that the Bob Oke game farm is located over a highly productive and hydrologically sensitive aquifer system that flows toward residential and municipal water supply areas. While the department of fish and wildlife has taken steps to reduce nutrient loading and has committed to voluntary participation in the department of ecology's concentrated animal feeding operation permitting program, the legislature finds that continued operation at the current site presents an ongoing risk of future impacts to drinking water supplies that cannot be fully mitigated through best management practices alone.
The legislature therefore declares that it is in the public interest to move the Bob Oke game farm to an alternate location where pheasant rearing and associated operations can be conducted without risk of contaminating municipal or residential drinking water sources. The legislature intends to require the department of fish and wildlife, in coordination with the department of enterprise services, to identify a suitable alternate site within a swift and reasonable time frame, to develop a relocation plan that ensures continuity of wildlife management functions, and to commence the orderly wind down of operations at the current site.