Reservoirs Full
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. With all the talk about drought again this year, and a lack of snowpack in the mountains, why is nobody really talking about the fact that the reservoirs are currently filled to capacity?
Cliff Mass, Atmospheric Sciences professor at the University of Washington, says that should be a big help headed into summer …
MASS … “All of the Yakima chain, they’re all very full. So, with starting like this, so extraordinarily high, and the fact that we do have some snowpack, it’s not that we don’t have, we don’t have zero, and there’s no major heat waves that we see in the foreseeable future, I don’t see why we’re going to be in trouble.”
For whatever reason, Mass says someone wisely decided to save more of the water this year …
MASS … “In any reasonable extrapolation and we’re okay. I mean there’s all this simple-minded talk, oh, we need the snowpack and how important the snowpack is, well that’s fine, but if you fill the reservoirs up beforehand, this high, then it changes the story. No one wants to talk about it, but clearly somethings going on here.”
With snowpack as the problem, and not precipitation, Mass says there’s a pretty simple answer …
MASS … “You know, it would be nice to build more reservoirs. I mean, if you’re worried about this problem, we need more reservoir capacity up here. People have been talking about that for a while too. It’s the obvious solution to the problem.”
Mass says more storage space for the precipitation we do get in the winters to come would help.
