Water and Potatoes Pt 1
I'm Bob Larson. Water challenges are nothing new to parts of Eastern Washington, but a new study shows some shocking economic news for potato farmers. Matt Harris with the state Potato Commission says the study they commissioned through Washington State University confirmed their suspicions about the Odessa aquifer ...HARRIS ... "What came out of this was really shocking, and we knew this anecdotally. But, this is great to have pen put to paper and have an economic study look at what's happening, is the water availability and quality is decreasing to a point where we have actually seen a 25 % reduction in acres in the Odessa sub-area."
Harris says further loss of water would have a huge economic impact ...
HARRIS ... "If you had a short-term loss of say water in the Odessa, you would see a $37-million economic impact. That's the short-term. And that would cover around 11-hundred jobs that would no longer be supported. Long-term effects of not having this production region available, you could see potato processing in this entire system, that regional output, you could see reductions up to $138-million and over 3-thousand jobs."
Harris says this would be the result if the current Odessa surface water development project stalls financially.
The area includes Adams, Franklin, Grant, and Lincoln counties.
Listen tomorrow for more on the study and the long-term impact.