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CapitalPress.com
June 12, 2015
Drought
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Legislation
that permits water right trans-
fers by Klamath basin farmers
has been approved by Oregon
lawmakers. Supporters say it
will provide fl exibility during
chronic water shortages.
Senate Bill 206, which
allows such leases and trans-
fers before water rights in the
regional are adjudicated in
court, was approved by the
House on June 4 after earlier
passing the Senate and now
awaits Gov. Kate Brown’s
signature.
While water rights in the
Klamath Basin have been
quantifi ed by state regulators,
the legal adjudication process
is still pending, which has
prevented growers from mak-
ing transfers.
Aside from shifting lim-
ited water among growers,
transfers let farmers dedicate
water to in-stream uses for
environmental benefi ts with-
out risking a forfeiture of their
water rights, said Greg Add-
ington, executive director of
the Klamath Water Users As-
sociation.
“Et’s another tool we’re
able to use, not just in drought
years,” he said.
Lawmakers also recently
passed companion legislation,
Senate Bill 264, which autho-
rizes Oregon water regulators
to oversee a water agreement
among tribes and irrigators in
the Upper Klamath Basin.
Both pieces of legisla-
tion have drawn fi re from
opponents of a controver-
sial proposal to remove four
hydroelectric dams along
the Klamath River, which is
meant to improve its hydro-
logic function.
Opponents fear that dam
removal will release built up
toxic sediment. They also say
it will deprive local govern-
ments of tax revenue.
Idaho coping with ‘snow drought’
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
BOISE — Idaho water
experts are using the term
“snow drought” to describe
the state’s water year to date.
Since the start of October,
precipitation has been near
normal across Southern Eda-
ho, including in the Owyhee,
Bruneau, Salmon Falls, Oak-
ley and Upper Snake basins.
But far too little moisture has
fallen as snow, and unseason-
ably warm winter and early
spring temperatures prema-
turely melted low- and medi-
um-elevation snowpack.
Many major reservoirs are
nearly full following a May
that brought 250 percent of
average monthly precipita-
tion to parts of Southern and
Eastern Edaho, according to
the fi nal USDA Natural Re-
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Crops are irrigated in Aberdeen, Idaho. The water year has brought
much of Idaho about normal moisture, but far too little of it fell as
snow, leading to drought concerns for many irrigators.
sources Conservation Service
moisture report of the season.
The Boise reservoir system
is now 93 percent full, and
Jackson Lake and Palisades
Reservoir in the Upper Snake
system have 125 percent
of their average fi ll to date.
Salmon Walls Creek Reser-
voir and Magic Reservoir
water managers were able
to shut off irrigation fl ows
during much of May and
accumulate more storage, to
the point that Salmon Walls
returned to its seasonal peak
storage volume.
Before May, Lyle Swank,
watermaster of the Upper
Snake water district, said
many users were concerned
about running out of water
before finishing even their
grain crops.
“E don’t think you have
that same concern any
more,” Swank said.
Nonetheless, more of
Edaho has been added to a
drought map as May precip-
itation largely missed North-
ern Edaho, which received
40 to 60 percent of its nor-
mal monthly moisture, and a
lack of mountain snowpack
has natural flow forecasts
ranging from 20 to 70 per-
cent statewide.
Tim Dillin, who farms
in Bonners Werry, said his
grain and hay have matured
two weeks early due to hot
and dry weather in Northern
Edaho. He was concerned
the dryness would harm his
spring wheat, until a time-
ly rain arrived at the end of
May.
Ron Abramovich, Eda-
ho’s NRCS water supply
specialist, said 55 of the 137
snow survey sites in and
around Edaho would nor-
mally retain snowpack by
this time of year, but only
16 sites still had snow as of
June 1. Abramovich antic-
ipates shortages will occur
in the Oakley, Salmon Falls,
Owyhee, Big Wood, Little
Wood, Big Lost and Little
Lost basins.
“Our money supply in
terms of stream flows isn’t
there this year,” Abramov-
ich said, adding minimal
inflows into reservoirs this
summer will result in low
storage carryover into next
year.
Willamette Basin’s dam, reservoir system studied
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
With drought and changing
precipitation patterns on the
minds of farmers and ranchers,
an ongoing study of the Willa-
mette River Basin’s dams and
reservoirs is taking on a new
urgency.
One of the key issues to be
answered in the Willamette Ba-
sin Review is how much water
agriculture really needs — or
wants.
“That is indeed the ques-
tion,” said Jim Johnson, land use
and water planning coordinator
for the Oregon Department of
Agriculture.
The study is a joint project
of the Oregon Water Resourc-
es Department and U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, and it could
ultimately result in Congress
being asked to re-allocate water
stored behind 13 dams in the
Willamette River drainage sys-
tem.
The Corps of Engineers
owns and operates the dams and
reservoirs. The projects were
built for fl ood control, irrigation,
power production, navigation,
wildlife and other purposes, but
it’s water for agricultural use
that is getting close attention.
Another federal agency, the
Bureau of Reclamation, holds
the water rights certifi cates for
the entire conservation storage
Willamette Basin
dams and
reservoirs
Willamette River
Basin study area
N
26
20 miles
1. Big Cliff
2. Detroit
3. Green Peter
4. Foster
5. Blue River
6. Cougar
7. Hills Creek
8. Cottage Grove
9. Dorena
10. Lookout
11. Fall Creek
12. Dexter
13. Fern Ridge
Source: U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation
Alan Kenaga/
Capital Press
Portland
101
Willa
mette R
Klamath
water
transfer
bill awaits
governor’s
signature
iver
26
5
Salem
1
Albany
Corvallis
4
13
8
101
available in the Willamette sys-
tem. The certifi cates authorize
1.64 million acre-feet of stored
water for irrigation annually, but
less than 5 percent of it is used.
Meanwhile, growing cities and
industrial users can’t get at the
remainder. The Willamette Ba-
sin, running roughly 120 miles
south from Portland to Cottage
Grove, holds about 75 percent
of the state’s population and is
growing rapidly.
5
3
20
5
Eugene
11
12 10
9
2
6
7
97
But agriculture is big in
the Willamette Valley as well,
growing about 170 crops and
accounting for more than 40
percent of the state’s gross farm
sales, according to a 2013 Wa-
ter Resources Department draft
report.
Johnson and others point
out that a signifi cant amount
of farmland in the valley isn’t
irrigated and potentially could
be used to grow higher-value
crops if farmers could turn on
the sprinklers. That capability
should be taken into consider-
ation when deciding future wa-
ter allocations, Johnson said in
an email.
“We have a great deal of
acreage in the Valley that has
greater potential if water could
be made available,” he said.
Climate change is a big part
of the discussion. In the Pacifi c
Northwest in recent years, win-
ter precipitation has arrived as
rain rather than snow. This year,
meager mountain snowpacks
have already melted, according
to federal hydrologists.
The WRD draft report says
that may be the new normal.
Scientifi c models indicate the
Willamette Basin is headed for
warmer, wetter winters and hot-
ter, drier summers. The average
temperature is projected to in-
crease by 2 to 7 degrees Celsius
over the next century, and the
Cascades snowpack will de-
crease by 60 percent, according
to the report.
Melting snow traditional-
ly provides up to 80 percent of
the Willamette River’s fl ow in
late summer, but that fl ow is ex-
pected to decrease by 20 to 50
percent as the mountain snow-
packs diminish, according to the
report.
“The area’s reliance on
high-elevation water during
summer months highlights
the vulnerability of the Willa-
mette Basin to the infl uences
of a warming climate,” the re-
port concludes. “Water stored
in the Willamette Basin Corps
Reservoirs is viewed as the
last remaining supply of water
for meeting future needs, both
in-stream and out-of-stream
needs.”
The changing patterns al-
ready play havoc with reservoir
operators. This year, despite
near normal precipitation in
some areas, water levels in the
Willamette Basin reservoirs are
51 percent of normal because
the peak snow melt runoff oc-
curred before operators began
refi lling reservoirs.
Corps of Engineers spokes-
man Scott Clemans said he’s
heard some people question
why the Corps doesn’t begin
refi ll operations in December or
January instead of waiting until
Webruary.
The reason is that the dams
were built primarily for fl ood
control, Clemans said, and the
risk from fl ooding must be ac-
counted for throughout the win-
ter months.
Clemans said there are likely
to be “wilder and wider swings”
in refi ll operations as climate
change takes hold.
The Corps and state Water
Resources Department are ex-
pected to fi nish a report to Con-
gress in three years.
Washington climatologist already foresees warm winter
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A strengthening El Nino
suggests Washington will
have another warm winter,
possibly deepening the state’s
drought, State Climatologist
Nick Bond said Monday.
“The odds are for a warm-
er and drier winter overall,”
he said. “And a lower than
normal snowpack at the end
of it.”
Climatologists for several
months this year saw a weak
El Nino, a warming of the
Pacifi c Ocean that often pres-
ages a mild Northwest winter.
After dipping in some places
in April, sea temperatures in-
creased in May, according to a
report Monday by the Nation-
al Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
The agency now says
there’s a 80 to 90 percent
chance that El Nino condi-
tions will persist until at least
the end of the year, up from
a 50 to 60 percent chance in
early March.
“There no question it’s out
there, and it’s honking,” said
Bond, a University of Wash-
ington research meteorolo-
gist. “There’s almost no doubt
it will be there the remainder
of the year.”
This could be good news
for California, which typi-
cally receives soaking winter
rains during El Nino years.
But Washington can ex-
pect only near normal pre-
cipitation to go with higher
temperatures, a repeat of the
2014-15 winter.
A second straight mild
winter could build on hard-
ships, particularly for irriga-
tion-dependent farmers in the
Yakima Basin and the Olym-
pic Peninsula rain shadow
who rely on melting snow to
keep river levels up.
El Nino’s greatest effect on
temperatures and precipita-
tion typically occurs between
January and March, according
to NOAA. The El Nino may
have weakened by then, Bond
said. “That’s the silver lining
to this.”
Bond called “last win-
ter mostly a fl uke” as warm
weather kept snowpacks
small, even though rainfall
was near normal or above av-
erage in most of Washington.
By mid-spring, rain-fi lled
Yakima River reservoirs were
full and held about 1 million
acre-feet of water. But with-
out melting snow to replenish
the reservoirs, the U.S. Bu-
reau of Reclamation has esti-
mated that by Oct. 1 the res-
ervoirs will hold only 110,00
acre-feet, instead of the usual
320,000, creating a defi cit
heading into the winter.
Melting snow from the
Olympic Mountains normal-
ly keeps the Dungeness Riv-
er high enough for farmers to
draw from, even as salmon
migrate upstream to spawn.
This summer, the river is ex-
ROP-23-2-2/#5
Another low snowpack could pile on drought hardships
24-2/#4X
pected to fall to record lows,
possibly forcing mandatory
cutbacks on irrigators.
En May, temperatures
were above normal across
Washington, according to the
state climatologist.
NOAA predicts above av-
erage temperatures between
June and August for Wash-
ington, Oregon, Idaho and
California.
The agency forecasts be-
low average rainfall in West-
ern Washington and north-
west Oregon. The rest of
Washington and Oregon, as
well as California and most
of Edaho, have equal chanc-
es of above or below normal
precipitation, according to
the agency.