YBSA Monthly Report January, 2011

YBSA Monthly Report
January, 2011

YBSA’s Goal: Yakima Basin Storage Alliance (YBSA), a grass-roots organization whose members include: contractors, farmers, bankers, businessmen, engineers, fish biologist, former manager of an irrigation district, former state and local elected and appointed officials will continue our involvement in the development of the Integrated Plan.

YBSA’s board meets monthly to discuss the merits of the language in the proposed plan to provide suggestions from a broad base of interests.

YBSA continues to pursue the best and most cost effective way to provide for instream flow and passage for fish, out-of-stream use to prevent droughts, and water for municipal and industrial growth including the need to address the existing ground water problem.

We are anxious to work on developing a plan that will solve the water problem now and in the future even with climate change.

Draft Basin Study Report Ready in Late February: The draft Yakima River Basin Study Report and supporting technical memoranda are being developed at the present time. The draft Basin Study Report and technical memoranda will be made available in late February for Work Group members and other interested parties to review. The review period will last approximately three weeks. Details on the exact review period will be shared in a follow up email in February, once the draft document is available for review. The documents will be finalized after the review period.

Work Group Meeting Purpose: Work Group meeting during the review period will be held March 9, 9:30 am to noon at the Yakima Arboretum. The purpose of this meeting will be to:
 Discuss the draft Basin Study Report.
 Provide an overview of NEPA/SEPA Scoping, Programmatic EIS and Planning Report process that will further evaluate the Integrated Plan and other appropriate alternatives.
 Share the planning schedule, including Work Group meeting schedule.
 Describe the Implementation Subcommittee work plan and next steps.
 Share findings from advance mitigation/land conservation efforts.
 Update on other communication efforts (e.g., recent meeting with USFS).

Pumped Storage Benefits: YBSA continues to explore pumped storage as a Columbia Basin Renewable Energy and Storage Project. It would provide the Yakima River Basin the ability to acquire a large quantity of stored water, lower costs, and increase benefits of pumped storage. Pumping water during extremely low or negative power prices into a storage reservoir would provide an opportunity to improve a pumped storage project economically. The project would also provide water storage for irrigation and salmon restoration in the Yakima Basin and an opportunity to assist the integration of wind generation into the Northwest power grid using that stored water as a storage battery.

For additional information see www.ybsa.org