I own a well. I am quite confident that this decision will not prohibit me from continuing to use my well. However, if a new development were proposed higher up on the hillside from where I live, I do not want it to get a permit to use up the water before it gets to me.  There have been orderly rules about water rights over many generations when water was plentiful. Now that we may be going into a time of less availability due to possible changes in the climate (I know all of these words are highly charged so I am intentionally trying to hedge here) I believe that the rules need updating to protect the resource of water and also the resource of our fishery across the state. I happen to be a Native American so I think of salmon, but we could think also of agriculture in E. Washington (where I grew up on a farm) which relies on irrigation. I don't think that prudence in this regard is un-American at all.