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CapitalPress.com
July 24, 2015
Drought
Skagit County irrigation districts on half rations
Advocate feels
mix of gratitude
and frustration
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
CONWAY, Wash. — In a
normal year, Skagit County
farmers draw irrigation water
from the West Coast’s third
largest river to supplement
rain and wells.
Rain this year has been
scarce for several months, and
the river is flowing at a record
low level. Water deliveries
to farmers with interruptible
rights have been curtailed to
protect fish, wildlife and scen-
ery.
Farmers in two irrigation
districts, which serve rough-
ly 15,000 acres near where
the river empties into Puget
Sound, will get about half the
water they need, said Bran-
don Roozen, executive direc-
tor of the Western Washing-
ton Agricultural Association,
advocates for the region’s
growers.
Roozen says he’s resigned
to not obtaining more water
transfers from senior right
holders. “I don’t anticipate
making any more progress,”
he said. “When we need the
river the most, we don’t have
access.”
The water shortage in
northwest Washington, where
tractors are known to bog
down in mud in June, reflects
the growing severity of the
state’s drought.
Through unprecedented
water transfers, Irrigation
Districts 15 and 22 have been
able to obtain for administra-
tive costs 6.4 million gallons a
day from the city of Anacortes
and Skagit Public Utility Dis-
trict, which have senior rights
to the river.
Roozen said farmers need
12.5 million gallons a day. He
said he’s grateful to the city
and PUD, but also frustrated.
“The reality is, it’s just not
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Steve Elde, a Skagit County farm manager and irrigation district
commissioner, clears debris away from a pump that draws water
from the Skagit River to irrigate crops. Farmers are allowed to turn
on the pump for two six-hour intervals each day.
enough,” he said.
Skagit County farmer
and dairyman Jason Vander
Kooy said he lost pasture to
the drought, but he still has
groundwater and access to a
municipal waterline. “Over-
all, it’s not a complete disas-
ter,” he said.
Farmers had their wa-
ter rights curtailed because
the river is flowing at below
10,000 cubic feet per second
through Mount Vernon, a few
miles upriver from the irri-
gation districts. On Monday,
the river was flowing at 7,600
cubic feet per second. The
previous record low for the
date was 8,340 cubic feet per
second, set during the 1977
drought.
Too keep the river from
dropping lower, the irrigation
districts can only pump three
hours before and after high
tide — a total of 12 hours a
day. Once the pumps are shut
off, the water recedes in ditch-
es and never reaches some
land.
Roozen calculates that if
the districts were allowed
to pump around the clock to
draw one-quarter of 1 percent
of the river, farmers would
have their water. He questions
what harm it would cause and
argues that the water would
sustain the valley’s agricultur-
al base.
“We’re the last possible
use for freshwater before it
turns to salt,” he said. “We
wouldn’t even scratch the
surface of taking water from
there.”
Skagit PUD General Man-
ager Robert Powell said he
sympathizes, but the PUD and
city had to be mindful that
24-hour pumping could have
invited challenges to any wa-
ter transfer. The river has long
been the subject of litigation
among county residents, the
Washington Department of
Ecology and the Swinomish
Tribe. The tribe in 2013 won
a court ruling stopping ecol-
ogy from reserving water for
future use by farms, homes,
businesses and industries be-
cause the uses might impair
minimum instream flows.
Powell said 12-hour a day
pumping was a compromise.
“Can we help? Yep. Is it going
to be everything everybody
wants? No.”
DOE approved the water
transfers, and the agency’s
Northwest region director,
Tom Buroker, said he was im-
pressed that the city and PUD
stepped up to help agriculture.
He also said he understood the
frustration of farmers as they
watch the river roll past.
“It’s an unfortunate situa-
tion. Hopefully, this is not the
new normal,” he said.
Northeast Washington declared California proposes historic
federal drought disaster area
$1.5M fine for taking water
Region once seen
as well positioned
for summer
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Northeast Washington, once
a bright spot in assessing the
state’s drought picture, was de-
clared July 15 a federal disaster
area by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
The five counties — Okan-
ogan, Ferry, Pend Oreille, Spo-
kane and Stevens — cover
13,000 square miles between
Idaho and the Cascade Range.
Eight counties in south-central
and southeast Washington were
previously designated drought
disaster areas on June 24.
“We’re doing late-August work
in the middle of July,” Stevens
County rancher Ted Wishon said.
“It’s hard to maintain your program
when you’re lacking in water.”
Some 41 percent of the state
has now been declared primary
federal disasters areas. Produc-
ers in counties that border di-
saster areas also are eligible to
apply for federal drought relief,
including low-interest loans.
Northeast Washington’s wa-
ter supply outlook last spring
was favorable compared to the
rest of the state. The Upper Co-
lumbia snowpack, though be-
low average, was much higher
than elsewhere in Washington.
Watersheds in the region were
generally expected by state and
federal officials to have more
than 75 percent of normal sum-
mer water supplies.
The area was not included in
the state’s first drought declaration
in mid-March, and most of the
region was also not included in a
second declaration a month later.
The region, however, went
through heat waves and re-
ceived little spring rain. The
U.S. Drought Monitor classified
all or portions of the five coun-
ties as being in a severe drought
beginning May 19, just after
Gov. Jay Inslee declared a state-
wide drought emergency.
“The weather pretty much
just changed it,” said Okanogan
County Farm Bureau President
Jon Wyss. “There’s a reason
farmers don’t go to Las Vegas.
Every morning they wake up
and roll the dice.”
By FENIT NIRAPPIL
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif.
(AP) — California regula-
tors on Monday proposed a
first-of-its-kind, $1.5 mil-
lion fine for a Central Valley
irrigation district accused of
illegally taking water during
the drought.
It would be the first such
fine against an individual or
district with claims to water
that are more than a centu-
ry-old, known as senior wa-
ter rights holders. Entities
with those rights have long
enjoyed immunity from cut-
backs.
The fine reflects the ris-
ing severity of California’s
four-year drought that has
prompted the state to de-
mand cutbacks from even
those who have been histori-
cally sheltered from manda-
tory conservation.
The State Water Resourc-
es Control Board said state
data showed the Byron-Beth-
any Irrigation District in the
eastern San Francisco Bay
Area diverted water from
a pumping plant even after
it was warned in June that
there wasn’t enough legally
available.
The district serves 160
farming families in three
counties in the agricul-
ture-rich Central Valley and
a residential community of
12,000 people.
It has sued the state over
the board’s June warning to
immediately stop taking wa-
ter because the watershed
was running too dry to meet
demand. The district esti-
mates its farmers will see a
$65 million loss in crops that
include cherries, walnuts
and grapes.
District general manager
Rick Gilmore said he did not
know a penalty was coming
and wasn’t aware of the de-
tails. The water that the state
Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press
In this photo taken July 15, 2015, water flows down a canal near
Byron, Calif. The California State Water Resources Control Board
said it’s proposing a fine of $1.5 million against the Byron-Bethany
Irrigation District for allegedly taking water from a pumping plant
after it was warned that there was not enough water.
believes was taken might
have been supplemental sup-
plies purchased by the dis-
trict, he said.
Andrew Tauriainen, a
prosecutor for the water
board, said there was no in-
dication the district had been
taking such supplemental
water from other sources be-
fore the alleged diversions
began.
The board has sent out
more than 9,000 notices
across the parched Central
Valley warning of short wa-
ter supplies. Unexpected
rainfall in Southern Califor-
nia over the weekend hasn’t
affected enforcement.
State inspectors have
conducted about 1,200 in-
vestigations in the past year
but only took action on two.
Officials say Byron-Bethany
was targeted because it was
publicly defying the board
and diverting water.
State officials anticipate
cracking down on more dis-
tricts and individuals this
summer.
“Our resources are some-
what limited here, and we are
taking our cases as we can
get them and as we can de-
velop them,” Tauriainen said.
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Byron-Bethany has 20
days to request a hearing be-
fore the water board to con-
test the fine, although it’s
unclear how long it could
take to resolve the case.
The maximum penalty the
five-member board could as-
sess is $5 million, depending
on how the water was used.
The water board issued a
cease-and-desist order last
week against the West Side
Irrigation District to imme-
diately stop taking water.
That district also had filed
a lawsuit challenging the
board’s cuts, but the state
says it’s not retaliating
against the agency.
Courts have not settled
the question of whether the
board has authority to de-
mand cuts from farmers,
cities and individuals with
California’s oldest claims to
water.
Until policy changes take
effect next year, senior rights
holders must only report wa-
ter use every three years and
aren’t required to meter con-
sumption.
They have strong incen-
tives to fight any state-or-
dered curtailments because
they will likely see similar
cuts in future dry years if
they yield in this drought,
said Jeffrey Michael, an
economist at the University
of the Pacific in Stockton.
Meanwhile, some users
keep drawing water despite
warnings by the state board.
The San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission intends
to continue diverting water
for city-operated Camp Ma-
ther near Yosemite Nation-
al Park unless it receives
a cease-and-desist order,
spokesman Tyrone Jue said.
Board officials said they
could not confirm if San
Francisco was under investi-
gation over the matter.
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