March 15, 2010 in City

New pipeline in basin has room to grow

Project symbolizes compromise on water

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OTHELLO, Wash. – The federal government is doing what until recently had been unthinkable for the Columbia River: building a new stretch of pipeline so more river water can be used for irrigation.

The small amount of water that initially will flow through the line near Othello won’t solve the region’s irrigation problems. But the Seattle Times reports that many growers see it as a critical first step for their farms’ survival.

Others fear the pipe’s large capacity means the state and federal governments are committing to huge new withdrawals from the river before the money has been found and the full environmental effects are known.

The $25 million, 1.7-mile pipeline in Central Washington is possible because of a hard-fought compromise among lawmakers, farmers and some environmentalists. It will have the ability to carry large amounts of water from the Columbia, though such withdrawals are still being studied.

Farmers contend the river has plenty of water and taking more simply requires timing and creativity. The federal government and state plan to link the initial small diversion to new releases from Lake Roosevelt behind Grand Coulee Dam, which some environmental groups agree could help both farms and fish.

“The primary purpose of this is just to maintain what we have,” said Mike Schwisow, an Olympia lobbyist who represents water users.

Others say that with a major aquifer in the area drying up and climate change and growth threatening to intensify water demand, it might be time to rethink what crops are grown there.

“I don’t think they should spend public money on a pipeline to nowhere,” said Rachael Paschal Osborn, director of the Center for Environmental Law and Policy in Spokane. “I think that a lot of farmers need to accept that they may have to revert to dryland farming.”

Potatoes are a huge crop in the region – the state’s No. 2 crop behind apples and a half-billion-dollar-a-year business. If potatoes don’t get enough water, they can turn out deformed and wind up rejected by processors.

Some farmers have switched to dryland wheat or low-water crops like canola, but the gross value of those crops can be 10 percent of what they can earn growing potatoes.

Thousands of farmers in the Columbia Basin get most of their water from the river, but some still draw water from an aquifer that is declining in some places by dozens of feet a year. By one estimate, about 40 percent of wells are in serious decline.

The Columbia Basin Irrigation Project was to be built in phases, but financial and environmental costs stalled construction in the 1980s. By then, more people had claims to the river’s water than it could supply.

Proposals to bring far more water to the region may be on the way.

“Some people have said you don’t need a pipe that big, and the answer, of course, is ‘absolutely not,’ ” said Jim Blanchard, with the Bureau of Reclamation. “But you don’t build two miles of little itty-bitty pipe just to get a little bit of water. When you build a facility out here, you build it to its next logical size.”

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