YBSA Monthly Report January, 2012

YBSA Monthly Report
January, 2012

Meeting with Dan Silver:  YBSA met with Dan Silver, consultant for Department of Ecology, at our January Board Meeting.  The reason he attended the meeting was to get YBSA to approve the Integrated Plan.  The Integrated Plan is completed so YBSA should come along and join the group as it moves forward.

Concerns with the Integrated Plan:  YBSA has presented written comments and oral to the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Ecology, and at the Work Group meeting during development of the Integrated Plan.  The lack of answers to the concerns listed in the documents leave many items in the Integrated Plan without justification.  Climate change, groundwater supply problems, low flow in the lower Yakima River, Introduction of Sockeye and the time of their return, the cost of each recommendation in the program, and an extended timeline in the plan to provide water storage which will lead to more frequent droughts and how they will be corrected have not been adequately addressed.

Public Records Act Request Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): YBSA joined with the North Cascades Conservation Council, the Sierra Club Columbia River Future Project and others requesting documents generated or received by Derek Sandison (DOE) and/or Dan Silver regarding the development of the Integrated Plan.  The communications may provide information on how, when, why, and where decisions were made on the contents of the Integrated Plan.

Draft Programmatic EIS:  YBSA supports elements of the Integrated Plan (IP) because it provides a short-term solution to the water supply problems of the Yakima Basin, while providing needed habitat improvements to help restore the Basin’s fisheries.  YBSA is, however, deeply concerned that the IP water storage element does not provide a sufficient long-term solution to the water supply needs of the Basin, especially in light of current State and Federal funding shortages, and the National need to integrate Northwest wind power.

To more effectively meet the state long-term needs for water storage and stabilization, YBSA urges an acceleration of the Columbia River Pumped Storage option identified in the IP.  In particular, YBSA believes that funding for a study of the Columbia Pumped Storage option should be made a priority of the IP, and that the study should include a pumped storage electricity production element.  The PEIS’s decision to make that option a mere aspiration does not adequately protect the Yakima Basin’s future, especially if the more severe climate change scenario considered in the IP come to pass.

Lower Yakima River

Letter to Northwest Power Planning and Conservation Council:  As I look back on a number of decades living in the Northwest, I find that our greatest failure in recent times is the inability to “think big”. We benefit from the big thinking that included the harnessing of the energy in the magnificent Columbia River system, and the coordinated efforts of governments at all levels to make it happen, with lineage that leads to the Bonneville Power Administration and, yes, to the Council on which you serve today

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So, I appeal to you to join me in thinking big about the complexity of the world of electrical energy, wind, and water. It seems to me that we are stumbling all over ourselves and I want to share with you the possibilities of a win-win-win opportunity.

Climate change is bringing challenging new realities and opportunities to us. As much precipitation, or even more, than in years past, but coming at different times and in different forms, combined with a weak economy and a citizenry concerned with the threats of global warming, leave us suing each other and threatening the “northwest advantage” we have in energy and water supplies. The recent decision in favor of wind producers adds to the importance of what I am sharing with you as we search for answers that work for everyone.

As climate change reduces the manageable flows in the three-county area of the Yakima Basin, we need an inter-basin transfer of water from the surplus flows of the Columbia. I have shared with you before my belief that “we need to borrow some water from you when no one else needs it, and we will return it to you, in kind, with fish.” What is different now is that the mid-Columbia badly needs an energy storage facility, and studies show that it doesn’t pay its way if built just for that purpose. It is a money maker, and an equalizer, and a cushion against negative pricing, but only if the needed reservoir is supported by a wider range of benefits like those brought by the Yakima Basin’s need for consistent water for fish, agriculture, and municipal purposes.

Sid Morrison

Co-Chair, Yakima Basin Storage Alliance