It’s encouraging to see last year’s Washington state Senate standoff—that tied together two separate bills regarding the Hirst Decision and the capital budget—has ended early this legislative session, although, judging by the outcome, it’s still a bit of a head scratcher as to what took so long.

Both the water-rights bill and the $4.2 billion capital budget were passed in back-to-back Senate votes earlier this month and signed into law the next day by Gov. Jay Inslee, showing the Legislature gave high priority to both—at least in this legislative session.

For the Spokane area, the capital budget includes more than $100 million in project funding, the largest of which is the planned $67 million Eastern Washington University Interdisciplinary Science Center. EWU expects to call for bids for the long awaited project soon, and construction could start as early as fall 2018 and be completed around mid-2020.

Other large Spokane-area projects in the capital budget include the $25 million Spokane Community College main building renovation, a $6.9 million project at Eastern State Hospital.

The capital budget also commits $5 million for infrastructure projects at Lakeland Village, $2 million for a Spokane dental residency clinic, and $2 million for a Mount Spokane facility upgrades.

With mounting pressure to approve the capital budget after last year’s water-rights standoff, though, the Legislature first had to reach a bipartisan compromise to address the 2016 Washington State Supreme Court ruling known as the Hirst Decision. The ruling put the burden on counties to ensure independently that sufficient water is available before a permit-exempt well, such as a well for domestic use, can be drilled.

The Hirst Decision affected large parts of rural and suburban Washington state, including, for example, land within the Little Spokane River watershed in Spokane County.

Some counties without the resources to meet that burden stopped issuing well permits, effectively halting development where there was no access to water services.

At the start of Hirst negotiations this year, legislators were divided on proposed limits in water volume and use restrictions.

The compromise, however, ensures water rights for families in rural Washington while helping to protect water resources, setting limits for domestic water use that vary, depending on watershed. It also commits $300 million over the next 15 years in projects that will help fish and stream flows.

Here, the new law sets the maximum daily use for new domestic wells in the Little Spokane River watershed at 3,000 gallons.

With that compromise in place, when it came down to a vote on the Hirst fix, it wasn’t even close, with the Senate voting 35-14 in favor of the new water rights law. The House vote was 66-30 in favor.

The capital budget, of course, was even more popular, with nearly unanimous approval.

On one hand, the Hirst fix frees up some land for rural and suburban development. On the other, the capital budget funds major public works and infrastructure.

Now that these two legislative priorities are law, let’s hope the Hirst-capital budget standoff doesn’t set precedent for delaying such high-priority measures in the future.