07/11/08 Looking At More Water

Looking at More Water. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Water is always an issue, especially for parts of Eastern Washington. A number of areas have experienced drought conditions over several years and the Washington Department of Ecology is looking into the issue according to Dept. of Ecology spokesperson, Joye Redfield-Wilder. REDFIELD-WILDER: The state is looking into some different ways of providing water in the Yakima Basin. The bigger storage study that came out in January but based on some comments received there; there was an indication by some major players that we should look at some other alternatives. Part of the issue was the limited scope of the earlier study. REDFIELD-WILDER: The storage study done by the Bureau of Reclamation was pretty much limited to storage. That was the mandate from Congress and under the state environmental policy act we are charged to look at all reasonable alternatives and in the comment period people recognized that there are some concerns about Black Rock or they think that there's some other things we can look at. There is an open comment period until July 30th on the issue and it is important that future needs are considered. REDFIELD-WILDER: One of the goals is to assure that there is a good water supply for irrigators and there's water for the future for cities and industry and also a big factor is to support fisheries. In this day and age in order to move forward with projects they're going to have to be balanced projects that meet the needs of cities, farms and fisheries and meet tribal needs as well. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.