12 CapitalPress.com
July 8, 2016
Butterfly
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to make a decision, depending
on whether the Center for Biolog-
ical Diversity iles new lawsuits
related to ESA deadlines, or ob-
tains additional “remedies” in such
litigation.
The agency had found in 2014
that substantial evidence indicated
that a threatened or endangered list-
ing may be warranted for the mon-
arch, but did not make a inal deci-
sion within a year, as required by
ESA.
Populations of the butterly de-
clined roughly 90 percent over the
past two decades, which the environ-
mental groups attribute to the popu-
larity of glyphosate-resistant biotech
crops.
These crops have increased the
prevalence of glyphosate, which is
highly effective at killing the milk-
weed that monarchs depend on for
food at the larval stage, according to
the plaintiffs.
If the species does gain ESA
protection, environmental groups
may push for federal requirements
that farmers set aside reserves of
non-biotech crops, reducing glypho-
sate usage.
normal federal water, growers
without senior water rights on
the San Joaquin Valley’s west-
side have remained at 5 percent.
Shasta Lake was still at 86
percent of capacity and 107
percent of its average as of June
30, according to the state De-
partment of Water Resources.
Lake Oroville, the State Water
Project’s chief reservoir, was at
84 percent of capacity and 102
percent of average on June 30,
the agency reported.
“We will be going into the
end of September with a pret-
ty good carryover number in
Shasta, which is good,” the
Bureau of Reclamation’s Hunt
said. “We haven’t had that in
several years. We’ll be able to
carry over more water than we
had in the reservoir last year in
October, and that’s a positive
sign.”
— Tim Hearden
Irrigators in Idaho’s Eastern
Snake Plain have been rapidly
exhausting their storage this
summer due to a combination
of early peak natural lows and
a hot, dry June.
The system’s natural lows
peaked weeks ahead of normal
in mid-May this season due to
an early melting of the moun-
tain snowpack.
June brought just a pittance
of moisture to Southern Ida-
ho. According to the National
Weather Service, Idaho Falls
experienced its driest June on
record, getting just 0.05 inches
of rain.
The Boise area was a bit
wetter, though still unseason-
ably dry with 0.18 inches of
rain.
According to USDA Nat-
ural Resources Conservation
Service, the entire state has re-
ceived below-normal precipita-
tion since April 1.
“It will mean less carry-
over,” said Lynn Tominaga,
executive director of Idaho
Ground Water Appropriators
Inc. “If there’s less carryover
in the reservoir system it means
we’re going to be dependent on
Mother Nature to have a big
winter so that we get the reser-
voirs illed.”
Lyle Swank, watermaster
for the water district that en-
compasses the Upper Snake
region, said the Eastern Snake
Plain received a slightly be-
low-average winter snowpack,
and the reservoir system never
quite illed. Streamlows for
the Upper Snake at the Heise
gage are projected at 83 percent
of normal for the period from
April through July, about 5 per-
cent less than last year.
“We didn’t get quite as much
runoff as some of the forecasts
were indicating,” Swank said.
Swank said the system’s
nine major reservoirs are now
69 percent full, compared with
80 percent for the date during
a typical year. American Falls
Reservoir is at just 47 percent
of capacity.
“That’s surprising to some
people how fast it’s going
down,” Swank said. “A lot of
times, June is one of the wetter
months, but that hasn’t been the
case.”
Swank said some of the
water users — such as Burgess
Canal, which serves the Rigby
and Ririe areas north of Idaho
Falls — are renting supplemen-
tal storage water. Other users,
including those with water
rights in the most junior reser-
voirs — Palisades and Island
Park — may have to shift wa-
ter from grain and hay to inish
high-water crops such as corn
and potatoes.
Tominaga said Snake Plain
well users have been pumping
nonstop to meet irrigation de-
mand since the start of June,
though many managed to delay
irrigating until the end of May
due to a wet spring. Tominaga
believes grain crops may be
ahead of schedule thanks to the
heat, and an early harvest could
lesson demand for storage wa-
ter.
Other regions of the state
are faring better. In the Boise
Project, for example, managers
had to release water to free res-
ervoir space to accommodate
an above-average snowpack,
and reservoirs are still about 87
percent full, which is about av-
erage, said NRCS water supply
specialist Ron Abramovich.
Boise Project streamlows
are projected at 92 percent of
normal for April through July,
compared with 53 percent of
normal during the same period
last year.
In Western Idaho, Owhyee
Reservoir irrigators, who have
coped with severe shortages in
recent years, should have an
adequate supply for this sea-
son, Abramovich said. Owyhee
Reservoir is at 54 percent of
capacity, which is 79 percent
of average, but is still having its
best water year since 2012.
Jay Chamberlin, general
manager of Owyhee Irriga-
tion District, said his mountain
snowpack melted early and
soaked into dry soil, but a wet
spring helped delay irrigation
demand. His growers will be
allotted their full 4 acre-feet for
the entire season, but he doesn’t
anticipate much carryover.
“We have quite a few crops
that have high water demands,
and we’ll be able to meet that
water supply for them,” Cham-
berlin said.
The state’s best runoff fore-
casts are in the Bruneau Basin,
which is 147 percent of normal,
Salmon Falls Basin, which is
130 percent of normal and Oak-
ley Basin, which is 97 percent
of normal.
— John O’Connell
low,” not actively farmed.
“It may be fallow at this
time, but if you build on it, it’s
gone,” Salzer responded.
The current development
proposal covers familiar
ground about a lack of land
for economic development.
A bill introduced in the 2015
Oregon Legislature would
have allowed Clackamas,
Washington and Columbia
counties to designate industri-
al reserves of up to 500 acres
outside of established urban
growth boundaries, but it died
in committee.
This time, Clackamas
County is going it alone and
apparently will work through
Metro.
Clackamas, Washington
and Multnomah counties,
which include the greater
Portland area, agreed in 2010
to designate urban and rural
reserves. Urban reserves will
be considered irst when the
urban growth boundary is ex-
panded for houses, stores and
industries. More than 265,000
acres in the three counties were
designated as rural reserves,
meaning they would remain as
farms, forests or natural areas
until 2060.
“The facts on the ground
have changed dramatically
since the original reserves
adoption,” the Clackamas
commissioners said in a letter
to Metro, “prompting the need
for corresponding changes to
reserve designations. We can-
not pretend that those chang-
es didn’t happen, or allow the
matter to be dismissed as sim-
ply a change in leadership.”
Water
CONTINUED from Page 1
Here is a round-up of the
water situations in the West:
Oregon: Below
average
Despite an adequate accu-
mulation of snow over winter,
streamlows are well below av-
erage across much of Oregon.
In some cases, streamlows
have reached record low levels
that are worse than during last
year’s drought, according to the
Oregon Water Resources De-
partment.
All of Oregon’s river basins
are experiencing substandard
streamlows, ranging from
about 78 percent below average
in the Umatilla Basin to 43 per-
cent below average in the Grand
Ronde Basin. Statewide stream-
lows were 57 percent below av-
erage last month.
Snow and rain levels in Ore-
gon were normal in early spring
but abnormally high tempera-
tures in April dealt the state’s
water outlook a major setback,
said Scott Oviatt, Oregon snow
survey supervisor for the USDA
Natural Resources Conservation
Service.
Mountain snowpacks melt-
ed faster, with none left as the
state’s irrigators entered the
summer, Oviatt said.
“All the sites melted out,” he
said. “That peaked our stream
lows two to four weeks early.
Everything’s been moved up on
the time clock.”
Trees have also absorbed
more moisture to compensate
for last year’s drought stress,
making even less water avail-
able to streams, he said.
Irrigators who draw their
water directly from streams are
likely to see shortages, but those
who rely on reservoirs may also
experience problems because
storage is no longer being re-
plenished, Oviatt said.
Many Oregon reservoirs
were boosted by the early snow-
melt but they’re also being
drawn down earlier, so levels
could end up as low as in 2015,
according to the department.
In the Willamette Valley,
reservoirs are about 54 percent
full on average. Other areas
of the state are seeing a broad
range of reservoir levels —
Henry Hagg Lake, which sup-
plies the Tualatin Valley Irriga-
tion District, is 88 percent full,
while the Clear Lake reservoir
in Southern Oregon is only 24
percent full.
On the whole, reservoir
levels are adequate and an im-
provement over 2015, but parts
of Oregon are nonetheless fac-
ing drought again this year, said
Jim Johnson, the Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture’s land
use specialist and water plan-
ning coordinator.
“We don’t have the longer
term storage in snowpack due
to the warm spring,” he said.
— Mateusz Perkowski
Washington:
Manageable
Washington state’s irriga-
tion water supply is in relative-
ly good shape compared with
last year’s drought, but it could
be better.
Statewide, April and May
were the warmest those months
have been since 1950, said
Marti, the drought coordinator
for the Department of Ecology.
The result was the most
rapid melt of mountain snow-
Farmland
CONTINUED from Page 1
being adjacent to Portland
remains one of Oregon’s top
ive agricultural counties. The
county is particularly known
for growing Christmas trees,
nursery crops and berries.
But it’s also known for
political contention — some
Portlanders derisively call it
“Clackastan” — and for op-
position to Metro, the land-
use planning agency for the
tri-county Portland area. The
current county commission
chair and vice chair, John Lud-
low and Tootie Smith, are gen-
erally viewed as favoring job
growth and development over
land-use restrictions.
The commissioners point
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Falls Creek Falls dumps into the Upper Snake River near Swan Valley. The combination of early peak lows and hot, dry weather has
placed strong demand on storage water this season.
pack in 30 years. Water man-
agers normally rely on a grad-
ual snowmelt to replenish the
state’s reservoirs as they are
drawn down for irrigation.
The early snowmelt has
caused water usage to be cur-
tailed to approximately 600
junior water right holders
throughout the state, Marti said.
Most are individuals along
the following rivers: Walla
Walla, Touchet, upper Yakima,
Okanogan, Methow, Chehalis
and Nooksack. Also included
are the Little Spokane Basin
and Cow, Charmokane and
Harvey creeks north of Spo-
kane.
More users and districts
along the Yakima, Wenatchee
and Entiat rivers could experi-
ence water shortages in August
and September, he said.
However, two weeks of cool
weather and showers in June
helped slow the decline in con-
ditions.
As of June 30, 37 percent of
the state’s rivers were lowing
below normal with 1 percent
at record lows. That is an im-
provement over last year, when
80 percent of river lows were
below normal and 40 percent
were at record lows, Marti said.
Weather seems more normal
in comparison to the excessive
June heat a year ago, said Chris
Lynch, U.S. Bureau of Recla-
mation hydrologist overseeing
the Yakima Basin Project. The
project includes ive mountain
reservoirs and the Yakima Riv-
er providing irrigation water to
464,000 acres of farmland. It
Growers in California are
breathing sighs of relief after
a federal agency decided last
week not to drastically reduce
water releases from Shasta
Lake.
The National Marine Fish-
eries Service had proposed re-
ducing summer lows from the
Central Valley Project’s center-
piece reservoir by more than 20
percent to make sure there is
enough cool water for the win-
ter salmon run.
But U.S. Bureau of Recla-
mation oficials said releases
that federal and state resource
agencies agreed on in March
would be maintained as long as
water in the Sacramento River
stayed at 56 degrees or lower.
The plan released June 29
“includes a bunch of moni-
toring and checking to see if
we’re on track,” said Shane
Hunt, a bureau spokesman in
Sacramento. He said releases
from Keswick Reservoir west
of Redding would be increased
from 9,000 cubic feet per sec-
ond to 10,500 cfs by about
July 9.
The decision came after 15
members of California’s con-
gressional delegation sent a
letter urging federal oficials
not to cut the releases because
it would mean further cuts in
water supplies for farmers. The
lawmakers said the proposed
decrease would deprive the
CVP of about 400,000 acre-feet
of water “for which crops have
already been planted, loans
have already been issued, prod-
ucts ordered and habitat man-
agement plans implemented.”
While farm groups and wa-
ter contractors were relieved
that supplies wouldn’t be cut,
some complained about the
time it took for the federal
agencies to reach agreement
on the latest plan and the sense
of uncertainty that lingered for
growers.
“The real problem is the
process,” said Joel Nelsen,
president of California Citrus
Mutual.
Though farms north of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta were slated to get their
full allocations this year, water
availability remained a top con-
cern for rice farmers heading
into this year’s crop, according
to a survey by University of
California researchers.
The Sacramento River Set-
tlement Contractors complain
that current releases from Shas-
ta Lake are still 20 to 30 percent
less than previous years.
The complaints underscore
the fact that while winter rains
and snow improved Califor-
nia’s overall water picture,
water in many areas remains
scarce amid a ifth straight year
of drought.
For instance, while Friant
Division customers ended up
getting about 75 percent of their
to an economic study by a con-
sulting irm, Johnson Econom-
ics and Mackenzie, that said
the county is short between
329 and 934 acres of indus-
trial land and up to 246 acres
of commercial land, an overall
shortage of up to 1,180 acres
over the next 20 years.
The conservation district,
however, has some concerns.
The acreage south of Wilson-
ville involves land adjacent
to the Aurora Airport and
Langdon Farms golf course.
It has long been proposed for
development by its owners,
while farm groups and land-
use watchdogs oppose devel-
opment spreading into prime
Willamette Valley farmland.
The acreage next to the
city of Canby is Class 1 ag-
ricultural soil, some of the
best farmland in the valley,
said Jim Johnson, the Oregon
Department of Agriculture’s
land-use specialist.
The conservation district
is alarmed at the prospect of
losing more farmland, said
Salzer, the general manager.
“This is remarkable,” he
said. “It’s the irst time this
board has stood up as a unan-
imous body and said, ‘Wait
a minute. Farmland is being
threatened and we need to do
something about it.”
Jeff Becker, the conser-
vation district’s board chair,
said the board doesn’t want
to antagonize the county com-
missioners but simply wants
to promote discussion of the
issue.
“We don’t want to ire
darts,” Becker said. “We don’t
want to attack their policies. I
know they get pressure (from
all sides).”
But Becker said issues such
as food supply need to be con-
sidered when development is
discussed.
“If you get rid of farmland,
it’s gone forever,” he said.
The county commissioners
had questions and comments
for Salzer when he delivered
the conservation district’s letter.
Commissioner
Ludlow
said any development on the
land in question would be
years out. “We’re 1,100 acres
short of job-producing land,”
he said. Commissioner Smith
said farming requires a “whole
host of behaviors” that young
people don’t want to engage
in, and said much of the land
under consideration is “fal-
Corn is irrigated in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Streamlows across
the state are generally below average, and some are at record low
levels, affecting surface water irrigators. Reservoir levels are gen-
erally adequate but may suffer because of the lack of snowpacks.
was hardest-hit in last year’s
drought.
The reservoirs at the end of
June had been drawn down just
7 percent, or 75,000 acre-feet of
the 1,065,400 acre-feet of wa-
ter, which Lynch said is normal.
Major irrigation diversions
were running at 6,334 cubic
feet per second, which is aver-
age and water supply for junior
water right districts was still
estimated at 86 percent of av-
erage. At that rate, the Kittitas
Reclamation District and Roza
Irrigation District, the two larg-
est junior water right districts,
hope to make it through the
season unscathed.
Last year, they made severe
cuts in water delivery at 47 per-
cent of normal supply, which
cost millions of dollars in crop
losses.
— Dan Wheat
California: Improves
Idaho: Outlook varies