August 7, 2015
CapitalPress.com
7
Drought
‘Extreme drought’ hits Washington
First time conditions
this bad in a decade,
Drought Monitor says
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Almost one-third of Washington is
suffering an “extreme drought,” the first
time the state has reached those condi-
tions in a decade, the U.S. Drought
Monitor reported July 30.
Meanwhile, a slice of Western Or-
egon running north and south through
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
seven coastal counties is also in ex-
treme drought for the first time.
The Yakima River flows through Yakima Canyon between Ellensburg and Selah,
Low streams, parched soils and the Wash., on May 28. The river’s water is in high demand this year due to drought.
risk of wildfires tightened the drought’s
The worsening of conditions was
grip on the West, according to the tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-
drought monitor, a partnership of the ministration and the University of Ne- especially apparent in Washington,
where every region has seen the severi-
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Na- braska-Lincoln.
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
DAVIS, Calif. — A pair of
researchers suggests replen-
ishing vastly depleted ground-
water supplies by flooding
farm fields when the rains
return.
Scientists
Anthony
O’Geen and Helen Dahlke of
the University of California’s
Division of Agriculture and Nat-
ural Resources propose using
some of the state’s 3.6 million
acres of farms and ranches with
suitable topography and soil
conditions to recharge aquifers
during winter months.
Already, many water agen-
cies recharge groundwater by
spreading water on open land
and allowing it to percolate into
aquifers, but dedicated sites for
this type of recharge are scarce,
UC experts say.
While Dahlke is still con-
ducting field experiments to
evaluate how much water can be
recharged in a couple of weeks
and whether all that water would
hurt crops, the researchers be-
lieve they could find enough
farmland to use without disrupt-
ing production.
“(I)f the infrastructure is
present (a big if), there is plen-
ty of suitable land and low-
risk crops that could be used,”
O’Geen told the Capital Press in
an email.
“The scenario we consid-
ered is a managed flood water
application,” he added. Water
managers would apply the wa-
ter as a grower would for flood
irrigation and not allow cata-
strophic flooding of fields, he
explained.
Are the scientists concerned
about losing water to evapora-
tion?
“No, evaporation would be
low during these times of heavy
runoff events,” O’Geen said.
“And even if there was some,
the alternative would be losing
it to the ocean.”
O’Geen, a UC Cooperative
Extension specialist, and Dahl-
ke, an associate professor, have
published a peer-reviewed arti-
cle on their idea in the current
issue of the journal California
Agriculture. The two work in
the Department of Land, Air
and Water Resources.
The study follows warnings
from the UC-Davis Center for
Watershed Sciences that farmers
hit hardest by the drought could
see their wells run dry this year.
More than 1,800 wells around
the state had already gone dry
by the beginning of summer,
according to Craig McNamara,
chairman of the state Board of
Food and Agriculture.
Many growers have re-
sponded by digging deeper
wells.
In dry years, groundwater
can account for more than half
the irrigation water used in Cal-
ifornia, UC researchers say, but
few groundwater basins are ac-
tively recharged.
A rainy winter would replen-
ish some groundwater supplies
anyway, but the researchers’
goal was to find soils best suit-
ed for deep percolation and are
thus capable of accommodating
large volumes of water rapidly,
O’Geen said.
There is no evidence The Blob is
related to the build up of greenhouse
gases and doesn’t appear to have much
influence over precipitation, Bumbaco
said.
There is no firm explanation for be-
low average rainfall in the state, though
the dry spell may partly be a self-rein-
forcing weather patttern, she said.
In 2005, Washington’s last state-
wide drought before this year, 14 per-
cent of state reached extreme drought
status in mid-September and stayed for
approximately three months.
In 2001, until this year generally
recognized as the state’s worst drought
since 1977, nearly 6 percent of Wash-
ington was in an extreme drought
between September and November.
Idaho also saw an increase in the
percentage of the state in extreme
drought, jumping from 7 percent the
week before to 22 percent.
Poll: Americans favor farmers and food during drought
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD
and EMILY SWANSON
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) —
When water gets scarce and the
government slaps restrictions
on its use, who should be first
in line at the spigot? Farmers,
according to an Associated
Press-GfK poll.
The national survey pro-
vides a glimpse into how
Americans think water should
be managed at a time when
abnormally dry weather has
afflicted swaths of the country,
and water shortages in some
states have led to conflict over
who should get water and how
much.
Two-thirds of Americans
believe water is a limited re-
source that can be depleted if
people use too much, the poll
found, and 70 percent believe
that government should restrict
how much residents and busi-
nesses use when drought takes
hold.
When asked to rate the im-
portance of competing needs
when water is scarce, 74 per-
cent said agriculture should be
a top or high priority, followed
by residential needs (66 per-
cent), wildlife and ecosystems
(54 percent) and business and
industry (42 percent).
To Cheryl Hendricks in
parched California, it’s simple:
To put food on the table “we
rely on agriculture.”
“It’s getting kind of serious
when you are not giving water
to people who are producing
food,” said Hendricks, 63, of
Rancho Cucamonga, about 40
miles east of downtown Los
AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File
In this 2006 file photo, a worker adjusts the irrigation system that
borders the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge in
Calipatria, Calif. When water gets scarce and the government
slaps restrictions on its use, farmers should be first in line at the
spigot, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Aug. 3.
Angeles.
She and her husband are
taking shorter showers and re-
moving lawn in response to
California’s four-year drought,
but for growers and ranchers
“it’s more important for them
to have it.”
The poll’s findings appear
to run against criticism of farm-
ing practices that demand vast
amounts of water. In California,
for example, agriculture ac-
counts for 80 percent of all wa-
ter drawn from rivers, streams
and the ground. About half the
water remains in the rivers and
streams for environmental pur-
poses. Producing California’s
almond crop consumes more
water than all the showering,
dish-washing and other indoor
household water use of the
state’s 39 million people.
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Researchers:
Replenish
aquifers by
flooding fields
in winter
ty of the drought increase.
Sections of Western, Central and
Eastern Washington, making up near-
ly 32 percent of the state, is in extreme
drought, one step above severe drought
and one below exceptional drought.
Portions of the state not in extreme
drought are in severe drought. Only
one-quarter of the state was in severe
drought six weeks ago.
Washington State Assistant Clima-
tologist Karin Bumbaco said warm
soils and the poor shape of pastureland
contributed to the downgrading of con-
ditions. She said she believes the per-
centage of the state in extreme drought
will grow. The U.S. Drought Monitor
updates conditions weekly.
A warm mass of water — nick-
named “The Blob” by State Climatol-
ogist Nick Bond — remains anchored
off the coast, heating up the air moving
inland and raising temperatures.
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