YBSA Monthly Report November, 2011

YBSA Monthly Report
November, 2011
A Reliable Water Supply for the Yakima Basin: The Yakima River basin has a long
history of an inadequate water supply to meet competing water resource needs. Each
year we are faced with the need for an adequate snowpack to sustain and enhance our
anadromous fishery resources, provide water to irrigate our agricultural crops (a mainstay
of our economy), and meet municipal and domestic needs of our growing population.
We have attempted to address this matter through the Yakima River Basin Water
Enhancement Project and other programs focusing on conservation to reduce irrigation
diversions.
The Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project P.L. 103-434 Title XII was
authorized by Congress October 31, 1994, with amendments added later to the program.
The purpose was to protect, mitigate, and enhance fish and wildlife through water
management; improve instream flows, improve water quality and habitat, authorize a
Basin conservation program, and improve the reliability of water supply for irrigation.
After ten plus years the Basin continues to experience frequent droughts. While progress
has been made we are nevertheless faced with the fact that additional water resource
infrastructure is necessary (particularly storage) if we are to assure a reliable water supply
for the future.
In 2003 Congress authorized the Yakima River Basin Water Storage Feasibility Study
(Storage Study). The Omnibus Appropriation Act Public Law 108-7 directed the Bureau
of Reclamation (BOR) to examine the feasibility and acceptability of storage
augmentation for the benefit of fish, irrigation, and future municipal water supply for the
Yakima Basin. The Study found Bumping Lake enlargement, Wymer Reservoir, and
Columbia River exchange (storage) did not meet the cost benefit requirement, but
Columbia River storage met the requirement for benefits to fish, irrigation, and future
municipal water supply.
In June 2009, Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) and BOR hosted the
initial meeting of the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement 2009 Work Group.
Participants included the Yakama Nation, state, federal, county, and city governments, an
environmental organizations and irrigation districts. Since then the Work Group has been
working to craft an Integrated Water Resource Management Plan that will incorporate 3
components: habitat, system modification, and water supply in the Basin. In December
2009, a preliminary plan was published consisting of seven elements: fish passage at
existing Yakima Project reservoirs, fish habitat enhancements in the main-stem Yakima
River and tributaries, structural and operational changes of the existing water
infrastructure, surface storage, groundwater storage, enhanced water conservation, and
market based reallocation of water resources.
The Yakima Basin Storage Alliance is a Work Group participant and during this process
we have advocated a review of all storage projects to compare proposed water supply
projects and inform the public of the characteristics of each project. It has been and
remains our view that all viable projects, both those using in-basin water supplies and
those importing water from outside the basin such as the Columbia River should be
included. Rather the focus has been on projects storing Yakima Basin water (Bumping
Lake Enlargement and Wymer Dam and Reservoir) with any consideration of Columbia
River projects “falling within a possible second phase at a later date based upon
prevailing conditions”.
The inbasin water resources infrastructures in the Integrated Plan, if ever completed, are
not capable of consistently meeting aquatic resource demands in the Yakima River basin.
Climate change projections indicate there will be an increasing need for prorating and
reducing flows for fish. Pumping groundwater may reduce surface water flows in certain
areas due to hydraulic continuity between groundwater and surface water. The only
consistent source of new water for the Yakima basin is a 1 to 1 water exchange with the
Columbia River. A delay in pursuing pumped storage with wind integration for “a later
date” will place the Yakima River basin improvements for fish and the economy in the
same position as the basin water supply has been since Title XII was authorized. We will
continue to have water short years (droughts) more frequently and will not have a healthy
environment without a strong economy to pay for additional water storage for the
Yakima basin.
For additional information see www.ybsa.org