Columbia River Plan Sinking

By Chris Mulick, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.

Dec. 8–OLYMPIA — The Legislature convenes for a short, 60-day session in a month, and a major effort to rewrite state laws governing Columbia River withdrawals is getting dumped on from left and right.

Environmentalists Wednesday released a study compiled by researchers from Texas A&M University arguing that using another 1 million acre-feet of water actually would cost Washington growers $70 million a year, not improve the economy by $200 million a year as a state-sponsored study previously suggested. Environmentalists used it, in part, to justify their strongest statements yet criticizing plans for new water storage projects.

At the same time, Republican legislators continue to fume over the working Columbia River Task Force proposal that would require more water be put into the river for fish than new water taken out for people.

Lawmakers also have to weigh the possibility Democrat Gov. Christine Gregoire would push a bill through the Democratic-controlled Legislature without help from Republicans if negotiators can’t agree on a bill they can present together.

“Don’t want to go there, but we’ll have to ask ourselves that question if we don’t have a task force bill,” Jay Manning, director of the state Department of Ecology, said Wednesday to wrap up a closed-door meeting with legislative and interest group negotiators.

The environmental lobby has yet to fully embrace the process, originally called the Columbia River Initiative when started by former Gov. Gary Locke. That’s despite the fact proposals to date would go further than the controversial no net loss proposals introduced during the Clinton years, actually putting more water back into the Columbia River.

Environmentalists certainly did not make the case for the legislative effort by releasing a new report Wednesday indicating a University of Washington study commissioned by the state “substantially overestimated” the positive effect new withdrawals would have on the state economy.

The study commissioned by American Rivers indicated additional farm production would decrease commodity prices and actually drain the economy to the tune of $70 million a year, even if new withdrawals benefited farmers who were allowed them.

“What’s good for one producer isn’t necessarily good for all producers,” Gary Williams, professor of agricultural economics at Texas A&M, said during a morning conference call with reporters.

The Department of Ecology won’t argue the merits of one study over the other, spokeswoman Joye Redfield-Wilder said.

“That was under the Locke administration, and we’re under a new look at this,” she said of the UW study.

Though the environmental lobby previously had shown some willingness to consider new storage, a component of the now renamed Columbia River Task Force, “we don’t believe the case for that has been made,” said American Rivers Regional Director Rob Masonis.

Otherwise, “we have always been on record saying we’re excited about this process,” he said.

The latest proposal being mulled by legislators provides pathways for firming up interruptible irrigation rights while providing water to farmers dependent on the declining Odessa Aquifer.

But when it comes to issuing new water rights, there is much for Republican legislators to dislike. An earlier plan requiring three buckets of water be put back in the river for fish for every two new buckets drawn out for people has been taken off the table. But the latest version still requires more water be put back in the river than is taken out.

The agency believes such a standard is required to make new withdrawals legally defensible and any bill cementing the proposal in law politically viable. Manning indicated there’s not much room to scale that back further.

“Our political calculus was bucket for bucket mitigation wouldn’t be enough,” he said Wednesday.

But that concept runs counter to Republican objectives. They continue to dismiss any notion the river is overappropriated.

“There is plenty of water in the Columbia River,” Moses Lake Sen. Joyce Mulliken snapped during a Senate briefing this week.

Sunnyside Sen. Jim Honeyford, an influential voice on water matters among Senate Republicans, said Wednesday that he’s not convinced there’s much basis for moving a bill forward.

Of course, Democrats could try to run a bill through the Legislature without bipartisan support if it came to it. But it’s not clear they would be willing to push the issue so far.

“I definitely don’t want to go forward with this with Democrats inflicting this on Eastern Washington,” said Sen. Erik Poulsen, a Seattle Democrat and chairman of the Senate Water, Energy and Environment Committee, urging the group to stick together.

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