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July 24, 2015 CapitalPress.com 5 Drought Yakima Basin reservoirs 78 percent of average Roza Irrigation By DAN WHEAT voirs is tracking at about 25 to 29 percent of average,” he YAKIMA, Wash. — The said. Reservoir releases are at ¿YH PDLQ ZDWHU UHVHUYRLUV RI 117 percent of average for the the Yakima Basin are right year, he said. where the U.S. Bureau of The plan, he said, is to Reclamation wants them to draw down Keechelus and Cle be, given the state’s drought. Elum soonest to allow lower Barring another extended ÀRZVDQGVKDOORZDUHDVLQWKH heat wave, the agency should Yakima River upriver from make it through the irrigation the Teanaway River through season and begin storing wa- Easton and including the Cle ter in the fall and winter for Elum River by mid-Septem- next year, says Quentin Kreu- EHUWRDOORZ¿VKVSDZQLQJ ter, the bureau’s river operator From that point forward, in Yakima. more water is used from Rim- In a normal year, about rock and Bumping lakes to 250,000 to 300,000 acre-feet serve irrigators in the Yakima of water are left in the reser- Valley, he said. The Roza Irriga- voirs at the end of the irriga- tion District, a junior water right tion season in late October to district, hopes to have water to begin storing for the next sea- the end of September. Normally, son, Kreuter said. it goes to Oct. 20 for tree fruit, “In this drought year, our hop and grape growers. target number is 135,000 The Kittitas Reclamation acre-feet,” he said. District, serving a good por- That means if next winter tion of the valley around El- is another dry one, the Yakima lensburg, will quit delivery- Basin will be in big trouble. ing water to growers in early “I don’t want to think August. While the Roza saved about that. We don’t have water early in the season for enough storage for one sea- later, the KRD used water son,” he said. HDUO\IRU¿UVWFXWWLQJ7LPRWK\ $WIXOOSRROWKH¿YHUHVHU- and growers are forgoing a voirs store a little more than 1 second-cutting. million acre-feet of water, but Cooler weather and less there’s 2.2 million acre-feet evaporation the middle week of water rights on the system of July reduced water usage annually, he said. Typically, and enabled the bureau to al- snowpack melt not retained low the KRD, Roza and other in the reservoirs makes up the junior water right-holders 46 difference in spring and ear- instead of 44 percent of av- ly summer runoff. This year, erage water supply, Kreuter there was next to none. Res- said. The bureau likely will ervoir usage began in mid- hold it there unless there’s an- April, two months early. other long, hot streak, he said. As of July 15, Keechelus “That means a lot to farm- Lake, the reservoir along In- ers. It maybe gives them an- terstate 90 just east of Sno- other week of water,” he said. qualmie Pass, was 41 percent At the end of the irriga- full. The other four reservoirs tion season, Cle Elum Lake were: Kachess, 73 percent; could be at 135,000 acre-feet, Cle Elum, 52 percent; Bump- Keechelus at 30,000 acre-feet ing, 83 percent and Rimrock, and Kachess at 50,000 acre- 93 percent. feet, or somewhere around Combined they were at 63 20 to 25 percent for all three, percent of capacity and 78 Kreuter said. Then the push percent of the 30-year aver- will be on to save water for age for this time of year from next year. 1981 to 2010, Kreuter said. “We will tighten up as ³2XU LQÀRZ WR WKH UHVHU- much as we can and hope and District growers get small water bump Capital Press By DAN WHEAT Capital Press Dan Wheat/Capital Press Keechelus Lake Dam near Snoqualmie Pass is shown at 61 per- cent full on June 14. One month later, it was 41 percent full. This LVRQHHQGRIWKHODNHZKLFKLVRQHRI¿YHUHVHUYRLUVVHUYLQJWKH Yakima Basin in Washington state. pray for a wet, cold winter,” reservoirs early. We saw this he said. “What helped this coming. If we hadn’t, we’d \HDUZDVWKDWZH¿OOHGXSWKH have been in worse trouble.” SUNNYSIDE, Wash. — The Roza Irrigation District has increased water deliveries and still hopes to have water for growers through September. The district, serving 72,000 acres of farmland in the Yakima Valley, shut down deliveries from May 11 to June 1 to save water for later in the season. The district normally pro- vides 7.1 gallons of water per minute per acre to growers but this year cut that to 1.8 gallons per minute because of drought. It increased deliveries to 2.7 gallons per minute from June 29 through July 12 and to 3.0 gallons per minute for July 13 through Sept. 12 because of hot weather. It plans to return to 1.8 gallons per minute from Sept. 13 to the end of the month. Normally, the district pro- vides water to Oct. 20, but this year it was hoping to make it to Labor Day, said Scott Revell, district manager. A junior water right holder, the district was cut to 44 percent of normal supply by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the Yakima Basin Irri- gation Project. The amount was increased to 46 percent on July 15 be- cause of cooler weather and less demand. That should give WKH 5R]D DQRWKHU ¿YH WR VHY- en days of water, said Quentin Kreuter, the bureau’s Yakima River operator. “That’s a huge improvement and should help us make the end of September,” Revell said. Jim Willard, a Prosser grow- er and Roza Irrigation District board member, said growers on supplemental wells will make it but growers without wells are hurting. “Some of my neighbors don’t have access to wells and their trees are showing drought stress,” Willard said. He and some of his neigh- bors have kept portions of their operations fallow to have more water for other portions, he said. “Twenty percent of my op- eration is fallow,” he said. 6RPHRILWKDG¿HOGFRUQODVW year and he held off replanting vineyard he wants to transition from one variety of wine grapes to another. “One of my neighbors pushed out about 10 acres of apples. You look at the prices of apples right now and it’s cheap- er to push them out than pick them and get a bill for having them packed,” Willard said. “If you have marginal pro- duction, then it’s a good deci- sion and you can use the water somewhere else,” he said. Crop losses will be substan- tial throughout the district, Wil- lard said. The state Department of Agriculture has estimated drought-related statewide crop losses of $1.2 billion with most of that being in the Yakima, Kittitas and Wenatchee valleys. Willard said his cherries suffered this year from heat and less water. They were about a size smaller than normal and sunburned, he said. “I think wine grapes are surviving fairly well but I’m concerned about my size and quality of my apples,” he said. “Ten days to two weeks of tem- peratures over 100 degrees and apples aren’t growing, just sur- viving.” The internal quality of ap- ples could be “a major prob- lem” in storage this year, he said. “Imagine what you would feel like in 104-degree heat and less water,” he said. “I hate to speak badly, but it’s life and buyers know the situation.” Wenatchee Valley irrigation district reduces water By DAN WHEAT Capital Press PESHASTIN, Wash. — About 400 pear growers in the Wenatchee Valley will receive one-third less water for the rest of the irrigation season because of drought. The reduction is the same as 10 years ago when a board member of the Peshastin Irriga- tion District said it could cause pears to drop one full size, cost- ing growers about $2 million. The district’s 14-mile canal parallels the Wenatchee River to the south and starts at a di- version dam on a river tributary, Peshastin Creek. The canal ends in Cashmere. The reduction in- cludes Tandy Ditch. The district serves 800 users on 4,000 acres and has no water storage reservoirs. About half the customers are pear grow- ers. This season, as in 2005, the Peshastin district will be supplemented by water from the Icicle Irrigation District, which has about 7,500 acre-feet of wa- ter stored in four lakes in the Al- pine Wilderness of the Cascade Mountains. “Peshastin Creek is dropping quickly now,” said Tony Jantzer, manager of both irrigaton dis- tricts. The canal is getting just 31 cu- bic feet per second of water from Peshastin Creek and needs 50 cubic feer per second to operate, Jantzer said. The canal is already getting 15 cfs from the Icicle system, which is all a connecting pipeline will allow, he said. The one-third reduction in water to Peshastin district users, 4.5 gallons of water per minute down from 6.75, will begin the week of July 20 and con- tinue for the rest of the season, Jantzer said. “We hope that’s as far as we have to cut back, but we can’t guarantee that,” he said. “It looks like fruit is two weeks ear- ly. We want to get growers water while fruit is still sizing up.” The Icicle district should have enough water to make it through the season without ra- tioning, he said. Anyone with Dan Wheat/Capital Press Peshastin Irrigation District canal, left, diverts from Peshastin &UHHNULJKWRQ-XO\/RZÀRZVDUHFDXVLQJWKH¿UVWLUULJDWLRQ reduction in 10 years. questions may call him at 509- 433-4064, he said. “Hot weather already re- duced fruit size somewhat. We don’t need another size reduc- tion, but we won’t know until harvest. Pears and apples don’t look as big as they should this time of year,” said Randy Smith, a Cashmere grower served by the Peshastin district. Done with cherry harvest, Smith said he will shift some water from cherry trees, stress- ing them a bit more, to provide more water to pears and apples. ROP-30-3-1/4X “Hopefully, everybody works together and we will be able to still grow the quality-size fruit we need,” said Dick Smith- son, a Peshastin grower and irri- gaton district board member. The Wenatchee Reclama- tion District, serving 9,000 users and 12,500 acres on 34 miles of canal from the Wenatchee River at Dryden through Wenatchee to Rock Island, hopes to maintain a ÀRZRIFIVDQGGRHVQ¶WDQ- ticipate reductions, said Rick Smith, superintendent. 30-2/#4x