April 14, 2017
CapitalPress.com
5
Gov. Brown declares drought over, issues conservation orders
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
SACRAMENTO — Gov.
Jerry Brown Friday declared
an end to California’s fi ve-
year drought while proposing
new long-term water conser-
vation measures that must be
passed by the Legislature.
Brown rescinded two
emergency proclamations he
made in 2014 as well as four
drought-related executive or-
ders in 2014 and 2015, but he
maintained water reporting
requirements and prohibitions
on what offi cials consider
wasteful practices, such as
watering during or right after
rainfall.
“This drought emergency
is over, but the next drought
could be around the corner,”
Brown said in a statement.
“Conservation must remain a
way of life.”
The drought emergency
was lifted in all counties ex-
Associated Press File
In this photo taken May 18, 2015, irrigation pipes sit along a dried
irrigation canal on a fi eld farmed by Gino Celli near Stockton, Calif. On
Friday Gov. Jerry Brown declared California’s fi ve-year drought over.
cept for Fresno, Kings, Tulare
and Tuolumne, where emer-
gency drinking water pro-
grams will continue to take
pressure off depleted ground-
water supplies.
The State Water Resourc-
es Control Board will con-
tinue to enforce urban con-
trols, including reporting
requirements, and the state
will continue to respond to
an unprecedented bark beetle
outbreak in drought-stressed
forests that has killed millions
of trees, the governor’s offi ce
stated.
Meanwhile, the state De-
Horticulturist appointed director
of OSU’s Mid-Columbia center
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
HOOD RIVER, Ore. —
Veteran horticulturist Steve
Castagnoli is the new director
of Oregon State University’s
Mid-Columbia Agricultural
Research and Extension Center
in Hood River.
Castagnoli has worked at
the center since 2000, and is
well known among the area’s
pear and sweet cherry grow-
ers. His appointment comes
after a tumultuous couple years
in which three key people re-
signed, including the previ-
ous superintendent. Tree fruit
growers hope the center will
stabilize and resume research
projects that were interrupted
when the people conducting
them left.
“I’m very supportive of
Steve’s appointment,” said
Mike Omeg, a cherry grower in
The Dalles who also sits on the
Capital Press board of direc-
tors. “He understands the tree
fruit industry in the Mid-Co-
lumbia real well.”
But Omeg warned that
Castagnoli has stiff challenges
ahead of him, including “staff
and funding issues that are pro-
found.”
The center has seen signif-
icant turnover. Horticulturist
Todd Einhorn, who was doing
what growers consider import-
ant dwarf root stock research
on pears, left to work on apples
at Michigan State University.
Entomologist Peter Shearer,
who had been the research cen-
ter superintendent, resigned in
2016; he was among the Pacif-
ic Northwest’s key researchers
on spotted wing drosophila
and brown marmorated stink
bugs, two damaging pests.
Preston Brown, who managed
the center’s 55-acre experimen-
tal farm, also quit. And Brian
Tuck, whom Castagnoli re-
placed, rotated back to his post
as regional administrator of
Extension in Hood River and
Wasco counties.
partment of Water Resources,
Department of Food and Ag-
riculture and other agencies
will push for legislation to
establish long-term conserva-
tion measures and improved
planning for future droughts.
Among the measures
would be a requirement for
agricultural water suppliers to
submit plans on how they’ll
increase water use effi ciency
and develop adequate drought
plans, and improved drought
planning for small water sup-
pliers and rural communities.
“California’s farmers and
ranchers practice conserva-
tion every day,” CDFA secre-
tary Karen Ross said. “They
are prepared to continue in
that spirit in adherence to
groundwater regulations and
the adoption of more effi cient
irrigation systems.”
California was prompted
to review its “drought status”
after the DWR’s latest man-
ual snow survey on March 30
found a season-high snow-wa-
ter equivalent of 46.1 inches in
the Sierra Nevada near Lake
Tahoe, or 183 percent of aver-
age for this time of year, agen-
cy spokesman Doug Carlson
told the Capital Press.
Brown’s new executive or-
der on April 7 came as a win-
try storm softened already sat-
urated ground, brought wind
gusts of up to 62 mph and
knocked out power to more
than 40,000 Pacifi c Gas and
Electric Co. customers in the
San Francisco Bay area, The
Associated Press reported.
Up to 3 feet of new snow was
expected in the Sierra Neva-
da, according to the National
Weather Service.
Northern California leg-
islators and water district of-
ficials had urged Brown to
declare the drought’s end, cit-
ing the winter’s deluges and
heavy snowpack. The gover-
nor’s executive orders man-
dating continued, long-term
water savings were appropri-
ate, “but this power should
not be abused,” state Sen. Jim
Nielsen, R-Gerber, said in
February.
State water regulators had
been hesitant, noting that
some Central Valley commu-
nities still depend on trucked
and bottled water and that
groundwater — the source of
at least one-third of the sup-
plies Californians use — will
need more than one wet win-
ter to be replenished in many
areas.
The long-term measures
proposed by Brown pleased
environmental groups, some
of which issued statements
supporting the measures. Nat-
ural Resources Defense Coun-
cil senior water policy analyst
Tracy Quinn argued that the
near-failure of a spillway at
Oroville Dam demonstrated
the vulnerability of the state’s
water system and reinforces
the need for effi ciency.
Find the Cream
of the Crop...
Irrigation district may seek Bureau of Reclamation assets
Area in
detail
By DAN WHEAT
KENNEWICK, Wash. —
The Kennewick Irrigation
District is looking into getting
title to its canals and other as-
sets as it nears the 2022 payoff
of a 66-year, $5 million lease-
loan from the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation for construction
of the infrastructure.
The federal agency has
done about 30 similar title
transfers across the nation in
the past 20 years and the pro-
cess can take up to 15 years,
said Charles Freeman, KID
manager.
“We hope to have a staff
recommendation to the board
on whether or not proceed by
the end of the year and if we
go forward to have it done by
2022,” Freeman said.
A title transfer would give
the district direct control over
the assets, remove a layer of
bureaucracy for customers
and would divest the USBR of
responsibility, maintenance,
regulation and liability for the
assets, Freeman said.
District staff will try to de-
termine if there are any ben-
efi ts of not seeking title, he
said.
District ratepayers have
been paying off the zero-in-
U.S.D.E.
HANFORD
240
SITE
395
Richland
82
Pasco
124
Kennewick
221
Kennewick
Division
14
WASH.
82
Ri
ver
Capital Press
Col umbia
ORE.
Umatilla
Hermiston
730
N
84
10 miles
Capital Press graphic
terest, lease-loan for 66 years
as part of their annual assess-
ments, he said.
The KID board approved a
resolution March 7 directing
staff to explore title transfer.
Board President Gene
Huffman, Freeman and Seth
Defoe, district land and wa-
ter resources manager, talked
with the staffs of the USBR,
U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse and
Sens. Patty Murray and Maria
Cantwell recently in Wash-
ington, D.C., while attending
a National Water Resources
Association conference.
“Reception has been pos-
itive. KID staff will engage
regional stakeholders and
partners as it works through
the process to ensure a title
transfer benefi ts the commu-
nity, the river and other stake-
holders,” Freeman said.
Determining the current
value of assets will be one of
the tasks of the process, he
said.
Assets include more than
100 miles of canals and later-
als, a diversion dam at Prosser,
three fi sh ladders and screens,
two pumping plants, a power
plant with two, six-megawatt
hydro turbines and a switch-
yard.
The KID, referred to as the
Kennewick Division by the
USBR, is one of several irri-
gation districts served by the
USBR through the Yakima
Basin Project’s fi ve mountain
reservoirs, the Yakima River
and canals.
The KID has 23,000 cus-
tomer accounts and serves
20,201 acres with water that
is returned to the system from
the other districts upstream
and diverted at Prosser.
The district serves mostly
orchards but also provides
water to vineyards, alfalfa
and blueberry fields from
Prosser to Finley and a lot
of residential and commer-
cial lawns in Kennewick and
Richland.
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