Grant will support further study of water storage options

YAKIMA -- A fast-track effort to find what has been an elusive answer to a shortage of water in the Yakima River Basin is getting a major infusion of money.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation has announced a $1.3 million grant to support a work group that is trying to come up with a comprehensive plan to add water storage, improve fish passage, fish habitat and water conservation.

The grant, announced Thursday, will be matched by state funds. The Legis-lature approved the money earlier this year.

The work group has been meeting since June and hopes to come up with a plan that will have congressional and legislative support before the end of the year.

Participating in the effort are agriculture water users, the Yakama Nation, resource agencies, environmental groups, and local elected officials.

The work group was formed after the Bureau of Reclamation ended a five-year study that concluded that none of the new storage reservoirs studied, including the huge Black Rock reservoir, were viable.

The storage study was only the latest in decades of studies on how best to met water needs in the basin.

Dawn Wiedmeier, acting area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation in Yakima, said the money will help generate information needed to support the developing plan.

"What is difficult to determine is how all this fits together and how that would translate into the amount of water in the river," she said. "The money will help us with hydrologic data gathering."

Derek Sandison, director of the state Department of Ecology's Office of the Columbia River, said the data will help confirm the final plan is a solution to water shortages and meeting fishery needs.

"A lot of the modeling is to help support the decision-making to make sure the final package will pass muster," he said.

The work group next meets Wednesday at the Yakima Area Arboretum.

The federal grant is the largest of three announced Thursday. The others went to the Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study, $1 million; and a study of two river systems in Montana, $350,000.