Major study shows major impact of water on Valley

YAKIMA, Wash. -- The great unknown -- the effect water wells across the Yakima River Basin are having on the Yakima River -- is now known.

In a nutshell, it's a lot.

Put it this way. Wells take an amount equal to one quarter of what was flowing in the Yakima River on Tuesday.

What that ultimately means for farmers, fish and potential new development across the Yakima and Kittitas valleys is yet to be determined.

But it almost certainly raises questions about whether the state Department of Ecology will issue new well permits without first requiring they be offset by acquiring an existing surface water right.

The approach, known as mitigation, stirred anger and controversy when it was ordered last year in upper Kittitas County, where unmigitated wells have been banned because of uncertainty about their impact on senior water rights and streamflows. The ban, coupled with the crippling effects of the recession, effectively stopped landowners from building cabins or homes.

The impact of well use is contained in a long-awaited 11-year study by the U.S. Geological Survey that was released Tuesday.

The more than $7 million study concludes wells, whether for agriculture, cities, or rural homeowners, is having an effect on senior irrigation water rights and those of the Yakama Nation.

How the study's results play out, however, will likely depend on whether new storage for irrigation can be developed.

A group of farmers, tribal officials, fish managers, state and local officials, environmentalists and others are trying to craft a solution by year's end that improves fish passage and habitat, offers aquifer storage and provides a way to buy and sell water.

The long-awaited USGS study estimates wells intercept 200 cubic feet per second of water that would have reached the Yakima River by the time it reaches its confluence with the Columbia River at Richland.

Had the state Ecology Department approved nearly 900 pending basinwide well applications 15 years ago, the impact would be magnified by 50 percent, or a total of about 300 cubic feet per second.

One cubic foot per second of water equates to 448 gallons per minute.

The largest percentage of private wells are for rural homes. Such wells don't require a state permit to drill, but they can be shut off during a drought.

U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist Mark Ely told some 45 people gathered to hear the report that exempt wells account for about a quarter of the water that never makes it to the Yakima River.

Other conclusions are that pumping has caused declines in deep wells in the Saddle Mountain and Wanapum aquifers, but is less pronounced in the deepest aquifer, the Grand Ronde.

Declines on the magnitude of 75 feet have occurred in some deep wells in the Moxee Valley and Central Yakima Valley, south and west of Toppenish.

Regulators are trying to digest the study's results, which are called the most comprehensive look at groundwater in any basin in the country.

A final report, due out by early next year, will include a model that state and federal agencies can use to make decisions about new uses.

"It will be useful as we move forward into the future to make management decisions," Mark Schuppe, regional Ecology Department water resources supervisor, said following a 90-minute presentation of the study at the Yakima Area Arboretum. "We just have to figure out how we use it."

The agency's overall program manager for water resources in Olympia, Ken Slattery, called the report sobering.

In a news release, Slattery said the report adds urgency to efforts to solve the basin's water problems.

"Groundwater pumping and depletion of this magnitude means there's less water available to meet federally mandated target streamflows and the irrigation delivery obligations in the basin."

Yakama Nation reaction to the study, in the same news release, was more blunt.

The study confirms the connection of groundwater to surface water and that wells are hurting senior rights, it said.

"Any new pumping of groundwater would do more of the same. This impairment of the Yakama Nation's water rights cannot continue or increase. A permanent solution is needed to either stop the groundwater pumping or obtain mitigation to our satisfaction for that junior use," tribal deputy director of natural resources Phil Rigdon said in the release.

The Yakama Nation has the most senior rights in the basin, a time immemorial right to water for fish.

Wendy Christensen, technical projects program manager for the federal Bureau of Reclamation, applauded the Geological Survey team for the report.

"This is a tool we can use to make decisions about the basin," she said.

The study is a result of a 1999 agreement involving the bureau, the Yakamas and Ecology. The trio agreed to finance the study to resolve a lawsuit the Yakamas filed over the issuance of new agriculture well permits in the Black Rock Valley, east of Moxee.

Ecology placed a moratorium on all new wells, excluding exempt wells, while the study was conducted.

* David Lester can be reached at 509-577-7674 or dlester@yakimaherald.com.