Cory Wright presents Washington State Representative Kim Schrier with a framed thank you for her work.
Cory Wright: Ensuring Water for Kittitas County
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22 | IRRIGATION LEADER
Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Cory Wright: I am the sixth generation of my family to live in the Kittitas Valley. We were some of the original settlers. My great-grandfather played a major role in Washington, DC, in building the Kittitas Reclamation District back in the 1920s and 1930s. I graduated from Ellensburg High School and Central Washington University, but I had always had the desire to go to sea and work in the maritime industry. I enrolled in California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, California, and had a 20-year career in the maritime industry, which took me all over the world. Eventually, my
PHOTO COURTESY OF KITTITAS COUNTY.
ittitas County in central Washington contains many of the headwaters of the Yakima River, as well as three of the basin’s five major water storage facilities. As in the rest of the basin, Kittitas County’s main water issues relate to providing sufficient water for crops, people, and fish. By promoting water marketing, funding water storage infrastructure, and establishing the Teanaway Community Forest, the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan ( YBIP) is helping solve that problem. In this interview, Kittitas County Commissioner Cory Wright speaks with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the county’s role in planning, funding, and implementing the YBIP.
