Under pressure, EWUA board signals support for third-party workplace investigation

Published 1:30 am Friday, May 22, 2026

Facing a standing-room crowd of members, community advocates and its own operators, the Eastsound Water Users Association board signaled support Monday evening for a third-party workplace investigation — a shift that came only after sustained public pressure and a striking display of unity from the association’s certified operators.

The May 19 meeting at the Eastsound Firehall drew members alarmed by a deepening conflict between the board and the staff who keep water flowing to roughly 70% of Orcas Island residents. What began as a listening session quickly became a referendum on the board’s handling of a workplace crisis that, by multiple accounts, has been building for years.

Speaker after speaker used their three minutes to call for the same thing: an independent, neutral workplace investigation. The first speaker, James Most, set the tone.

“What has become glaringly apparent is that there are deepening divisions and deepening problems within the workplace environment,” Most told the board. “Contrary to statements from this board that employee grievances have been debunked by your attorneys, not a single employee has been interviewed by your attorneys.”

Tom Owens, a member who said a close friend had been too distressed to read their own statement aloud, warned the board that “intransigence never promotes healing.”

Former employee Kim Mason, who walked off the job five years ago after approximately 16 months, said the same dysfunction she left then has only spread.

“It just makes my heart sick to see how unhappy everyone is there,” she said.

Member Matt Nelson recalled a private meeting with board members in which the board itself asked how to improve the situation — and he proposed the same third-party assessment at the time.

“If there are no people doing anything wrong,” he said, “then the truth should not be a problem.”

The operators speak

The most pointed moment of the evening came when community member Jay Blackington rose to read a letter written and signed by all seven of EWUA’s current certified operators — the same people responsible for delivering safe drinking water around the clock to the island’s water systems.

“There has been nowhere for us to safely express workplace grievances without fear of retaliation,” Blackington read on their behalf. “This is why we chose to unionize … For all of us, this went from a dream job to a place we dread going.”

Their letter noted that colleagues had already left — five of 12 staff in less than six months, including two of the most experienced operators — taking with them deep institutional knowledge of complex and aging water systems. The operators warned that more departures are coming without meaningful change: “This is why the operators are leaving and is why we are on the brink of losing more.”

The stakes are not abstract. A May 14 community column signed by 42 members described the Rosario water plant — which the Washington Department of Health has described as the most complex water system in the entire state — as being run by a single operator, who has given notice of retirement within two years. The column warned that replacing him would require a minimum of one to two years of full-time training for any new hire.

What the board says

EWUA management has strongly contested those characterizations. In a May 12 statement titled “Setting the Record Straight,” published on the association’s website, the board disputed claims one by one, arguing the association is not in a labor crisis, that five certified operators currently cover all four water systems and that no single operator is working alone or unsupported. The statement also cited the recent hire of Ryan Wynn as operations manager — a 25-year industry veteran brought on specifically to provide daily supervision — as evidence that the management structure has been substantially reformed.

On the question of Department of Labor & Industries violations, EWUA acknowledged five significant investigations over the past few years but characterized the volume as consistent with an organization of its size and complexity, noting that most matters have been closed or are nearly resolved. On on-call compensation, the statement said a state investigator has recommended a finding of no wage violations.

An IBEW Local 77 representative stated the following: “I am surprised to hear about recent updates from management that staffing is where it needs to be when we have had three operators leave employment with EWUA in the last year,” the union representative wrote, adding that the company’s initial economic proposals amounted to a package lower than what employees were earning before they voted to unionize.

As of the column’s publication, the union had not received a response to its request for the next negotiating date since an April 24 meeting.

Board reaction

Following the public comment period, the board discussed its reaction openly. Board member Madeline Danielson expressed support for the third-party investigation, acknowledging directly that trust had been lost.

“Trust takes a long time to build again,” she said.

Board vice president Jim Nelson, the longest-serving member present, described the situation as the worst he had seen in his time on the board — far more difficult, he said, than an earlier recall effort against the board several years ago.

“I personally don’t have any objections to getting a third party in here,” he said.

One board member raised the ongoing union negotiation as a potential constraint on the board’s actions, citing unfair labor practice rules. The union’s shop steward pushed back from the floor, stating the union representative had already confirmed the board could move forward.

The meeting concluded with no formal vote on the investigation. The board did not announce a timeline or next steps. Operators have stated that further departures are likely without meaningful change, and the Rosario operator’s retirement remains on the horizon within two years. The question of whether and how the board will initiate a third-party investigation was left unresolved at the close of the meeting.