News Release
July 6, 2015
Contacts –
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•Jay Schwartz (Friends of Lake Kachess) 206.369-1326 jays@jayschwartz.net
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•Chris Maykut (Friends of Bumping Lake) chris@friendsofbumpinglake.org
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•Grant Learned Jr (Friends of Lake Kachess) 206.856-4424 learnedg@hotmail.com
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•Bill Campbell (Friends of Lake Kachess) 509.304-5197 bill_campbell@unc.edu
Controversy surrounds $5 Billion Yakima Water Plan
as it moves to Congress
U.S. Senate to hold first hearing on July 7 on S. 1694
Conservationists and Yakima Basin homeowners reacted with surprise and alarm as the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee prepares to hold a hearing on July 7 on S. 1694, a bill to authorize the Yakima Integrated Water Management Plan (Yakima Plan). The bill was introduced on June 25 by Sen. Maria Cantwell on behalf of the Yakima Work Group selected and convened by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Washington State Department of Ecology
"If Congress passes this bill, it would render Lake Kachess, a beautiful recreation lake, unusable for several years at a time, for the sole purpose of providing inexpensive water to agricultural interests with junior water rights” said Robert Angrisano, President of the Kachess Community Association. "This bill would expose massive mudflat areas and risk endangered bull trout in the lake, and effectively eliminate the use of the Lake Kachess Campground, one of the busiest campgrounds in the state. You don't further reduce water levels by up to 80 vertical feet without doing profound environmental damage."
Since the 1970s, controversy has swirled around building new federal irrigation dams and water projects in the Yakima Basin. Leading up to the July 7th Senate hearing is a process started in 2009 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Dept of Ecology. These two federal and state agencies selected and convened the Yakima Work Group to create the Yakima Plan. Plan proponents tout the Yakima Work Group as a “national model.” The two government agencies, however, excluded most conservation groups and all homeowner groups, private citizens, and fire departments in the impacted areas.
The Yakima Work Group produced only one alternative: a collection of projects selected by group members with an estimated $5 billion price tag. Since then, the Phase I project costs have skyrocketed by more than 300%. The total plan is likened to a “bundle of sticks,” some of the “sticks” such as fish passage have public interest merit while others are costly, controversial, and environmentally destructive dam and irrigation water supply projects.
Cost to taxpayers will be a central issue for Congress in the Yakima Basin and throughout the West. The existing federal Yakima Project managed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation stores and diverts 1.2 million acre-feet of water from five reservoirs in the Cascade Mountains, serving irrigation districts in Kittitas, Yakima and Benton counties. Here, construction costs totaled $286 million, with $149 million allocated to irrigators. In 2014 the GAO reported Yakima Valley irrigators have yet to fully repay those costs. Enacting the Yakima Plan through S. 1694 would vastly increase the taxpayer burdens.
In 2013, the cash-strapped Washington Legislature tasked independent economists to study the latest Yakima Basin proposal. In December 2014, a team of Washington State Water Research Center economists concluded that costs of water supply projects in the Yakima Basin – including new dams – outweigh benefits by 90 percent or more. In contrast, proposed fisheries enhancement projects of importance to tribes and the general public are cost effective.
"While it is encouraging that attention is being given to the issues within the Yakima Valley, we are very disappointed that S. 1694 supports the entire highly controversial and deeply flawed plan,” said Chris Maykut, Friends of Bumping Lake. “Proposed storage projects have been shown in non-biased studies to be money losers for the taxpayers of Washington, and there are numerous other forward-thinking solutions that don't involve destruction of ecosystems or private property."
"Nearly 40 percent of irrigation water in the Yakima Basin goes to high water using, low economic-value crops such as hay and wheat," said Jay Schwarz of Friends of Lake Kachess. "In fact, they use nearly four times the water to produce the same economic value as more water efficient high economic value crops like fruit, hops, wine grapes and vegetables. Addressing this water usage issue is the key for the Basin solving its own water scarcity issues without massive taxpayer subsidies."
“In a time of climate change and water scarcity, our shared water future of water rests with sensible, affordable solutions,” said Grant Learned Jr of the Friends of Lake Kachess. “Sharing water between senior and junior water-right holders through water markets and water banks, metering water use just like city folks do, water conservation, and planting appropriate crops are all tools in the toolbox to fix water scarcity. As state political leaders have already noted, farmers need water but taxpayers need accountability.”
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