YBSA Monthly Report May, 2012
YBSA Monthly Report
May, 2012
Mitigation Needed for Approval of Wells in the Yakima Basin: Given current water conditions in theYakimaRiver Basin, there is no water available for new water right permit applications to be approved for year-round consumptive uses unless the impact of the use can be offset, or mitigated. The Department of Ecology is currently contacting water right applicants to determine the status of the water right request. Although still not a guarantee, it is likely that only new consumptive uses that can be mitigated will be approved.
Focus on mitigation in theYakimaBasinhas now been expanded from the upperKittitasCountyto include Moxee and Wide Hollow sub-basins. The reason for not approving new wells was predicated on the loss of senior water rights.
The following link is to the editorial “Ecology takes prudent step as Valley awaits storage plan”
from theYakimaHeraldRepublicfrom May 31, 2012.
BPA Pumped Storage Report at the Columbia River Policy Advisory Group Meeting: Mark Jones, Manager of Federal Hydro Projects at the Bonneville Power Administration provided an overview of pumped storage for the region. BPA and the region have experienced a dramatic increased in wind generation capacity. This increase in capacity has posed a challenge for BPA to integrate the wind into the system and balance load generation. BPA has added storage improvements toBanksLake and is considering a set of options including adding pumped storage to an existing federal facility, building a new federal facility, or partnering with a non-federal entity. BPA recently contracted with HDR, Inc. to assess the characteristics and costs of potentialGreenfield (new) projects. This assessment suggested that new storage capacity would cost between $2.5 and $2.7b, which is well beyond the value of the project. With a multi-purpose facility, each part of the facility must return value, for example, the reservoir, irrigation, and power. It is necessary to spread costs across multiple purpose uses.
Yakima River Basin Integrated Plan Article: Below is an article by Dave Lester, reporter for the Yakima Herald Republic, that describes the proposed Yakima River Basin Integrated Plan being submitted to Congress. It also points out the concerns that there will be insufficient water made available over the next several decades to address the needs for the future of theYakimaBasin.
Published in NWRA National Water Resources Association at http://www.nwra.org/content/articles/wa-yakima-river-basin-water-plan-released/ on March 16, 2012
Yakima River Basin Water Plan Released
By Dave Lester
FromYakimaHeraldRepublic
The preliminary rounds are over. Now the real battle for support and money begins for a plan Gov. Chris Gregoire describes as one of the most significant ecological restoration projects in the West. Federal and state officials rolled out a final environmental report Friday on a plan to meetYakimaRiver Basin’s future needs for more water storage, fish passage and land preservation.
A key element is the expansion ofBumpingLake, northwest ofYakima, that has been reviewed and rejected for decades. The overall plan, more than two years in the making, could cost anywhere from $3.2 billion to $5.6 billion. The first concrete steps to find the majority of that money from a Congress already strapped for money will come during the rest of this year. Representatives of a broad-based group that developed the plan will head back toWashington,D.C., as early as April to begin laying the groundwork. Gregoire said the investment is worth it. “I urge that we move forward and implement this new program — the sooner we’re able to provide a constant source of water, the sooner our entire region will benefit.”
But any significant federal funding is considered unlikely until at least 2015. The plan, proposed in phases over the next several decades, is designed to give farmers a more reliable water supply and open miles of habitat for fish above basin storage dams. Two species, bull trout and steelhead, are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In addition to endangered species concerns, the three-county basin has suffered through five economically damaging droughts in the last 20 years.
The lengthy environmental document issued Friday only looks at the effects of the overall program, concluding the seven-step plan is preferable to doing nothing. The document is now headed to the Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Office of Management and Budget. From there, it will move to Congress. Individual parts of the plans would have to undergo environmental reviews on their own before they are authorized for funding. Yakima County Commissioner Mike Leita, who serves on the committee making the trip to D.C., said getting projects on the ground is key to the future ofCentral Washington. “Make no mistake about it, thisYakimaRiver Basinplays a significant role in our state’s economy and for endangered species recovery,” Leita said. “If this plan ultimately fails, the consequence of failure will be an economy and environment in considerable jeopardy.”
While this plan is ambitious, it also has gotten farther than previous plans, a myriad of which have been conducted here for decades without action. The federal Yakima Irrigation Project, stretching from nearSnoqualmiePasstoRichland, caused the desert to bloom with hundreds of millions of dollars in crops. But the basin has been hamstrung by limited storage capacity and annual reliance on a healthy snowpack to provide irrigation water at a time when climate change suggests less snow in the future. What is different about this plan is the support from the Yakama Indian Nation, a key basin player, and environmental groups. The plan also has drawn the interest of U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who visited the basin last fall. During his visit, he encouraged basin interests to submit a list of ideas that could be implemented in the near term. A consortium of nine environmental groups support the plan’s inclusion of new dams, including a larger Bumping and the Wymer reservoir in the Yakima River Canyon, because the plan also contains protections for up to 70,000 acres of land in forest and shrub steppe habitat.
Michael Garrity ofSeattle, representing the conservation group American Rivers, served on the group that devised the plan. Also represented were the Yakamas, farmers, county and state governments and fishery agencies. Garrity said the inclusion of land protection allows theYakimabasin to set a new standard for what a Western water project should look like. “This plan recognizes the need to restore native fish and landscapes that help protect a healthy river,” Garrity said. He added one significant benefit is the chance to make theYakima Riverthe largest producer of sockeye salmon in the lower 48 states, with an estimated 300,000 returning adults possible. Sockeye, a fish prized by native people, went extinct when the natural lakes in the Cascades were dammed in the early 1900s to store water for irrigation. The Yakamas have planted sockeye in Lake Cle Elum as part of a plan to test the ability to get fish out of the lake.
Among conservation groups backing the plan are the Washington Environmental Council, Trout Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Wilderness Society. Other groups like the Sierra Club oppose the storage element, preferring emphasis on water conservation and water banking to meet the basin’s needs. They plan to fight it. Other groups also have questions about the plan’s ability to achieve its goal of assuring farmers a 70 percent supply of irrigation water. Sid Morrison of Zillah, a former state legislator and congressman, heads a group called the Yakima Basin Storage Alliance that favors an interbasin transfer of water from theColumbia River. The alliance is urging the use of wind integrated into the Northwest power grid to pump water into the basin. The benefit the group sees is that wind farm developers could invest private capital to make the plan a reality. Studying an interbasin transfer is proposed, but only if other measures don’t satisfy the basin’s needs over the next 30 years. “We like the plan, but we are frustrated over there not being enough water and now there is no money to go with it,” he said. “We increasingly have concerns that don’t seem to be answered.”
See www.ybsa.org.