On January 21, 2026, Whatcom County Superior Court Judge David Freeman denied requests from local farming groups and the City of Sumas, who proposed changes to the boundary of the WRIA 1 water rights adjudication case. Judge Freeman ruled that the court shouldn’t consider such issues until after the June 1, 2027 deadline for water users to file their claims. That means the SUMAS OUT group and other moving parties are being forced to hire attorneys and experts to file their water right claims before they can argue that they shouldn’t have to file those claims due to improper adjudication boundaries and other jurisdictional issues.
“It appears Judge Freeman is far more concerned with the bureaucratic process of an adjudication than the wellbeing of farms and rural residents bearing huge costs as a result of being required to prepare for this court case,” said Fred Likkel, Executive Director of Whatcom Family Farmers.
While each water user’s costs vary widely, estimates place the expense of preparing an individual water claim to be filed anywhere from $1,500 to over $10,000 per water right. With the court estimating the number of potential claims at 30,000, this process represents a total cost to the local rural community potentially higher than a quarter-billion dollars, just to prepare for a lawsuit that could last decades.
SUMAS OUT is a coalition of the City of Sumas and several farmers in the Sumas Basin, which flows north to Canada and the Fraser River. SUMAS OUT, represented by attorney Thomas Pors, was seeking leave to file its motion to exclude the Sumas River basin from the boundary of the adjudication, and to extend the claim filing deadline, but Judge Freeman denied their motion.
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