More On Water Issues

Darryll Olsen with the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association says an open letter directed at the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District Board of Directors is aimed at getting some action done.

OLSEN: What we're expecting is that the board should be saying we need to talk to these people. Let's bring them in and discuss the proposal and sit down and basically say how would this work. The district does not have any money. They're broke. They're not going to get any subsidies, that's not going to happen. There's no where to go. This is all stuck.

He says they remain open to a litigation settlement with the ECBID Board to allow for private construction of new surface water delivery systems from the East Low Canal.

OLSEN: We've talked about doing it with them as a turnkey operation. They have operational control and we're hoping that if they want to stop the litigation, if they want to get out of the litigation mode and get something done, they'll call us in to talk about this as a settlement.

The open letter will be published as an ad in a number of NW newspapers this week. Olsen reiterates that there is no state or federal funding available for the project.

OLSEN: Why are you asking for more money when you have a bunch of privates here that want to pay for this and we've already demonstrated that there's more desire by the privates, there's more acreage that will come in and we'll get this thing built than if you continue to horse around with the districts normalization program which nobody's signing up for and trying to go back and beg for money.

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.