Opinion: 

Drought in the Yakima Basin --

More Water Storage Isn't the Answer, but There Are Solutions

Bob Tuck - Guest Opinion

Yakima Herald, April 1, 2001

The first drought in the Yakima Basin after irrigation development reached its present scope occurred in 1973. In the nearly three decades since, the basin has experienced several drought years: 1977, 1979, 1988, 1992, 1993 and 1994.

The current water year is shaping up as one of the lowest water supply years on record. Competing demands for water in the basin have sparked a heightened interest in formulating plans to more efficiently use a severely limited resource, as well as renewed calls for the construction of additional storage projects.

There are those in the basin who view more water storage as the easy answer to periodic water-supply shortages. The question is, if construction of more water storage is the obvious and easy solution, why hasn't it happened over the past three decades? Answer: Because it is neither the appropriate nor defensible course of action as we move into the 21st century.

Even though the construction of new water storage continues to pose an irresistible allure to some, there are several reasons why additional water storage will not be constructed in the Yakima Basin:

-- Cost. Water storage projects are enormously expensive. Even the proposed small Pine Hollow project is in the $40 million range. Building the Bumping Lake Enlargement project would cost a staggering quarter billion dollars. The only option to finance a project of this magnitude would require a direct taxpayer subsidy of enormous proportions.

--Environmental damage. Water-storage projects cause extensive environmental damage that cannot be avoided or mitigated, including the loss of fish and wildlife habitat, additional adverse modifications to the hydrograph, blockage of fish migration routes, decreases in water quality, and blockage of wildlife movement corridors.

-- Impacts on infrastructure and people. There are people and infrastructure located in every potential storage site in the basin. Even the proposed small Pine Hollow project would require several families to vacate their homes and move; some may not want to.

-- Political and legal hurdles. It is highly unlikely that a new storage project would survive economic, environmental, political, and legal scrutiny.

So, if more water storage is not the answer, what are some of the potential solutions to the periodic water supply shortages in the basin? Fortunately, there are programs and actions that can be implemented that would provide an adequate supply of water for irrigation and instream flows, and in a much more timely manner than attempting to build new storage:

-- Conservation. Many of the irrigation districts have been implementing water-conservation programs for a number of years, but more can and should be done. Additional state and federal funds should be provided so a more aggressive conservation program can be implemented.

-- Water must be severed from the land, so water sales and leases can move water freely between users, and between uses. This would require significant modifications to Washington water law. Both the Roza Irrigation District and the Kittitas Reclamation District are attempting to buy water for this irrigation season. They are on the right track. Dry-year leases should also be implemented, so water can be available in a dry year for permanent crops. There are about 150,000 acres of irrigated pasture and hay in the basin. In dry years, the water associated with this acreage may be far more valuable than the forage produced.

-- Some land in the basin needs to be taken out of production. Property owners should be compensated through conservation easements, purchase of land and water rights, or other mechanisms. Congressional authorization for land and water purchases exists, and some purchases have been completed. However, this program needs additional funding to meet available opportunities.

Additional water storage projects are like heroin: They are very expensive, create illusions of power, make us dependent on a continuing supply, and eventually destroy the body. Those leaders and interests in the basin that remain fixated on new water-storage projects are doing the people of the basin a disservice. They are leading us down a dead-end street. They have cost us many years and many lost opportunities to implement programs that would have materially assisted farm families by providing the means to meet the challenges of a low-water year. How many decades will it take, how many drought years, how many family farms put at risk, until they understand that additional water storage is a mirage, a siren's song?

Those who advocate more water-storage projects have had more than a half-century to implement their preferred course of action. What have they accomplished? Not one new drop of additional water storage capacity has been constructed in that 50-year time span.

It is time for all of us to realize that new water storage is not viable and get solidly and vigorously behind alternative courses of action that will meet the needs of the basin for an adequate water supply. Meeting the water-management challenges of the 21st century requires innovation, imagination, the ability to think "outside the box," changes to Washington water law, application of the latest technologies, and vision.

The Yakima Basin needs a 21st century system of water management for the 21st century, not one rooted in the mid-19th century. Do the people of the Yakima Basin, particularly the political, agricultural, and civic leadership, have the vision to successfully meet the challenges of properly managing water in the 21st century? Stay tuned.

-- Bob Tuck is a natural resources consultant from Selah.