The Columbia Basin Project

Uncle Sam seems no different than the rest of us, putting off till tomorrow what could have been done today, and finding out what once was perhaps a large but "doable" project has now ballooned into gigantic proportions and is going to cost an equally large fortune. Plus there always seems to be a "pet" project which draws away our attention and our finances. This rings very true when it comes to the federal government and the Columbia Basin Project, one of the nation's largest irrigation projects, which would have been considered an ambitious yet doable project back in 1943 when Congress first passed the CBP Act. Now in 2010 only a little over half of the originally proposed acreage is actually being irrigated with Columbia River reservoirs, the rest being irrigated with a soon to run dry groundwater aquifer or remains dry-land. Out of the eight proposed expansion and or replacement alternatives now being suggested by the government to remedy the situation only two can be considered remotely cost effective and even then only partially replace much needed water. Which means in another fifty years it could very well be the same thing all over again.