YBSA Monthly Report November, 2014
YBSA Monthly Report
November, 2014
Testimony at Honeyford’s Meeting on a Water Bill: YBSA presented the following testimony at Senator Jim Honeyford’s Public Meeting on water bill being proposed to fund projects that address needed Storage.
YBSA is a volunteer organization with multi-generational experience in water and environmental issues in the Yakima Basin. Our mission is to ensure there is an adequate water supply in the Yakima Basin for all users: municipal, agriculture, Tribal, environmental, and recreation, for generations to come.
In the Yakima Basin, our entire economy is based on a thriving agriculture sector. Without an adequate storage of water to weather drought years and potential changes in hydrologic patterns due to climate change, our Basin is left vulnerable. Other irrigated basins typically have storage for 2-3 years of water supply; our basin has less than 1 year of water storage. This means that every year our supplies are in jeopardy until as late as May. And when severe droughts hit our area, our economy suffers greatly, not just during the drought years, but for many years after.
We support the proposed bill in that it will provide funding for water storage projects and give preference to those projects that provide multiple benefits. However, our experience leads us to insist it is critical that projects slated for funding be reviewed by knowledgeable third parties for sound science and engineering. Proposed water storage project must adequately address multi-year droughts, climate change scenarios, the interaction between groundwater depletion and surface water during drought years, the method of payment and a realistic assessment of the timelines of project completion.
How do we pay for these expensive and necessary water infrastructure investments? It is too big for governments alone. We believe that water storage is the key; and to make it pay, it must be multipurpose and we must maximize the benefits for instream uses, out of stream uses, recreation and pumped storage for energy.
Access to Water from the Bottom of Lake Kachess: A story in the Roza-Sunnyside Board of Joint Control (RSBOJC) update Fall, 2014 included information about creating access to water in the bottom of Lake Kachess; water that can’t be diverted through current outlet works. The project looks at erecting a pumping plant along the Kachess lake shore that would draw water from the lake bottom and divert it into the Kachess River below the dam. An initial estimate places the cost at $205 million. The water would be available in those drought years when supply falls below 70 percent. The Roza water supply is subject to being cut when supplies are inadequate to meet all needs.
Roza Manager Scott Revell said directors will need to review resultus of the study to analyze district costs and whether the district would pay those costs on an annual basis, including years when the water wouldn’t be accessed in order to lower the year to year costs. There also is a possibility that other districts may participate.
Revell said directors want to have all the information before them prior to proceeding, including solving the complicated water rights issues surrounding the Kachess dead storage. “The Board wants to have a high degree of confidence that Roza water users will be able to get what they pay for.”
The following are excerpts from YBSA’s comments on the Draft EIS for the Cle Elum Pool Raise: YBSA’s mission is to ensure an adequate supply of water for now and future generations for all water interests in the Yakima Basin. While we support the Integrated Plan in their goal to propose projects that increase aquatic resources and flows for agriculture and municipalities, we have concerns about the Cle Elum Pool Raise project.
This Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Cle Elum Pool Raise Project (DEIS) does not include estimates of monetary benefits that would be used in determining project economic justification. We suggest that the Bureau of Reclamation’s plan warrant consideration of project economic justification as a part of the public review process of the draft and final environmental impact statements and in the Record of Decision.
We do not believe the cost of the project is justified when the benefits to fish and agriculture are so minimal. It is stated that, “Hydrologic modeling indicated that the existing full reservoir elevation of 2,240 feet would be exceeded in about 72% of the years modeled and the proposed reservoir elevation of 2,243 feet would be reached in about 52 percent of the years modeled.” This implies the additional 36 cfs of flow supplied to the Cle Elum River would only occur roughly 50% of the time, and less additional water will be supplies approximately 70% of the time. And additional 20% flow that is available only 50% of the years is not significant.
The DEIS states that, “Reclamation expects changes in runoff in the Cle Elum River basin caused by climate change to be substantial. The shifts in runoff quantity and timing shown in the model results would cause substantial risks to water supply.”
Since the “watershed areas above the Yakima basin reservoirs are not high in altitude we do not understand why significant funds are being spent on reservoir enlargement projects in the Yakima basin that may or may not provide benefits to aquatic resources annually when the option is still present to pump water from the Columbia River. The headwaters for the Columbia River are in the Canadian Rocky Mountain Range, which is at a much higher elevation than the Cascade headwaters that feed the Yakima Project. Higher elevations provide a larger buffer against the effects of climate change on winter precipitation timing and type.
Full comments by YBSA will appear in the EIS
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