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Water Supplies for Irrigators may be Reduced by Mike Lee, Herald staff writer Tri-City Herald, March 8, 2001

The state announced Wednesday that it may reduce water supplies to about 200 irrigators this summer, creating the specter of more Mid-Columbia crops failing in the drought of 2001.

Faced with the lowest projected Columbia River flows since 1977, the Ecology Department on Wednesday issued letters to farmers and cities along the Columbia warning that their irrigation water may be cut off for at least a week at a time because of drought conditions across the Northwest.

No municipal or domestic water supplies are subject to this regulation.

"It's not going to be pretty," said Pat Tucker, a Paterson farm owner who didn't know if his water would be reduced. "We'll stand together. We are not going to let our neighbors fail."

For the first time, the Ecology Department is preparing to interrupt water rights that were issued between 1980 and 1992 with the condition the Columbia River meet minimum flow targets. In essence, those rights are junior to the flow targets set in 1980 for the river, meaning the Columbia gets water first.

Even though irrigators knew the river was down, the announcement came as a surprise.

"It's a scary situation," said Porky Thomsen, Columbia-Snake River Irrigation Association board member. "It kind of puts the fear of God in you."

The largest number of water rights affected are in Douglas County, followed by Okanogan and Benton, which has 68 water rights that might be interrupted. Franklin County has 13 interruptible rights, and Grant has four.

Altogether, the rights include about 900 cubic feet per second of water, less than 1 percent of the April 1 target flows at John Day Dam.

State officials are creating a toll-free hot line for irrigators to call weekly. "Based on predicted flows, you will be instructed whether you can divert water under your water right during the following week," said the letter from Bob Barwin, water resources manager for the Ecology Department in Yakima. "Please note that water use under your water right will be curtailed for the entire week."

Ecology Department spokeswoman Joye Redfield-Wilder said that depending on flows, irrigators in one region may be regulated while others aren't. But the current situation, she said, "is a pretty good guarantee that some people will be regulated."

Already, there's expected to be crop damage in junior water districts in the Yakima Valley, which are predicted to get 38 percent of normal water supply.

Columbia irrigators haven't given up hope, however. "It simply won't work, and it won't happen," said Darryll Olsen, a consultant for the irrigators association. "It would destroy the crops. You can't shut irrigation off in the middle of the summer."

The Ecology Department, however, said it must take action because the predicted river flows at The Dalles Dam during irrigation season are 56 million acre-feet, a little more than half of average. An acre-foot is enough to cover an acre 12 inches deep.

When spring flow predictions dip below 60 million acre-feet, they prompt regulation under the Instream Resources Protection Program of 1980.

The rule's language said it was enacted to "promote the proper utilization of the water resources of the Columbia River and to protect and insure the viability of the instream resource values."

State code also says the Ecology Department director can choose not to follow the rule "only in those situations when it is clear that overriding considerations of the public interest will be served."

To do that, agency Director Tom Fitzsimmons would have to consider industry, agriculture, irrigation, hydroelectric power production, fish and wildlife, recreational and "all other uses compatible with the enjoyment of the public waters of the state."

Olsen, the irrigation consultant, said Fitzsimmons should have come out and talked with irrigators instead of issuing a letter from a regional office.

And Olsen wants high-level officials such as Fitzsimmons or the governor to work this out. "Olympia will have to be the one that discusses this with irrigators," Olsen said.

For their part, irrigators are scrambling as irrigation season approaches.

"We hope that common sense comes out instead of the big hammer," Thomsen said.

There is at least one possible savior -- a program the Bonneville Power Administration is fashioning that essentially would buy water from farmers to leave in the Columbia River.

The agency is approaching Columbia Basin Project irrigation districts this week with its plan. It's not clear whether enough farmers will take part to stave off forced cuts, however.

Tucker hopes it works, to ease the power crunch and so his farm can keep watering. "There's a great opportunity to solve both problems at once," he said.