The Power of Coordination: Senator Judy Warnick on the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan
Lake Cle Elum.
T
he simplest way to describe the aims of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan (YBIP) is to say that it ensures water for people, fish, and agriculture. However, the means it employs to pursue that goal are diverse. They include dam improvements, water conveyance, and even the preservation of tracts of land for conservation and recreation, like the Teanaway Community Forest. In this interview, Washington State Senator Judy Warnick tells Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about her role in developing the YBIP and how she sees it making a difference in her central Washington district. Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
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in our district. Because of my background in farming and because my district is primarily dependent on agriculture, I asked to serve on the agricultural committee. I have been in either the House or Senate agriculture committees my entire term. Joshua Dill: Where is your district, and how is it affected by the YBIP? Judy Warnick: My district starts in Kittitas County, at the top of the Cascade Mountains, the range that bisects our state, and goes all the way across to Spokane County. It’s a long district that covers two full counties and parts of two more counties and three congressional districts. Lincoln County, in the east of my district, has little irrigation at this point. We are working through another major program, the Columbia Basin Project, to get surface water for the farmers there. Right now, they rely on wells that are depleting the Odessa aquifer. We’re working to find money to get surface water from the Columbia River to them. There’s enough water in the Columbia River for more to be taken out without harming existing users, wildlife, or fish. Kittitas County, in the west of my district, contains the headwaters of the Yakima River. That’s why I got involved in the YBIP—to protect the river and keep irrigation in the Yakima basin viable. About a year after I was elected, in 2007–2008 the Washington State Department of Ecology imposed a moratorium on drilling-permit-exempt domestic wells in the Kittitas County area because of the lack of water. It’s been a difficult few years for finding solutions for water for domestic wells, irrigation, and fish. Joshua Dill: What was your role in developing and passing the YBIP?
PHOTOS COURTESY OF ABHINABA BASU AND ROBERT ASHWORTH.
Judy Warnick: I grew up on a dairy farm with 55 milking cows, which was an average size for the time. Northeast Washington, where I grew up, had no irrigation of any real significance. It wasn’t until I got married and moved to the Columbia basin that I learned about how important irrigation was. The agricultural land in the Columbia basin is dependent on water because it was developed out of sage brush. In fact, the farm that my husband and I now live on and farm or lease out was sage brush when my in-laws bought it back in the 1960s. I never thought I would be in the Washington State Senate. When I was a teenager, I met U.S. Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson. I was very impressed with him. I realized that he was just a regular person who made a big difference in Washington State with his work in the United States Senate. Later on, I was very involved in trade associations, farm associations, 4H, the Future Farmers of America, and business associations. I took a chance and ran for office in 2006 and was elected to the Washington State House of Representatives. I spent 8 years there before running for a position in the Washington State Senate that had opened
Lake Keechelus, seen from the Iron Horse Trail.
