Yakima, Washington — Water managers in the arid Yakima River Basin in central Washington know what the battle for water looks like their counterparts along the Colorado River are fighting now . They know what a desperate situation looks like while drought, climate change, population growth and agriculture shrink water supplies to critical levels.
They understand the conflict between the seven states of the Colorado Basin, unable to agree to plans for drastic reductions in water use demanded by the federal government to avert disaster.
But ten years ago, the Yakima Basin water manager tried something else. Fed up with spending more time at the court than at the conference table, and faced with studies showing the situation would only get worse, they turned to the Yakima River and its tributaries to ensure a steady supply of water. developed a plan to manage it for the next 30 years.
While the situation isn’t quite in line, some Western water experts point to the Yakima Project as a model for the kind of collaborative effort Colorado needs now. .
“It will require an unprecedented level of cooperation,” said Maurice Hall, vice president of climate-resilient water systems at the Environmental Defense Fund. The plan for the Yakima Basin “is the most complete example of what we need that I have seen.”
Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat who worked on the Yakima Basin and other water issues for years before being elected to Congress in 2021, said the plan was a “science-based collaborative effort.” It represents the best of the process.”
“This is a successful model that engages science and stakeholders,” she said.
But it started with a strong sense of hopelessness.
Climate change and repeated droughts have wreaked havoc on water supplies to irrigation managers and farmers in the Yakima Basin, one of the country’s most productive agricultural regions. Conservationists were concerned that habitats were being depleted and species were being threatened. Old dams built to hold water blocked the passage of fish and largely eliminated the trout and salmon eaten by the indigenous peoples. Yakamanation It has been harvested for centuries. Drought has cut water allocations for many farms.
Years of legal battles had left everyone frustrated: in 2008, proposals for costly new dams and reservoirs that favored some groups over others did not help .
Ron Van Gundy, manager of the Roza Irrigation District at the southern end of the basin, went to see Phil Rigdon, the head of the Yakama Nation’s natural resources department. The two have been fighting for years, mostly through their lawyers. Both opposed the dam, but for different reasons.
“I was in a conference,” Rigdon said in an interview. “And he said, ‘Hey Phil, can I talk to you?’ rice field. Our lawyers would probably freak out if we did.
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The two met and eventually joined other stakeholders to develop a plan for better management of the river. After several years of give and take, the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan was completed. This is the blueprint for ensuring a reliable and resilient water supply for farmers, municipalities, natural habitats and fish, even as warming continues and droughts may increase. .
Ten years into the planning, tens of millions of dollars worth of projects designed to meet these goals, including canal linings and other irrigation efficiency improvements, increased reservoirs, and removal of barriers to fish, are on the rivers. It is done upstream and downstream.
Joe Blodgett, Yakama Nation’s fisheries project manager, said, “It’s been great to see so many different agencies with different interests all coming together and recognizing that we can’t just focus on the agenda. It’s a collaboration.
Now, there is a similar sense of desperation among users in Colorado, hundreds of miles to the south and east.
With the river’s two major reservoirs at all-time lows, the federal government is slashing consumption for the seven states that use the Colorado River next year by up to one-third of the river’s normal annual flow. , calls for reductions by staggering amounts. And beyond 2023, climate change will continue to hit rivers, necessitating long-term reductions in water use.
All cuts often have to be negotiated between states that have fiercely protected their share of river water. These shares were originally negotiated during a wet period a century ago.
The state has negotiated several significant agreements over the years, including one that provided for cuts based on the water level of Lake Mead in lower Colorado. This was done for the first time last year. But the demand for much bigger cuts is a result of persistent tensions between the upper basin states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming and the lower basin states of California, Nevada and Arizona. We are putting the spotlight on the full and above users.
The state missed the mid-August deadline to negotiate next year’s cuts. The federal government has effectively given them more time, but is threatening to intervene and order cuts.
The Yakima Basin is much smaller than Colorado, with a population of 350,000 compared to 40 million, who depend to varying degrees on Colorado’s supplies. While the watershed’s agricultural land is important (among other things, it produces about 75% of the country’s hops that flavor countless beers and ales), agricultural production along Colorado is much larger.
A tributary of the Columbia River, the Yakima River is only 210 miles long, one-seventh the size of Colorado, and is in one state, not seven and Mexico. In addition to the Yakama, 30 indigenous peoples have access to Colorado’s waters.
All of this has caused some Colorado water managers to wonder if the Yakima Project could serve as a model.
“The Colorado River is orders of magnitude more complex and challenging than the Yakima River,” said Jim Rockhead, CEO of Denver Water, which supplies drinking water to the city and surrounding communities. “This makes it very difficult to get a group of stakeholders to sit down and agree on a grand solution.”
But those familiar with the Yakima plan say that the plan’s basic principles of shared sacrifice and cooperation between often hostile groups apply everywhere.
“You can’t have everything everyone wants,” said Thomas Tebb, director of the Columbia River Office of the State Department of Ecology. “But if they can get something, that’s really the foundation of the plan.”
The Yakima River has a long history of abuse, dating back to early white settlers who arrived after a treaty was signed between the federal government and the Yakama people in 1855. Rivers and their tributaries were dammed, diverted, and irrigation systems built. Water scarcity quickly became a problem, especially in dry years, resulting in decades of conflict among users.
As in Colorado, there have been previous efforts to ensure a steady supply, especially following the droughts of the 1930s and 40s. In 1977, after another severe drought, state and federal officials developed a “watershed enhancement” plan to try to improve fish passages.
But that wasn’t enough. For one thing, the drought persisted, says Urban his Everhart, who grew up on a basin farm and now manages the Kittitas Drought District in the north.
“We started having three droughts in a row, not one of these,” he said.
In 2010, the Federal Recycling Agency set out to study the basin to see what it would look like if the world continued to warm. The findings of this study were the impetus for the development of the plan.
“What we went through between 1977 and 2009 was nothing compared to where we were headed,” says Everhart. I became more aware of the need for decisive action. “We will not be able to recognize this economy and ecosystem if we do not act.”
With so much information to discuss, planning meetings were intensive and time-consuming, Everhart said. But it had its advantages. Pressed for time, participants took breaks and lunch together.
“Suddenly, all of us who were very suspicious of each other started talking, which turned into friendship, trust and respect,” he said.
Yakama Nation’s Rigdon said that is likely not the case now, but the project has broad support, even from groups that may not have benefited as much from the project. Challenges remain, he said. And they are no longer opposite sides. ”
The fruits of these relationships are found throughout the basin, typically in projects that serve multiple purposes and benefit multiple stakeholder groups.
In the Yakama irrigation districts, construction of irrigation canals and improvement of dams are being carried out to save water and improve the habitats of fish.
In his irrigation district, Mr. Everhart led a successful effort to replenish fish by using canals to replenish dried-up streams.
Several projects are under construction to increase water storage to survive the dry season. And in Yakima City itself, the Nelson Dam, an old diversion dam on a tributary stream, has been removed and replaced with a channel designed to allow both fish and boats to pass through, redistributing sediment through the river system and All continuing while reducing flooding. Divert water for city needs.
“We’re not doing one thing. We’re doing something that meets everyone’s standards,” said George Brown, the city’s deputy public works director. “Then everyone will agree.”