6/10 /08 Updating Water Usage

Updating Water Usage. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The Washington Department of Ecology wants to learn more about how much water is being diverted from the Columbia River above Priest Rapids Dam. According to Joye Redfield-Wilder water users can obtain metering devices to begin reporting their water use. REDFIELD-WILDER: Right now we are looking at offering grants to people who use irrigation water from the Columbia River between Wells Dam and Priest Rapids Dam. The Columbia River Water Management Program has a goal of getting a good idea of how much water we're using from the Columbia River. Irrigation water is used by ag producers all along the Columbia. The measuring process has been taken in phases. REDFIELD-WILDER: The first phase of the program looked at people using water from McNary Dam and up to Priest Rapids and on the Snake River. And we have 70% of diverters participating. We have some good compliance there and now we're just looking to see what the water use is in the north central part of the river. She says that the only way to plan for the future water use is by checking current usage. REDFIELD-WILDER: This is a good way to establish what the use rates are but the main thing is that in order for us to know what our availability for water from the Columbia River, we've got to know how much water we are using now and that will give us a better idea of sort of the supply and demand. What's our demand now, what's our future demand going to be? Producers that want to take part in the metering can get assistance according to Wilder. REDFIELD-WILDER: There's money available to help with metering and measuring devices and so it's an incentive for people to participate. You can go to the Cascadia Conservation District in Wenatchee and make an application. Some people already measure, they just haven't reported. This gives irrigators and water diverters the opportunity to take advantage of this money that the legislature has made available. We're hoping that they will make application by October of this year for this phase and then next year we will take up the northern part of the river. Those dollars total $1-million in grants. For additional information you can visit the Washington State Ecology website. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.