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Status
of 208
explained
Governor Atiyeh's proposal stresses
voluntary compliance, local control
By Dick McElligott
Governor Victor Atiyeh has announced
his preference that the Soil and Water
Conservation Commission be designated the
statewide program management agency to
meet the goals of improved water quality
from agricultural non point sources. He
prefers a program with a high degree of
voluntary compliance, on site planning
implementation and, if necessary, enforce
ment done at the local level.
The Governor's emphasis is on leadership
at the state level to encourage and assist
landmanagers in utilizing available financial
and technical assistance to do a better job of
conservation on a voluntary basis,
The Department of Enviromental Quality
(DEQ) will probably retain the designation as
lead agency for all water and air quality
problems. The Program Management
Agency would have the authority to contract
out some specific functions to other agencies,
such as chemical and pesticide monitoring to
the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
Our method of meeting water quality
standards is to be accomplished by the
installation of "economically feasible," best
management practices. It is recognized that
adequate cost sharing is needed to make
many effective practices economically feas
ible. Public Law 92-500 called for broad public
participation in planning both at the local
level and at the state level. At the state level
this led to the recommendations of the Policy
Advisory Committee to the DEQ, which have
been pretty generally accepted by the
Governor and by many key members of the
legislature. Where we have active water
quality committees in the state there appears
to be good acceptance by the local county
commissions.
The Soil and Water Conservation Com
mission budget is before the ways and means
committee at this time and there appears to
be support for increased funding to activate
local water quality committees on a statewide
basis and provide for district staffing in some
priority areas.
There are still policy decisions to be made
on which water quality problems should be
addressed first. This will be a continuing
problem both at the state and local level.
Funds to do necessary work will be limited
and hard decisions will have to be made on
which alternative would be the most cost
effective.
Precious resource-water-in good supply
now; needed for summer
The snowpack in our higher elevations
will most likely generate good stream flow in
our creeks and major channels this spring.
Many creeks have already overflowed their
natural channels with water spreading out
onto the valley lands in some cases creating
problems of erosion and deposition of debris
onto hay or pasture lands. Most likely many
hours of labor will be used in the cleanup
process or removing the debris from the
fields and perhaps shaping some areas where
erosion has taken place.
Water, a very precious resource, some
times becomes a problem and an expense, yet
how often have we thought about having some
of this "problem water" available to us for
irrigation during the dry summer months? If
we could have irrigation water available
during those summer months we could
add an approximate 1.5 tons of hay per acre to
our yield; on pasture for livestock another 30
days of grazing could be expected.
Maybe the way to accomplish this extra
production and income would be to store a
portion of this "problem water" in an
off-channel reservoir. Fill the reservoirs with
water during early spring runoff and reserve
the stored water until creek flows in the
summer have stopped. Then by using water
stored in the reservoir the extended irrigation
period can begin. If the storage reservoir is
large number of acres are involved it may be
advisable to think about additional reser
voirs.Selection of an upland site for the
Should a second look be given to
irrigation storage reservoirs?
designed and built to hold the maximum of 9.2
acre feet of water as allowed by the state,
what will this quantity mean to you in terms
of acres that can be irrigated? It will be
enough water to apply 5 inches on twenty two
acres of hay or pasture land. In cases where a
reservoir may also allow for gravity flow
irrigation and a significant reduction in
power costs.
Considering all alternatives, perhaps an
irrigation storage reservoir is worth a second
look!
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