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Department of Ecology News Release - December 12, 2007
07-366
SPOKANE - Two watersheds that cover a huge area of southeastern Washington now have approved plans to guide how water is managed in the Palouse and Middle Snake watersheds. The next step is to put those plans into effect.
In 1998, the Legislature passed the Watershed Planning Act to set a framework for addressing the state’s water-availability and water-quality issues as well as establishing minimum stream flow requirements to protect fish and wildlife habitat and existing water rights.
The Legislature recognized that developing local watershed plans serves vital state interests, but local people have the greatest stake in the long-term management of their water resources. To that end, local “watershed planning units” were formed.
The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) has awarded and administered grants to each watershed planning unit to support the planning process and provide technical expertise.
Both the Palouse Planning Unit and the Middle Snake Planning Unit began their work in 2002.
The Palouse watershed is located primarily in Whitman County but spans into Adams, Lincoln, Spokane counties. County commissioners in these four counties voted to adopt the plan at a joint commissioners meeting in Colfax on Nov. 26, 2007.
“Citizens in the Palouse watershed have substantial surface water and groundwater challenges,” said Mimi Wainwright, who represents Ecology on the planning unit. “Now these communities have provided Ecology with guidance to help us make difficult water-management decisions.”
The Palouse Watershed Planning Unit and the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee have worked several years to collect and analyze data on the declining levels in the local aquifer system, especially in the Pullman/Moscow area where the cities depend on a sustainable source of groundwater. These basalt aquifer systems are not uniform and are difficult to study.
The Middle Snake watershed is spread primarily over Asotin and Garfield counties, but is also located in much of Columbia County and in a portion of Whitman County. The commissioners of the four counties formally adopted the watershed plan late in the summer at a joint meeting in Pomeroy.
The primary components of the Middle Snake Watershed Plan include a commitment from the watershed to support the Snake River Salmon Recovery Plan, and a plan to study and recommend setting minimum stream flow levels.
“Balancing community agricultural and municipal needs for the future will be challenging for both watersheds as they develop water management tools,” Wainwright said.
Now that the plans are adopted, Ecology has committed $300,000 to the Middle Snake Planning Unit to pay for a hydrogeologic study in the watershed to better understand groundwater and surface water relationships. The planning unit also will develop a detailed implementation plan within the next year that will serve as a “roadmap” to implement the plan.
The Palouse Planning Unit is pursuing funding to learn more about the area’s unique groundwater challenges and to explore water-storage opportunities. The planning unit also is working with the city of Pullman and Washington State University to get funding to complete a water-reclamation and reuse study.
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Media Contact: Jani Gilbert, communications, 509-329-3495; cell, 509-990-9177
For more information: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/watershed/index.html
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
