The Yakima Basin Integrated Plan as Seen From Kennewick Irrigation District

The Yakima Basin Integrated Plan as Seen From Kennewick Irrigation District

The Yakima River Canyon.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT.

The Kennewick Irrigation District (KID) serves over 65,000 agricultural and residential customers across 20,201 acres (11,000 of agricultural land) in central Washington’s Tri-Cities area near the confluence of the Yakima and Columbia Rivers. The increasing population and development of the area and the droughts that have affected it over the past few years, especially in 2015, mean that KID’s water supplies have been put under pressure. KID, like other local irrigation districts, has an interest in increased water efficiency, higher flows, and more storage, all of which the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan (YBIP) aims to deliver.

After retiring from the Navy, Dean Dennis worked at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and was elected to KID’s board of directors in 2013. He has since served for 1 year as vice president and for 2 years in his current role as president. In this article, Mr. Dennis tell us about the significance of the YBIP for KID and Washington State as a whole.

Great things have been accomplished under the YBIP, benefitting fish, families, and farms across the entire Yakima River basin.

Most of the habitat projects are focused on the upper tributaries and main stem of the river above this point, where most of the spawning and rearing habitat for anadromous fish species occurs. Improving ecological conditions and providing fish passage where needed in the watershed, especially those actions that benefit reintroduced sockeye salmon and Endangered Species Act–listed steelhead and bull trout, will benefit everyone in the basin and region.

With much of YBIP focus on the upper Yakima River, KID has been a strong proponent of fish restoration and enhancement projects in the lower river. KID provided direct financial support to the YBIP Lower River Smolt Survival Study to the tune of $30,000 for seven receivers that were needed to track tagged outmigrating smolts. The KID board of directors unanimously supported this action because we knew that it is critically important to the success of the YBIP to obtain accurate information regarding smolt outmigration in the lower river.

In addition, KID has sent representatives three times to meet with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington, DC, to successfully advocate for section 1135 funding for assessment and implementation of the Bateman Island causeway removal project. The Bateman Island project would remove part of the causeway that links Bateman Island to the mainland, allowing flows from the Yakima River and the Columbia River to circulate around the island, improving conditions for salmonids as they move in and out of the Yakima River. Cold-water refugia are places in the Yakima River that contain cooler water inputs from springs, drains, and seepages that migrating salmon use for thermal relief as they migrate up the river.

A road runs along the Yakima River.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ABHINABA BASU AND KID.

So, when it comes to supporting the YBIP, we walk the talk. KID has also been working with basin stakeholders to ensure that the district and the lower river are not negatively affected by YBIP implementation. Through the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project Act (YRBWEP), as amended, the YBIP should “do no harm” to existing irrigation water supplies. Section 1205 of YRBWEP requires that increases in in-stream target flows “shall not further diminish the amount of water that otherwise would have been delivered by an entity to its water users in years of water proration.” Section 1208 obligates the Bureau of Reclamation to “ensure that the irrigation water supply for the KID shall not be negatively affected by conservation, electrification or water exchange, or subordination pursuant to this title” and to replace “any reduction in [KID’s] irrigation water supply resulting from conservation measures adopted or implemented by other entities pursuant” to the law.

While it is unknown to what extent additional water conservation pursued under the YBIP will affect the lower river downstream of the Parker Gage, up-basin conservation activities over the past 10 years have already had a negative affect on the lower river and KID’s water supply. Detailed modeling of the lower river that has only recently been undertaken by Reclamation shows harm to the KID water supply from up-basin conservation projects, including those in the YBIP.

KID strongly believes that the solution necessary to maintain our water supplies is the electrification of the hydraulic pumps at Chandler, which deliver most of KID’s water supply to its main canal. Since these pumps are driven by water, they are not efficient during low-water years. Electrification will have the dual benefit of greatly increasing the reliability of KID’s water supply while leaving some additional flow in the bypass reach of the lower Yakima River where it may help to alleviate water quality issues and provide some benefits to fish. The pumps are owned and operated by Reclamation, and Congress authorized the conversion of the pumps to electricity in the YRBWEP. KID is currently working with Reclamation, the Washington State Department of Ecology, and the Yakama Nation on Chandler.

KID is also considering whether to participate in the surface storage projects of the YBIP. Up to 450,000 acre-feet of new surface storage is proposed under the YBIP, with much of that quantity to be available for irrigation diversion during a drought. However, storage projects are expensive, and it is currently not known whether water released from storage will be readily available to KID for diversion. KID is working with Reclamation and Ecology to answer these important questions.

There is much to celebrate with the implementation of the YBIP, but there are still complex issues to resolve that are critical to the realization of the plan. KID will continue to engage its partners on those issues and help to fulfill the promise of the YBIP.

Dean Dennis is the president of KID’s board of directors. For more information, contact info@kid.org.