Irrigation Leader Washington State October 2020

October 2010

Volume 1 Issue 2

November/December 2010

Volume 2 Issue 1

Finding Water Supply Solutions Through Environmental Protection Law

2 Issue 6

June 2011

Volume 2 Issue 7

Volume 2 Issue 2

July/August 2011

Volume 2 Issue 8

February 2011

Volume 2 Issue 3

March 2011

Keith Denos: Provo Irrigators Benefit from Canal Enclosure Project Targeting Challenges of Urbanization

Sonia Lambert: Tackling Texas’s Water Infrastructure and Conservation Challenges

Thomas W. Birmingham:

Connor Highlights Reclamation Initiatives and Commitment to Open Communication with Irrigators

January 2011

September 2011

Volume 2 Issue 9

Volume 2 Issue 4

John Anderson: Idaho Irrigation District Experiences Urbanization, Threats of Encroachment

October 2011

Volume 2 Issue 10

April 2011

3 Issue 3

March 2012

November/December 2011

Volume 3 Issue 1

Craig Simpson: Large Siphon Proje Aims to Alleviate Impact of Groun Water Declines in Washington Aquife

January 2012

eve Knell: Oakdale Irrigation District cuses on Water Management Plan Modernize, Promote Efficiency

me 3 Issue 10

April 2012

David Mansfield: Solano Irrigation District Targets Technology Improvements to Modernize District Operations, Conserve Water

Volume 3 Issue 5

Volume 4 Issue 1

May 2012

Bryant Startin: Wyoming's Shoshone Irrigation District Brings Long-Term Outlook to Aging Infrastructure, Urbanization Issues

Volume 3 Issue 6

June 2012

Elston Grubaugh: Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District Mitigates Salinity With Long-Term Outlook

Februa

Volume 3 Issue 7

July/August 2012

January 2013

Tom Davis: Yuma County Water Users’ Association Supports Year-Round Farming, Addresses Unique Maintenance Challenges

Volume 3 Issue 8

Volume 4 Issue 2

February 2013

Jim Broderick: 50 Years of Ensuring Water Delivery in Southeast Colorado

Jessie Silva: Imperial Irrigation District Explores Ways to Meet QSA Water Transfer Needs

Volume 4 Issue 3

March 2013

Volume 4 Issue 4

April 2013

Eric Wilkinson: Northern Colorad Water Conservancy District Balance Two Large Infrastructure Projects Time of Limited Federal Fundin

Jim Parks: Forward-Thinking Policies in Texas Take Aim at Effects of Historic Drought

10 YEAR

W. E. "Bill" West, Jr.: Whooping Crane Lawsuit Threatens Continued Water Delivery in Texas

November/December 2012

Volume 3 Issue 2

October 2020

Dave Koland: North Dakota's Garrison Diversion Unveils Plan to Increase Irrigated Acreage

Volume 3 Issue 4

M

Gary Esslinger: District Develops In-House Hydropower Turbine Design, Hopes To Offset Aging Infrastructure Costs

VOLUME 11 ISSUE 9 WASHINGTON STATE EDITION

Dick Proctor: Colorado's Grand Valley Water Users and the Endangered Fish Recovery Program: A Working Partnership

Volume 2 Issue 5

September 2012

Volume 3 Issue 9

October

Darvin Fales: Public Safety through Self-reliance: QCBID’s West Canal Repair

Volume 4 Issue 5

May 2013

Sonia Lambe Managing and Modernizing in Tex

Volume 4 Issue 6

Ju

ANNIVERSARY ISSUE Tom Knutson: Walk Before You Can Run: A Discussion about Water Resources Leadership

Issue 7

July/August 2013

Volume 4 Issue 8

Delivering Water at 8,000 Feet: An Interview with Travis Smith of San Luis Valley Irrigation District

Issue 4

April 2014

September 2013

Volume 4 Issue 9

Big Water, Big District: An Interview with Dave Solem of South Columbia Irrigation District

Volume 5 Issue 5

May 2014

Eric Kuhn: The Endangered Fish Recovery Program and the Colorado River Water Conservation District

Justin Harter: Naches–Selah Irrigation District, Planning and Building for the Future

Reaching the Crossroads: A Conversation with Luana Buckner about Water in Texas

October 2013

Volume 4 Issue 10

Growing the High Desert: An Interview With Jay Chamberlin of Owyhee Irrigation District

Volume 5 Issue 6

June 2014

November/December 2013

Volume 5 Issue 1

July/August 2014

January 2014

Volume 5 Issue 8

September 2014

CAP and the Water-Energy Nexus: An Interview With David Modeer

Innovating With Integrative Water Management: Stream Augmentation in Southwestern Nebraska

Tom Birmingham: Fallowed Lands, Withered Communities: Adversity and Resilience in Westlands

me 6 Issue 1

January 2015

Volume 6 Issue 2

February 2015

Irrigating Along the Big River: An Interview With Sonny Hinojosa

CAP and the Water-Energy Nexus: An Interview With David Modeer

Volume 6 Issue 3

March 2015

Volume 6 Issue 4

April 2015

Volume 5 Issue 2

Adapting to Urbanization: A Conversation With San Benito County Water District Manager Jeff Cattaneo

Making Every Drop Count: A Conversation With Jim Barrett of Coachella Valley Water District

Volume 5 Issue 7

Making the Best of What You Have: A Conversation with Subhas K. Shah

Brian Betcher: Managing at the Nexus of Water and Energy

Volume 5 Issue 3

March 2014

Ted Diehl, 44 Years As Manager of North Side Canal Company

Volume 5 Issue 9

October 2014

Water Leadership in Montana

Volume 5 Issue 10

November/December 2

CAP and the Water-Energy Nexus: An Interview With David Modeer

Tage Flint: Planning for the Future at Weber Basin Water Conservancy District

Long-Term Vision: A Conversation With Scott Revell

Volume 6 Issue 5

February 2014

Bringing Business to Meet Farmers’ Ne An Interview with Wayne Ha

May 2015

Volume 6 Issue 6

June 2015

Untapped Water and Energy Sources in the Imperial Valle An Interview With Imperial Irrigation District’s Kevin Kelle

Volume 6 Issue 7

July/August 2

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CONTENTS OCTOBER 2020 Volume 11 Issue 8

Irrigation Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by

an American company established in 2009.

STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Milo Schmitt, Media Intern Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator

8

How the Yakama Nation Is Working to Restore Fish Populations in the Upper Yakima Basin

5 T en Years of Irrigation Leader

By Kris Polly 8 H ow the Yakama Nation Is Working to Restore Fish Populations in the Upper Yakima Basin 16 A dolfo Nieto of the Orellana Canal Irrigation Community: Modernizing a Spanish Irrigation District 22 How

the Spanish Government Funds Irrigation Modernization

28 H ow the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation and Other River Basin Authorities Manage Spain’s Water Resources 34 I rrigation in Portugal and in Europe as a Whole 40 F rom Wood to Fiberglass and Lined Concrete: The Naches-Selah Irrigation District’s Infrastructure Updates

SUBMISSIONS: Irrigation Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions.

However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request.

For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or irrigation.leader@waterstrategies.com.

ADVERTISING: Irrigation Leader accepts half-page and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

CIRCULATION: Irrigation Leader is distributed to irrigation district managers and boards of directors in the 17 western states, Bureau of Reclamation officials, members of Congress and committee staff, and advertising sponsors.

For address corrections or additions, please contact our managing editor, Joshua Dill, at joshua.dill@waterstrategies.com.

Copyright © 2020 Water Strategies LLC. Irrigation Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Irrigation Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Irrigation Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Irrigation Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised.

Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

4 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

@IrrigationLeadr

irrigationleadermagazine.com

COVER PHOTO: Our cover this month features a mosaic of magazine covers from Irrigation Leader's first 10 years. irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF TOM RING.

/IrrigationLeader

Coming soon in Irrigation Leader: November/December: Shane Leonard of Roosevelt Water Conservation District

Ten Years of Irrigation Leader

By Kris Polly

O

ctober 2020 marks the 10th anniversary stories from Spain and Portugal, two countries that we of Irrigation Leader and the 101st issue of the have not visited—yet, that is. We interview Adolfo Nieto, a magazine. A great thank you is owed our readers, technician at the Orellana Canal Irrigation Community, a advertisers, and most importantly, the many exceptional Spanish irrigation district; Victor Morales Godoy of the State men and women in irrigated agriculture who have shared Society for Agricultural Infrastructure, the agency that funds their time, solutions, and ideas with Irrigation Leader and irrigation improvements across Spain; Ramón Lúquez of the its readership.

Ebro River Hydrographic Confederation, one of the nine Most of the credit for the idea of the magazine must river basin authorities that manages Spain’s water resources; be given to two individuals: the late Richard Lemargie, and José Nuncio, who serves as the president of a Portuguese an exceptionally brilliant attorney for the Columbia Basin irrigation district as well as of Portuguese and panIrrigation Project; and Mike Dwyer, a true entrepreneur European irrigation associations. Finally, we also speak with and, at the time, the executive director of the North Justin Harter of Washington State’s Naches-Selah Irrigation Dakota Water Users Association. Richard phoned me a District about its impressive modernization projects, which few months after the end of my term as deputy assistant involve replacing antiquated wooden infrastructure with secretary for water and science in the Bush administration modern fiberglass pipe and lined concrete. and encouraged me to consider establishing a newsletter or From the beginning, the goal of Irrigation publication. I appreciated his call and liked the idea, but I Leader magazine has been to feature the ideas and solutions wasn’t sure how I could make the numbers work. Sometime of hardworking irrigators, businesspeople, innovators, and after that, I attended a meeting of the Upper Missouri policymakers whose ingenuity and determination uphold Water Users Association and sat at a table next to Mike. the excellence of irrigated agriculture in this country. We are He told me about the magazine he had established, North also committed to sharing new ideas from around the world Dakota Water, and we discussed the idea of founding a new to keep our industry moving forward. We thank you for your magazine and its possible business plan. leadership and support, and we look forward to serving you The first issue took an entire summer to put together, but for the next decade and beyond. IL since then, we have been publishing 10 issues a year, as well Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Irrigation Leader magazine and as special issues on pressing topics like COVID-19. By this president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm point, hundreds of people across the United States and the world have contributed their time, thoughts, and ideas to the he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings magazine and, by extension, the global irrigated agriculture with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal industry. Irrigation Leader has become an essential nexus for government agencies. He may be contacted at sharing ideas and news about new technology, projects, and practices. The magazine and its partners have also sponsored kris.polly@waterstrategies.com. a number of educational tours, both domestic and international, to locations including Australia, Chile, and New Zealand.

Water Strategies LLC is organizing Leaders’ Training to provide a series of certified professional development opportunities to personnel in the irrigation, municipal, and hydrogeneration industries. All training sessions are virtual, 60 minutes in length, and This month, we take a deep scheduled for 2:00 p.m. Eastern, 1:00 p.m. Central, 12:00 p.m. Mountain, and 11:00 a.m. Pacific. dive into the fish passage project Human Resources Compliance Manager training program at central Washington’s Cle Elum In this training series, we will tackle crucial issues in the web of human resources rules and regulations. This program is aimed at Dam. Brady Kent, the agricultural providing managers with the skills to navigate the hiring process, to manage employee performance, to take appropriate steps in workplace investigations, and to implement a termination when it is time. development coordinator for October 1: Hiring Practices: Ensuring Compliance the Yakama Nation, and Tom October 8: Performance Management: Developing Talent October 22: Workplace Investigations: Following Proper Steps Ring, a recently retired longtime October 29: Employment Termination: Avoiding Litigation hydrogeologist for the tribe, illuminate the Yakama Nation’s Training fee: $200.00 per individual Instructor: role in advancing this project with Diane Campanile, SHRM-SCP, has more than 20 years of human resources experience in federal and a wealth of historical and technical state regulatory compliance, workplace investigations, employee relations, performance management, employee handbook development/implementation, and employee benefits and compensation information. benchmarking. She received her formal education from West Chester University, The Wharton School of For proof that our horizons are Business, and Villanova University. Diane is currently enrolled in Tulane Law School. ever expanding, look no further To register, visit our website at irrigationleadermagazine.com than this issue. It features four

Leaders’ Training

irrigationleadermagazine.com

October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

|5

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How the Yakama Nation Is Working to Restore Fish Populations in the Upper Yakima Basin

This large hole at Cle Elum Dam—also known as a secant pile—will soon contain a completed fish passage structure.

A

8 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

Irrigation Leader about the history and genesis of this project and what it aims to do.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions.

Brady Kent: I studied geology and earth and space science, at the University of Washington. I got involved in the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan (YBIP) through Tom Ring, who was a professor of mine. As I was finishing my university studies, he got me involved in the project and invited me to meetings and field trips as my interest grew. In my current position, I help with the Yakama Nation’s agricultural development and am also involved with irrigation system engineering, conservation, and modernization.

Tom Ring: I am a hydrogeologist with degrees in geology.

I went to work for the Yakama Nation in December 1990 and retired in November 2019, so I was employed there for almost 29 years. I worked in the Yakama Nation’s irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TOM RING.

century ago, upwards of a million salmon and other anadromous fish species returned each year to spawn and rear in the rivers and lakes of the upper Yakima basin. However, early storage efforts involving wooden crib dams, followed by the Bureau of Reclamation’s construction of concrete dams in the 1910s and 1930s, rendered many former habitats inaccessible to these fish. The construction of Bumping Lake Dam in 1910 blocked access to the last sockeye salmon lake in the Yakima basin, and sockeye remained absent from the basin for 99 years. The Yakama Nation reintroduced sockeye to Cle Elum Lake in 2009 after Reclamation constructed a plywood flume at the dam for interim juvenile outmigration. As a permanent fix to this problem, Reclamation and the Washington State Department of Ecology are constructing a major fish passage project at Cle Elum Dam in the Upper Yakima basin. A large helix-shaped fish passage structure is being installed at the dam, and a working group of entities that include the Yakama Nation are monitoring and advancing fish reintroduction. In this interview, Brady Kent, the Yakama Nation’s agricultural development coordinator, and Tom Ring, a recently retired longtime Yakama Nation hydrogeologist, tell

This interim plywood flume on the spillway of Cle Elum Dam has been the means of getting sockeye out of the reservoir since 2009.

water resources program on both on-reservation and off-reservation water resources issues. I worked in the Department of Natural Resources under the leadership of Phil Rigdon in recent years and of Carroll Palmer before that. I was involved in the YBIP from its inception.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the Cle Elum fish passage project.

Brady Kent: Returns of sockeye salmon to the upper Columbia Basin have numbered 50,000 a year or fewer in recent decades—far below the 150,000–200,000 estimated historically. The Yakama Nation, Reclamation, Ecology, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), and federal agencies have evaluated the feasibility of providing fish passage at the five storage dams of the Yakima Project. These dams—Bumping Lake, Cle Elum, Kachess, Keechelus, and Tieton—were never equipped with fish passage facilities. Four of the five reservoirs were originally natural lakes that supported Yakama fisheries for sockeye salmon and other anadromous and resident fish.

The Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project (YRBWEP) Act includes provisions for developing fish passage alternatives and authorizes increased storage capacity in Cle Elum Lake dedicated to fishery uses. Built in 1933 with no provision for fish passage, Cle Elum Dam is now being retrofitted with a downstream juvenile fish passage facility consisting of a multilevel inlet ramp with gated openings that will operate at various reservoir levels. irrigationleadermagazine.com

It will feed into a corkscrew ramp structure designed to maximize the survival of fish as they travel to the downstream side of the dam.

Irrigation Leader: How did the idea for the Cle Elum fish passage project come about?

Brady Kent: The Yakama people have been working to restore passage and reintroduce extirpated species ever since the dams were built. The Yakama Nation has a mission to return all salmon species to their historic numbers; fish passage is a critical element of this mission. The federal YBIP legislation includes the goal of restoring harvestable surpluses of all native species throughout their historic range. The Yakama Nation has been pursuing fish passage at all the reservoirs for decades, as is documented in congressional testimony dating back to the 1950s, the original YRBWEP legislation, litigation with Reclamation for fish passage at Keechelus Dam when Reclamation was rebuilding it in the 1990s, and the current YBIP. An important part of the 1999 Keechelus Dam settlement was the agreement to look at passage and to see if sockeye reintroduction was feasible. In 2001, many Yakima basin interests viewed the proposed Keechelus construction as an opportunity to add fish passage features. Reclamation considered this issue but asserted that fish passage facilities could not be added under existing authority. The Yakama Nation sued Reclamation and an agreement was reached in settlement to “study and develop feasible measures, if any, for inclusion in a Cooperative Technical Plan for permanent October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

|9

The cooperation between the late Ron Van Gundy (left), longtime manager of Roza Irrigation District, and Phil Rigdon (right), the superintendent of Yakama Nation Department of Natural Resources, was critical for the creation of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan.

juvenile (downstream) and adult (upstream) fish passage implementation at Cle Elum and Bumping Lake Dams.” In addition to funding the technical work, Reclamation agreed to modify a spillway gate on Cle Elum Dam and construct a temporary flume on the spillway that allowed juvenile salmon to exit the reservoir. Interim fish passage at Cle Elum had actually been authorized in the 1994 YRBWEP legislation but had not been implemented until this point.

Through the efforts of the tribal fisheries programs, the Yakama Nation moved forward by reintroducing sockeye to the basin in 2009. Tribal technical support assisted Reclamation in developing the current construction at Cle Elum Dam. The project itself is part of the YBIP but is a holdover project from the original YRBWEP legislation.

Working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the WDFW, and Reclamation, the Yakama Nation has set up sensors and arrays and started tracking fish. Fisheries staff are trying to monitor how many fish make it out of the lake each year; to identify the roadblocks along the way, including impediments to passage from the lake, predation, water flow, temperature, and navigation by the dams and diversions; to measure how long it takes the fish to get to different points; and to see how many successfully return to spawn.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us the history of how salmon restoration and reservoir fish passage fit into earlier attempts at basin management and into the current YBIP?

Construction on the fish passage at Cle Elum Dam, seen from across the lake.

10 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TOM RING.

Phil Rigdon, the superintendent of the Yakama Nation Department of Natural Resources, speaking at the dedication of the Cle Elum fish passage in 2015.

Tom Ring: There are many creation stories related to the YBIP, including the simplistic version that Ecology and Reclamation rented the Yakima Arboretum, convened a workgroup, and presto, the YBIP came out of the room. I wish it had been that easy, but it wasn’t. I would start the story in 2006, when the State of Washington passed the Columbia River Bill in a rather unusual legislative process that excluded tribal representatives from the discussion.

After that bill passed, the governor dispatched Jay Manning, who was then the director of Ecology, to meet with the Yakama tribal council. After the council gave Jay quite an earful, he told tribal leadership that he wanted the Yakama Nation to take a clean sheet of paper and tell him what needed to be done to fix the big problems in the Yakima basin. He said, “I know that the tribes are used to being handed a fait accompli and asked, ‘Can you live with this?’

I’m not doing that. I want you to start from scratch and tell me how to fix your basin.” The tribe’s Department of Natural Resources staff prepared a list, and it was presented to the Columbia River Policy Advisory Group, which had grown out of the Columbia River Bill. The list included fish passage at the storage reservoirs in the basin as well as other things, all of which became components of the YBIP. At the same time, proposals for a new Black Rock Reservoir were under ongoing study. Some people were enamored with the project, while others thought that it was a white elephant that would cost too much and not actually

fix the problems it was designed to address. That led to a couple of conversations with Ron Van Gundy, the manager of the Roza Irrigation District. He had looked hard at the Black Rock proposal, had decided that it was not affordable for many irrigators, and wanted to know how we could work together to come up with an alternative.

That led to a March 2018 joint letter from the Yakama Nation and the Roza Irrigation District to Ecology and Reclamation that proposed a series of alternatives to Black Rock. Most of those alternatives are now in the YBIP, including fish passage. Reclamation’s initial reaction to the letter was to say that Congress told it to study Black Rock and not the things discussed in the letter, and that it couldn’t do anything. However, Ecology, and particularly Derek Sanderson, who was the head of the Office of Columbia River, was not bound by that congressional authorization. Ecology and Reclamation were working cooperatively on the environmental impact statement (EIS) for Black Rock at the time, but Ecology decided to do a state-only supplemental EIS on an integrated alternative to Black Rock, which was basically what Roza and the Yakama Nation had described in that letter.

Ecology’s supplemental EIS got a favorable response.

Reclamation then commenced a basin study, convened a workgroup, and refined the list in the supplemental EIS. The workgroup, which consisted of a broad cross-section of agencies, irrigation districts, environmental organizations in the basin, and fisheries folks, gave its blessing by consensus to the integrated alternative. In 2013, shortly after he took office as governor, Jay Inslee announced his support for the YBIP as his first legislative proposal. In 2013, it passed the Washington State Legislature by overwhelming majorities.

The state agreed to fund up to half of its cost.

Cle Elum fish passage was high on the list of early implementation items. Fish passage had been on the Yakama Nation’s wish list since the early 20th century, but there had been no traction. Even the Evans Bill in the late 1980s, which included 600,000 acre-feet of new storage, did not include reservoir fish passage. That was before my time, but when I asked the folks who were working on it why fish passage wasn’t in there, they said that they thought it would be too difficult to pass. We took a different approach this time around, putting fish passage front and center.

As Brady mentioned, as part of the settlement after the litigation related to the reconstruction of Keechelus Dam, Reclamation agreed to implement the interim juvenile fish passage at Cle Elum that had been authorized in the 1994 legislation but left unimplemented for 15 years. It built a plywood spillway at Cle Elum Dam and retrofitted one of the radial gates on the dam so that fish could migrate out over the top of the dam. The tribe did some experiments to see if the outmigration would work properly. It did. In 2009, the nation brought the first thousand adult sockeye salmon from Priest Rapids Dam on the Columbia River and reintroduced them to Cle Elum Lake after 99 years of absence. irrigationleadermagazine.com

Irrigation Leader: You mentioned the difficulty of getting fish passage included in these various plans. Is that mainly because of the expense involved in building the structures?

Tom Ring: I don’t think so. The Yakama Nation has shown a great ability to go out and find alternative sources of funding for fisheries and projects, and it intended to do so for Keechelus passage. I think the main problem was a fear among irrigators that having fish passage at the reservoirs would raise endangered species issues or other issues that would lead to restrictions on their water supply. The YBIP is intended to not only neutralize those concerns but to actually provide a greater water supply for the irrigators.

The tribe’s discussions with Ron Van Gundy led to the tribe and Roza looking each other in the eye and saying, “I can live with what you need if you can live with what I need.” Once we got to that point, we were able to make a lot of progress.

Irrigation Leader: Would the project primarily benefit sockeye salmon?

Brady Kent: Sockeye is the primary focus of the work and studies, but the tribe plans to reintroduce all the species that once inhabited the tributaries above the dam, including spring chinook, steelhead, and coho salmon and bull trout. Two species in the basin, bull trout and MidColumbia River steelhead, are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Irrigation Leader: How many lakes in total are you aiming to reintroduce salmon to?

Brady Kent: There are five lakes in total that we’d like to introduce salmon to: Bumping Lake, Cle Elum Lake, Lake Kachess, Lake Keechelus, and Rimrock Lake. We’re doing Cle Elum Lake first. The second hasn’t been established yet. We’d like to reintroduce salmon to one lake on both the Upper Yakima River and the Naches River to bring balance to the system.

Irrigation Leader: Would you describe the fish passage structure you are building at Cle Elum Lake?

Brady Kent: The juvenile (outmigration) passage is through a helix structure that fish are able to enter from a number of levels. It is the largest in the nation, but not the first of its kind. The downstream passage facility includes intake, gate, and helix structures along with a tunnel bypass. The intake system has six levels; as the reservoir fluctuates, one of the six intake gates can be opened. The intake leads juvenile fish into the helix, a downward-spiraling waterslide that carries them to a 1,250‑foot-long tunnel bypass that delivers them to the river below. Adult passage will be achieved through a collection facility at the base of the dam, where sockeye will be trapped for transport around the dam.

October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 11

Irrigation Leader: How is this project being funded?

Brady Kent: With the support of Governor Jay Inslee, the Washington Legislature authorized the YBIP and committed to funding up to half of it. Most funding to date has come through the Ecology’s Office of Columbia River.

Reclamation and Ecology are the cofunders. The Yakama Nation has also put a large amount of staff and leadership time towards the effort.

Irrigation Leader: When is the structure expected to be completed?

Brady Kent: Construction is over half done. The structure is expected to be done in 2024. There is a large hole in the ground, 90 by 100‑odd feet, that goes down a couple hundred feet into the ground; that hole will hold the helix.

The concrete of the structure itself has been cast, and the exit structure has been completed as well. They have built two or three of the intake structures and have three left to go.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about the regulatory process you had to go through to build this structure?

Brady Kent: This will be a vast understatement of the years and careers some spent on this. The first step was to get congressional authority to undertake a feasibility study. This was contained in the public laws known as YRBWEP 1, 2, and 3. They gave Reclamation the authority to undertake and be involved in these projects. Agreements, permits, and litigation settlements associated with the various YRBWEP partners in the basin followed. The agreements included specific tasks and milestone dates regarding the feasibility study and the installation of interim and experimental fish passage features at the dams. Reclamation also agreed to seek funding and implement passage it was where determined to be feasible. Following the completion of the phase I assessment report, Reclamation began detailed studies to evaluate the feasibility of providing fish passage at Cle Elum and Bumping Lake Dams. The Yakima River basin fisheries comanagers—the Yakama Nation and the WDFW—developed an anadromous fish reintroduction plan that outlines the sequence and timing for reintroducing anadromous salmonids above the reservoir.

Irrigation Leader: What are the goals of the project as far as the fish population is concerned?

12 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

Irrigation Leader: What economic benefit would that provide?

Brady Kent: Restoring this salmon population and other fisheries would have a huge benefit. The Copper River and other rivers in Alaska are huge draws for fishers. Having something like that in Washington State would be great. We commissioned a study from Washington State University that showed that the salmon and the conservation that this plan would provide would contribute to the economy.

Tom Ring: The first economy of the Yakima basin and Pacific Northwest was based on the annual returns of salmon and the regional trading among tribes that centered on salmon.

The Yakama people never lost the vision of a salmonbased economy and have worked for decades to restore this economically and culturally essential resource. The progress now being made is a tribute to the persistence of generations of Yakama members and natural resources staff. IL

Brady Kent is the agricultural development coordinator for the Yakama Nation.

Tom Ring is a hydrogeologist who recently retired from his position at the Yakama Nation. He can be contacted at tomhoma@icloud.com.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF TOM RING.

Tom Ring: Adherence to environmental law has always been an important component of the YBIP. The environmental interests that are part of the work group have made it clear that, although things are authorized, they have to go through the full suite of National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act reviews before they can be implemented.

Brady Kent: We’re aiming for a final population of 100,000– 250,000 salmon. There used to be about a million salmon returning into the basin. The population has been increasing over the years. We’re moving in the right direction. A lot of projects are helping bolster that, especially habitat projects. For example, the Kittitas Reclamation District is supplementing the water in streams that may become dry during the summer. YRBWEP is able to move some water into their system; it comes back to the river eventually.

Estimates of smolt production in Cle Elum Lake range from 136,296 to 4,582,427. The number of adults returning to the lake from this range of smolt production likewise varies widely. The historical level of sockeye salmon production in the original Cle Elum Lake is estimated at about 31,125 fish.

Based on the increase in the surface area of the lake due to its use as a reservoir for irrigation storage, this estimate has been expanded to about 58,782 adults. We estimate that Cle Elum Lake could eventually produce sufficient smolts to yield an adult return of 30,000–50,000 sockeye. Once the fish population levels return to a certain level, the fishery will open to the public for fishing, which is our goal.

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Adolfo Nieto of the Orellana Canal Irrigation Community: Modernizing a Spanish Irrigation District Adolfo Nieto: I am a topographic technical engineer, and I started my career working on highways in northern Spain.

The CRCO, which was planning to do a lot of ditch restoration work, called me to offer me a position. I accepted because I was interested in trying a new type of work. With time I’ve come to enjoy it and have now spent 19 years here.

When I started, I worked exclusively as a topographer, but I’ve come to be the community’s technician and am now in charge of everything related to our current projects.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the CRCO.

One of the CRCO’s Rubicon FlumeGates with rice fields in the background.

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Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

16 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell our readers about irrigation communities and districts in Spain in general?

Are most of a similar size to the CRCO, and do most have the same legal structure? irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF RUBICON.

he Orellana Canal Irrigation Community (Comunidad de Regantes del Canal de Orellana, CRCO) is a sizable irrigation district in the arid central-western Spanish region of Extremadura. Over the past few years, it has used funds from Spain’s State Society for Agricultural Infrastructure (Sociedad Estatal de Infraestructuras Agrarias, SEIASA) to install new flow meters and automated gates in order to conserve water and increase its efficiency. In this interview, CRCO Technician Adolfo Nieto tells Irrigation Leader about the community’s current challenges and initiatives and provides insight into the situation of Spanish irrigation districts in general.

Adolfo Nieto: The CRCO covers a surface area of 40,442 hectares (99,934 acres) and currently has 4,708 members. The number of members has descended notably in the last few years. When I arrived, there were more than 8,000, but the costs of production have steadily risen with no corresponding rise in the prices at which producers can sell, with the result that if an agricultural producer wants to make a living and remain profitable, they need to constantly expand their land holdings. There has also been a reduction in the number of young people entering agriculture, with the result that agricultural land is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The primary crops in the CRCO are tomatoes, corn, and rice.

Legally, the CRCO is a public law corporation associated with the Guadiana River Hydrographical Confederation, so it should be considered a semipublic agency. We are not directly subordinate to the confederation, but we follow its guidelines, since it is in charge of regulating the Guadiana River and the related reservoirs and provides us with our allotment of water.

The money for the CRCO budget comes from the irrigators, who pay an assessment on their irrigated land; the CRCO also periodically solicits project funds from the Extremadura regional government.

The CRCO’s infrastructure consists almost exclusively of canals and ditches. In recent years, its laterals have started to be replaced by buried pipes, though at this point that represents only 10 percent of its total infrastructure.

Adolfo Nieto: This is one of the largest irrigation communities in Spain in terms of its service area. Most are smaller. Other irrigation communities in Spain, like the CRCO, are public law corporations associated with the corresponding river basin confederation.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the recent modernization work the CRCO has carried out. What was the problem you were aiming to resolve?

Adolfo Nieto: The CRCO has undertaken two irrigation improvement plans within the framework of the National Irrigation Plans promoted by SEIASA. The main problem that the CRCO had before the execution of these projects were large water losses, which we have aimed to eliminate by replacing and repairing ditches.

As part of these two projects, we worked on 43 percent of the CRCO’s network, and when you add the actions that the CRCO carried out with its own resources and the projects subsidized by the Extremadura regional government, we have done work on a total of 65 percent of the network.

We have also installed flow measurement and control devices to make our water distribution more efficient.

We installed 50 ultrasound flow meters and 27 smart gates manufactured by Rubicon, all of which send data to a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, which manages everything. The smart gates can be controlled remotely from any computer with an internet connection or from a phone.

These actions have allowed us to considerably reduce leaks from our system and to manage our distribution system more efficiently.

Irrigation Leader: What was SEIASA’s role in this project?

Adolfo Nieto: SEIASA was in charge of the two national irrigation improvement plans and acted as the project manager.

Irrigation Leader: What are the CRCO’s other current top issues?

Adolfo Nieto: In March 2019, the CRCO signed a contract with the Guadiana River Hydrographic Confederation that delegated the management of the confederation’s entire system to the CRCO, along with the systems of three other irrigation communities that are supplied by the Orellana Canal. This means that we will now be in charge of maintaining an additional 800 kilometers (km), or about 500 miles, of secondary network in addition to the 1,200 km (746 miles) of tertiary network we already manage. The principal challenge in the short term is to minimize losses in the secondary system and to modernize

irrigationleadermagazine.com

A Rubicon FlumeGate automatically regulating flow on the CRCO system.

the network by installing new flow meters and smart gates that will help us in our work, since water is more and more scarce. In fact, this year we are in a prealert stage for drought, despite the fact that we have the largest reserves of freshwater in Spain. It’s worth pointing out that the region of Extremadura has one-third of Spain’s total amount of water stored in reservoirs.

Irrigation Leader: What are the top challenges for irrigators in Spain?

October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 17

A water delivery structure on the CRCO’s system.

Adolfo Nieto: The most important challenge that Spanish irrigation communities face is clearly water scarcity. Spain is one of the countries in the world that will be most seriously affected by climate change. It is a fact that over the past 50 years, the amount of arid land in our country has increased noticeably, and with that in mind, all the efforts of Spanish irrigation communities must aim at a better management of irrigation water.

Irrigation Leader: What is your vision for the future of the CRCO?

18 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

A meter in a CRCO water delivery structure.

Adolfo Nieto is the technician of the Orellana Canal Irrigation Community.

For more about the irrigation community, visit www.crcorellana.es.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CRCO.

Adolfo Nieto: In my opinion, the CRCO should modernize even more. Right now, we have a gravity system that by its nature results in the loss of a lot of water. The CRCO should work to transform its system into a pressurized system with on-farm meters, using all the tools that new technology offers us to understand the water needs of agriculture. This would help us deliver the necessary amount of water to farms while eliminating waste. The problem now is how to fund it. Pressurizing a system as large as the CRCO’s requires a large investment. IL

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How the Spanish Government Funds Irrigation Modernization

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he State Society for Agricultural Infrastructure (Sociedad Estatal de Infraestructuras Agrarias, SEIASA) is the agency that funds irrigation modernization projects across Spain. The agency is mandated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food to help finance various modernization projects in irrigation communities (which are similar to U.S. irrigation districts) across Spain that have been declared to be in the general interest. It generally advances half of the total cost of these projects and holds title to the systems constructed until its initial investment is paid back, 50 years later. In its 20 years of existence, SEIASA has facilitated the investment of more than 2 billion euros ($2.37 billion) in irrigation modernization. In this interview, Victor Morales Godoy, SEIASA’s technical director, tells Irrigation Leader about the importance of the agency’s activities.

Olive trees in Jaén in the southern Spanish region of Andalucia.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position as technical director of SEIASA.

Grain cultivation in León in north-central Spain.

Berry cultivation in Huelva in the southern Spanish region of Andalucia.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about SEIASA and its history.

Victor Morales Godoy: SEIASA was formed 20 years ago.

It is a public company that is wholly owned by the General

22 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

Greenhouses in Almería in the southern Spanish region of Andalucia.

irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SEIASA.

Victor Morales Godoy: I was trained as an agricultural engineer at the Superior Technical School of Agricultural Engineering at the University of León (Spain). From among the fascinating range of disciplines that an agricultural engineer can pursue in their professional career, I chose a path intimately tied up with hydraulics and with irrigation in particular.

I took my first steps as an agricultural engineer at TRAGSATEC, a Spanish engineering firm that forms part of the TRAGSA Group, a national and international standard setter in irrigation projects. At TRAGSATEC, I had the opportunity to develop and direct important irrigation projects throughout Spain.

Since November 2014, I have held the position of technical director of the state-owned company SEIASA. I joined SEIASA when it was founded in 2000 and have carried out a number of roles and responsibilities within it, participating actively in the various irrigation planning efforts conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, under whose responsibility SEIASA falls. I feel fortunate to be part of this organization.

As technical director, my mission is to carry out, along with my team, the modernization projects that the ministry entrusts to us, from the development stage to their final execution and operation by our customers, the irrigation communities. The technical section of SEIASA employs the best professionals in these fields.

A 3,243 acre-foot reservoir in Huesca in northern Spain.

Directorate of State Assets (which is part of the Ministry of Finance) and is set up as an instrumentality of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food. It is administered by the General Directorate for Rural Development, Innovation, and Agri-Food Training, an agency of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food entrusts SEIASA with the execution of various irrigation modernization and consolidation projects that have been declared to be in the general interest and are included in the current National Irrigation Plan. This is agreed to via a convention signed by both parties that establishes general guidelines for SEIASA’s activities related to the advancement, contracting, and operation of the projects in question.

SEIASA’s objectives include the following. First, it works on the advancement and contracting of investment in the irrigation modernization and consolidation projects that have been included in the National Irrigation Plan and declared to be in the general interest. The systems built through this process are owned by SEIASA until its initial investment is repaid by their users or operators. When appropriate, SEIASA operates these projects in agreement with their users. Second, SEIASA carries out the financing of projects that have not been declared in the general interest; these projects are carried out in conjunction with irrigationleadermagazine.com

their users and, as appropriate, with Spain’s autonomous communities (regional governments). Finally, SEIASA provides consulting and technical assistance with regard to irrigation planning and management techniques.

The steering committee of SEIASA is formed by the executive president, the technical director, and the economic-financial director. This committee is in charge of a total of 73 workers, half of whom are senior engineers and technicians who specialize in irrigation modernization and consolidation projects.

Irrigation Leader: What is the breakdown of SEIASA’s financing between Spain’s national budget and European Union (EU) funds?

Victor Morales Godoy: SEIASA is the beneficiary of EU funds as well as of funds from Spain’s National Program for Rural Development and from the rural development programs of Spain’s regional governments. For SEIASA to access funds from a regional government’s rural development programs, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food must sign a framework agreement with the appropriate office of that government.

Of the 2 billion euros’ worth of investment that SEIASA has carried out over the last 20 years, approximately October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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48 percent of the funding has come from SEIASA’s own contributions, 29 percent from funds provided by the irrigators themselves, and 23 percent from EU funds and funds from the regional governments.

Irrigation Leader: What is the financing structure for SEIASA’s investments?

Victor Morales Godoy: Before the financing and execution of the projects takes place, SEIASA must sign an agreement with the users who have an interest in the project, covering the financial conditions for its realization and operation.

When appropriate, this agreement also considers the economic aid provided by regional governments.

irrigation community in 25 yearly payments, beginning in the 26th year after the project is finalized and ending in the 50th year after it is finalized. These payments allow SEIASA to recoup its initial investment.

The irrigation districts provide the land needed for the projects and pay for any additional land that needs to be purchased as well. The systems built in this manner are generally owned by SEIASA until its initial investment is fully repaid, although SEIASA can, in its agreements with the users, establish schemes by which they can acquire title to these systems after at least guaranteeing the repayment of SEIASA’s investment.

Irrigation Leader: What are the most significant kinds of modernization projects SEIASA engages in?

Victor Morales Godoy: Keeping in mind the great diversity of Spain’s landscapes and the comparable diversity of irrigated areas we have modernized, SEIASA has carried out projects in irrigation districts as large as 20,000 hectares (49,421 acres) or as small as 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres).

All the irrigation modernization projects we’ve worked on involve the improvement of transportation and distribution systems and an improvement of our capacity to regulate water resources, enabling the development and implementation of more efficient irrigation technologies and incorporating systems for the application and use of water that permit us to evaluate the real-time water needs of crops and the optimal timing for delivering that water.

Another important step forward in irrigation modernization, which has been made possible by irrigation communities’ professionalization and training programs, has been the introduction of information and communications technologies that allow for the real-time monitoring of installations and the early detection of damage. Our projects frequently involve sensor systems that monitor the climate, soil conditions, and plant growth; the use of remote sensing, geographical information systems, and drones; the monitoring of wells and aquifers; and information technology tools for technical, administrative, and maintenance management.

Regulating reservoirs in mountainous irrigated zones in Cáceres, Extremadura.

26 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

Victor Morales Godoy: SEIASA is tasked with carrying out the activities contained in its agreements with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food. The realization of these activities is conditional on the fulfilment of the projected financing and the realization of any necessary capital increases. That means we can’t really speak of a typical yearly investment. SEIASA carried out its highest investment in 2008, amounting to nearly 600 million euros.

Irrigation Leader: Please give us an overview of irrigated agriculture in Spain. irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SEIASA.

The general financial structure laid out by those agreements is that 50 percent of the total cost of the projects is advanced by SEIASA during the execution of the project and the remaining 50 percent is paid by the irrigation community during the execution of the project, up through the final settlement, which occurs after a guarantee period of about 2 years. Depending on the region and other circumstances, EU funds or regional government funds may also play a role in the financing. The advance financing that SEIASA provides is paid back without interest by the

Irrigation Leader: How much money does SEIASA disburse in a typical year?

Victor Morales Godoy: Irrigation communities are public law corporations associated with the public river basin agencies that manage water within the hydrographical regions of Spain. They are institutions with a long historical tradition; have extensive knowledge of the distribution of water resources and irrigation; and are widely recognized on a national and international scale for their planning capacities, public service, and technological development.

Agricultural production in Spain is heavily dependent on soil and climatic conditions; the demographic and economic pressures present in various parts of the country; and various regional, environmental, and sector-specific policies, especially the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.

Spain’s geographic and socioeconomic characteristics and its treasured agricultural and cultural history mean that we have a high number of production systems in Spain. The same can be said about the diversity of irrigation communities in our country. This means that Spain’s irrigation modernization projects need to address an extremely diverse agricultural landscape, including large irrigable zones where we find extensive plantings of crops like alfalfa, corn, potatoes, rye, sugar beets, and wheat; our important olive groves and vineyards; our Europe-leading production of citrus fruit, including lemons, oranges, and mandarin oranges; our excellent international position in the production of berries, including blackberries, cranberries, raspberries, and strawberries; our important zones of high-value tropical fruit production, which includes avocadoes and mangoes; and our global-standard-setting intensive horticultural sector.

Irrigation Leader: What are the top challenges for irrigation in Spain?

Victor Morales Godoy: Agriculture in Spain is inconceivable without irrigation. The current COVID‑19 pandemic highlights more than ever the important role of irrigated agriculture as a strategic sector capable of guaranteeing a basic level of food to the population.

Given Spain’s extreme variation of geography and climate and considering the importance of climate change, rural depopulation, and food security, the modernization of irrigation is a comprehensive strategy that addresses challenges related to water, soil, and biodiversity. It aims to achieve a balance between the sustainable intensification of high-quality food production and the mitigation of the effects of climate change.

The 2019 data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics conclusively show that between 2004 and 2016, the agricultural sector reduced its water use by 2,859 cubic hectometers (2,317,832 acre-feet), amounting to an overall reduction close to 16 percent. Over the same time period, according to the 2018 Survey on Growing Areas and Yields, the total irrigated area in Spain grew from 3,223,636 hectares (7,965,778 acres) to 3,655,417 hectares (9,032,732 acres). These figures indicate a reduction of irrigationleadermagazine.com

water consumption of up to 1,430 cubic meters per hectare (20,436 cubic feet per acre).

The continued modernization of irrigation in Spain has optimized water management within irrigation management entities, contributing to the progressive development of more efficient systems. Information from the 2018 Survey on Growing Areas and Yields also shows that 52.69 percent of Spain’s irrigated land, amounting to 1.98 million hectares (4.89 million acres) is watered by microirrigation systems like drip irrigation, making Spain the top country in the world in terms of land area using microirrigation.

This means that the reduction and optimization of water consumption in irrigation has direct effects on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

Another difficult challenge is the alarming population gap that Spain is experiencing. Depopulation has direct effects on agricultural activity and should be combated with measures that increase the profitability of agricultural production, such as the modernization of irrigation. An analysis of the demographic evolution of Spain during the last decade compared with the ratio of irrigated to total cultivable area clearly shows that the greatest loss of population has occurred in the provinces where the dry land/irrigated land ratio is highest. Irrigation modernization is, without a doubt, an effective tool in the fight against the depopulation of rural areas.

Ultimately, the close to 2 billion euros that the ministry has invested in irrigation modernization projects via SEIASA has affected more than 500,000 hectares (1,235,526 acres) and benefited more than 190,000 families across the country. These efforts have given Spain concrete experience that puts it in the first rank of global knowledge of the agricultural infrastructure needed to face up to the global challenges we now face.

Irrigation Leader: What is your vision for the future of SEIASA? Victor Morales Godoy: Irrigation modernization continues to be our priority, as has been repeatedly made clear by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food in various fora, including the Spanish Congress of Deputies and Senate.

The importance of SEIASA’s past efforts in irrigation modernization—which have had clear environmental, economic, and social effects and have clearly contributed to facing the new challenges of climate change—mean that it is critically important for it to continue to carry out the irrigation modernization work that the ministry assigns it. IL

Victor Morales Godoy is the technical director of SEIASA. He can be contacted at v.morales@seiasa.es. For more information about SEIASA, visit seiasa.es.

October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

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How the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation and Other River Basin Authorities Manage Spain’s Water Resources

The Ebro River basin within the Iberian Peninsula.

The FItas Reservoir in Huesca Province.

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28 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your experience and how you came to be in your current position.

Ramón Lúquez: I am a civil engineer. I have been pursuing my career within the Ebro HC for 14 years. I specialize in the construction, management, use, and maintenance of hydraulic infrastructure and worked first on the right bank of the Ebro basin and then on the left. For the last 2 years, I have held the position of deputy technical director and operations manager. In this position, I coordinate the management of the various operational zones in the basin—in total, there are 18 operational councils that help administer its distinct subareas—as well as manage energy generation and forestry-related activities. irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE EBRO HC.

he territory of Spain is divided among nine river basin authorities known as hydrographic confederations (HCs), which control and manage major water infrastructure, water-related public property, and hydrological planning within their respective areas. The HCs control and operate large state-owned reservoirs and canals that deliver water to local irrigation communities (districts) and other users. One of the largest of the confederations is the Ebro HC, which manages the Ebro River basin, located in northeastern Spain. In this interview, Ramón Lúquez, the Ebro HC’s deputy technical director and operations manager, tells Irrigation Leader about Spain’s basin-based water resources management system and the activities of his agency.

Zones of irrigation within the Ebro basin.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about Spain’s system of river basin–based water resources management.

Ramón Lúquez: In Spain, water policy is made and executed by river basin organizations known as HCs. They are similar to state agencies, although they are technically part of the central state administration and have both civil-servant and noncivil-servant personnel. There are nine HCs in total, covering all of Spain. Each of them has complete authority over water infrastructure, water-related public property, and hydrological planning in its territory.

The HCs were created almost 100 years ago to fulfill a vision of integrated river basin management. The Ebro HC was the first river basin agency in the world, created in 1926 by King Alfonso XIII after the crisis at the end of the 19th century, when Spain lost the Spanish-American War, and with it, its last colonies. Its functions are comparable to those of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was created around the same time period.

The HCs are independent agencies associated with the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge. Their geographical dimensions vary. For example, the Ebro River basin is the second-largest basin in the Iberian Peninsula, covering 85,000 square kilometers (about 32,800 square miles), an area similar in size to South Carolina. The HC primarily manages large state-owned irrigationleadermagazine.com

reservoirs and canals—in other words, infrastructure that has been constructed and is managed by the central government of Spain. We currently operate more than 50 large reservoirs and manage more than 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) of main canals. In addition to managing our own infrastructure, we are also charged with the inspection of private reservoirs, the management and control of public land and property related to the rivers within the basin, water quality control, and proposals for water resources planning.

Irrigation Leader: The HCs form part of the national government of Spain. Do they have any relation to Spain’s autonomous communities (regional governments)?

Ramón Lúquez: The work of the HCs, by definition, takes place in river basins that span the territory of more than one autonomous community. For hydrographical basins that lie completely within the territory of one autonomous community, there are within-community river basin agencies that play a role similar to that of the HCs. In the case of river basins that span multiple communities, there is a flexible and collaborative relationship among the various regional governments. In fact, the autonomous communities are represented in the governing and management bodies of the HCs themselves, so their interests are always taken into account. It should also be kept in mind that river basins October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 29

often cross international borders as well—for example, the borders with France and Andorra—so there are also international treaties that regulate certain water transfers.

Irrigation Leader: When did the current system of HCs come into existence?

Ramón Lúquez: The system began in 1926 with the creation of the Ebro HC; the rest of the HCs were created subsequently on the same principles, namely the importance of managing river basins as a whole and of public participation in water management.

Irrigation Leader: What is the relationship between the HCs and the irrigation communities (districts)?

Ramón Lúquez: Our relationship with water users, and with the irrigation communities in particular, is close. Like the autonomous communities, the irrigation communities have a seat in the HCs’ governing and management bodies. Their needs and concerns are very much part of the HCs’ decisions about water management, particularly when it comes to the management of reservoirs and canals and the development of basin-level hydrological plans.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the Ebro HC. Ramón Lúquez: The Ebro HC has around 850 employees, around 200 of whom are part of my department, which

means that it plays an important role in the ordinary management of the agency. The majority of the employees are core staff who work on site at the reservoirs and canals in our territory. There is also a much smaller technical staff made up of engineers and technical engineers.

Because there are so many individual irrigation communities, Spanish water law allows them to form public law corporations called central councils or general communities, which makes it easier for the HCs to interact with them. In the Ebro basin, for instance, there is a federation of more than 110 irrigation communities known as FEREBRO. As for the Ebro HC’s budget, the agency has proposed that its budget for the next few years should be around 115 million euros ($137,200,175). In addition to the works carried out with its own budget, the Ebro HC also carries out project within the basin that are directly financed by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge or are financed with European Union funds.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the Ebro basin’s climate, hydrology, and agriculture.

Ramón Lúquez: The Ebro basin has a predominantly Mediterranean climate. The majority of the flow of the Ebro River derives from tributaries that come down from the Pyrenees and join it from the north. Spain in general and the Ebro basin in particular have highly irregular flow

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE EBRO HC.

Work on the Enciso Reservoir in La Rioja.

30 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

irrigationleadermagazine.com

patterns, which is why there is a long history of building reservoirs to store water and regulate flow.

The top crops in the Ebro HC’s area are alfalfa, barley, corn, rice, and wheat. There is also a lot of fruit production. The top issues for irrigators in this basin include modernizing their irrigation systems so as to reduce their water consumption as much as possible and implementing operations management technology to increase yields while also protecting the environment. Another priority is the effort to conjunctively manage water and energy.

Irrigation Leader: What are the Ebro HC’s top issues?

Ramón Lúquez: The agency’s top objectives are to improve the knowledge and management of water resources, improve the state of water bodies and river dynamics, and strengthen our guarantee of irrigation water supplies.

conflicts and to manage water resources. The HCs do this while also taking into account the contributions of users and people from other public agencies.

Nevertheless, we face big challenges: improving the level of innovation in water management, optimizing use, and investing in conserving and maintaining the water assets we have. All this must be done within the framework of water resources planning and our quest to improve the state of our water bodies.

This agency is crucial for continuing all these actions into the future. It is firmly established in this area and has a close relationship with it. It can continue playing this important role in decades to come, especially as we experience climate change and the growing irregularity of water resources it is expected to bring with it. IL

Irrigation Leader: What is your vision for the future?

Ramón Lúquez is the deputy technical director and operations manager at the Ebro Hydrographical Confederation. He can be contacted at rluquez@chebro.es.

Ramón Lúquez: The HCs have demonstrated their usefulness for water management and conflict resolution for almost 100 years. I believe that managing water within river basin boundaries rather than along other geographic or political boundaries is the best way to avoid regional water

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Irrigation in Portugal and in Europe as a Whole

José Nuncio.

J

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your experience and how you came to be in your current position.

34 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

José Nuncio: I have always had a connection to agriculture.

I was born into a family of farmers with a special dedication to irrigation. I have a degree in agronomy from the the University of Lisbon’s School of Agriculture and a postgraduate degree in water, environment, and development, focusing on water supply and drainage, from the science and technology department of the University of Coimbra.

I began my professional career in 1990, working in a regional agricultural development company. I later moved to a position providing technical services to the Association of Forestry Producers of Coruche, and in 1997, I joined the ARBVS as its deputy director.

Currently, I am the president of FENAREG and IE, a member of the European Union of Water Management Associations, the director of the Euro-Mediterranean Irrigators Community, the director of the Confederation of irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOSÉ NUNCIO.

osé Nuncio plays an important role in irrigation both in Portugal and on the wider European level. Within Portugal, he is the president of the Sorraia Valley Irrigators and Water Users Association (Associação de Regantes e Beneficiários do Vale do Sorraia, ARBVS) as well as the president of the National Federation of Portuguese Irrigators (Federação Nacional de Regantes de Portugal, FENAREG), and the director of the Confederation of Portuguese Farmers. On the European level, he is the president of Irrigators of Europe (Irrigants d’Europe, IE), an international association of irrigation water management entities. In this interview, he tells Irrigation Leader about the ARBVS, the broader landscape of Portuguese irrigation, and why it is important to advocate for irrigated agriculture on the pan-European level as well.

Portuguese Farmers, and a member of the National Water Council of Portugal. I am also a farmer and am responsible for the management of my family’s agricultural companies.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the ARBVS and its history.

José Nuncio: The ARBVS, also known as the Sorraia Valley Irrigation Community, is a private farmers’ association established under public law in 1959. Its principal activity is the operation of the Sorraia Valley Irrigation Project, which manages irrigation water for a community of around 850 irrigators cultivating a total of 16,350 hectares (40,402 acres) of irrigated land. The ARBVS holds rights to water resources for agricultural use and manages a total yearly volume of 180 cubic hectometers (145,929 acrefeet) of water from the Montargil, Maranhão, and Magos Reservoirs. In addition to operating the irrigation project, it also operates three hydroelectric plants that produce energy from irrigation water flows and surplus flows and have a total installed capacity of 10.3 megawatts. The ARBVS also offers technical services to its farmers and has a program dedicated to regional development, which currently supports the local development associations in the region. We also carry out maintenance, repair, and modernization work throughout the year.

Our water distribution system works by gravity and has upstream water control. It distributes water through a network of 300 kilometers (186 miles) of open canals and pipes that measures the volume of water delivered to every customer’s farm.

We also participate in the primary organizations that defend the interests of irrigators on the national and international levels (FENAREG and IE, respectively), particularly when it comes to agricultural policy and the management of Portuguese and European water resources.

Irrigation Leader: Who are the ARBVS’s clients?

José Nuncio: The association’s clients are irrigating farmers.

Their number varies, but right now there are around 850.

We also sell to three agri-industrial entities. Our principal service is the distribution of irrigation water, but we also provide technical aid to farmers and maintain infrastructure.

The main crops in our area are corn, olives, and rice, but that has changed in the past depending on agricultural policy and market prices.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about the structure of irrigation associations in Portugal in general?

José Nuncio: In Portugal, irrigation associations or communities are private entities established under public law, composed of farmers who benefit from a given irrigation project. They have the right and the duty to irrigationleadermagazine.com

A Rubicon automated gate installed at the ARBVS.

administer the publicly owned irrigation infrastructure and water resources that make up the project. The infrastructure in question is funded by the national government and covers a defined area that has soils suitable for agricultural production and available water resources.

In general, the infrastructure comprises a water source (a reservoir, well, or river), an irrigation network (canals and/or pipelines), and a drainage network. Each of those networks may have pump stations.

The size of these irrigation associations and communities varies by region and the availability of resources. Within Portugal, they range from 400 to 16,500 hectares (988– 40,772 acres). The smaller ones are obviously simpler, but they also tend to be less economically viable. The irrigation associations function according to a model of community water resources management that has been formalized and encoded in law since the first half of the 20th century, but which was inspired by the traditional water tribunals that still exist in certain places in the Iberian Peninsula and date back to the era before Roman civilization.

The initial investment in public irrigation projects was made by the national government beginning in the 1930s.

The amortization period for these state investments was initially estimated at 50 years, but this held only for the first October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 35

José Nuncio in an olive grove.

Irrigation Leader: How does the ARBVS compare to other Portuguese irrigation entities in terms of size?

36 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

José Nuncio: The ARBVS is a standard-setter in Portugal’s organized irrigation sector and is one of its most important irrigation communities. It has the largest irrigated area and uses the largest volume of water of any irrigation entity in Portugal, aside from the Alqueva Development and Infrastructure Company, a state-owned company that manages the Alqueva Multipurpose Project. There are around three dozen other important irrigation communities in Portugal with service areas of 500–14,000 hectares (1,236–34,595 acres).

Irrigation Leader: What are the top challenges for irrigators in Portugal?

José Nuncio: As in any European Union (EU) country, the top current issue for the agricultural sector as a whole is the reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which has significant influence over agricultural prices and markets.

Farmers are also interested in ensuring that the Common Agricultural Policy budget includes funding for investment and support for rural development.

The repair of aging irrigation systems is another important issue. Many are more than 50 or even 80 years old and need to be modernized to make them suitable to meet new needs and compatible with new agricultural technologies. irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOSÉ NUNCIO.

projects of the 1930s, since it rapidly turned out that the investment could easily be paid back thanks to the exponential growth in agricultural activity it indirectly enabled.

In older communities, the water distribution system functioned by gravity, but in most modern or modernized ones, water is distributed under pressure, using the most modern technologies.

The operation, maintenance, and other activities that the associations carry out are financed by their own revenues, making them economically independent. They charge for irrigation services at rates that are approved on a yearly basis by farmers in the general assembly of their irrigation associations and are then ratified by the national government. Users pay two different rates: a yearly assessment based on the size of the area they irrigate and a rate per volume of water used. Rates depend on the location, the availability of water, and the distribution system.

This is a common model in the countries of the Mediterranean basin, where rainfall fluctuates over the course of the year and the collective management of water supplies and irrigation are crucial for successful agriculture.

We are also concerned about climate change, which threatens to significantly affect the Mediterranean region as a whole and Portugal in particular. We expect climatic instability to increase, droughts to lengthen, and extreme wind and rain events to become more common. As such, we consider it crucial to increase our water storage capacities by building new reservoirs in basins with water and by using our water and energy resources more efficiently.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about FENAREG. José Nuncio: FENAREG is a national nonprofit association that serves the public interest. It was founded in 2005 and brings together irrigation water management agencies, both those that manage surface water and those that manage groundwater, with the aim of jointly defending their legitimate interests and promoting a sustainable and competitive irrigation sector. Today, it has 27 member organizations, representing more than 25,000 irrigating farmers and nearly 125,000 hectares (308,881 acres) of irrigated land. FENAREG’s members manage 90 percent of Portugal’s organized irrigation, 76 percent of its public collective irrigation, and nearly 20 percent of its irrigation as a whole.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about IE. José Nuncio: Faced with the effects of EU and transnational policies on irrigation, the most important European water management associations formed IE. Its aim is to be a more effective dialogue partner for EU institutions, to strategically increase support for irrigation and irrigation communities, and to support the development of a sustainable and competitive irrigation sector. Irrigation and water management are key factors in developing a sustainable agricultural sector that can respond to the challenges of climate change and food security, and as such, it is important to develop medium- and longterm European strategies to promote them and to gather the resources those strategies require.

The founders of IE are the national water management associations from the EU member states where irrigation is most important. They include Italy’s National Association of Drainage and Irrigation Boards, The National Federation of Irrigation Communities of Spain, Irrigators of France, and FENAREG. IE has the intention of bringing together the majority of national irrigated agriculture associations in Europe and is actively working to increase its membership.

IE was founded in June 2016 and represents 75 percent of the irrigated land in Europe—7.7 million hectares (19 million acres) of a total of 10.2 million hectares (25.2 million acres)—most of it managed by the associated water users’ associations.

IE aims to advance the goals of irrigated agriculture by involving representatives of the sector in decisionmaking and in the creation of relevant policy proposals for the irrigationleadermagazine.com

sector. These include the following: first, to bring together the irrigated agriculture sector in a single institution at the European level and to restore the legitimacy of an appropriate use of water resources in modern agriculture, which will allow the sector to face the contradictions and challenges of globalization; second, to be the single voice of irrigated agriculture vis-à-vis EU institutions; and third, to participate in process management on all levels, beginning on the European level, with a special focus on highlighting the special characteristics of Mediterranean agriculture in the revised EU Water Framework Directive.

Irrigation Leader: Why is it important to have an association representing irrigation communities on the European level?

José Nuncio: It is crucially important that there be an organization to represent the sector and to work on a water policy for the Mediterranean region, with an emphasis on how southern Europe’s irrigated agriculture is showing the way forward for the harmonious and sustainable development of new irrigated areas in central, northern, and eastern Europe. IE aims to support the development of irrigation in those areas by putting them in dialogue with countries with a longer history of irrigation and an extensive experience with irrigation systems.

Our principal objectives include the following: to promote and represent irrigated agriculture and agricultural water management on the European and international levels; to represent our members before the EU and its institutions; to encourage them to actively participate in the implementation of EU water policies; to promote and facilitate cooperation in irrigation and in the use and management of water in the agricultural sector among the relevant European organizations; to aid in the dissemination of information, points of view, guidelines, studies, working papers, positions, and opinions relevant to our members and EU institutions; to collaborate with universities on relevant research and innovation; and to highlight the benefits and positive externalities irrigation has for the environment and for society as a whole.

Irrigation Leader: Is there anything else you would like to add?

José Nuncio: I’d like to thank Irrigation Leader for the opportunity to introduce our organizations and our top concerns on the national and European levels. IL

José Nuncio is the president of the Sorraia Valley Irrigators and Water Users Association and of Irrigators of Europe, among other positions. He can be contacted at secretariado@fenareg.pt.

October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 37

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From Wood to Fiberglass and Lined Concrete: The Naches-Selah Irrigation District’s Infrastructure Updates

This 50-foot wooden trestle and flume linked two concrete tunnels across a canyon.

T

he Naches-Selah Irrigation District (NSID) serves around 11,000 acres in the foothills of the eastern slope of the Cascades. Its history dates back to the late 19th century—and in some cases, so does its infrastructure.

Up until a few years ago, the NSID had extensive stretches of wood-stave pipes and wood-trestle flumes in its system. Since around 2005, it has made a concerted effort to replace those structures with modern infrastructure made of fiberglass pipe, lined concrete canals, and other materials. In this interview, NSID Manager Justin Harter tells Irrigation Leader about the NSID’s impressive modernization efforts.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background.

40 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the NSID. Justin Harter: The NSID is located in northern Yakima County, in Washington State’s Yakima River basin. It adjoins the Naches River, and the main canal flows about 15 miles, serving the foothills of the eastern slope of the Cascades. It’s a great area for tree fruit: A lot of apples, cherries, and pears are grown in the area. Construction on the Selah Valley Canal started in 1888, and it has been flowing since 1892. Many of the families that homesteaded this area have grown into large fruit businesses, corporations, and grower-packer operations, spreading out from the district across the state into other parts of the Northwest.

The NSID is a non-Bureau of Reclamation project.

The NSID serves about 11,000 acres, making us smaller than some of the neighboring districts. I call us a big little district: irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NSID.

Justin Harter: I’ve been working for irrigation districts for pretty much my whole career. I’ve been with the NSID since 2005. Prior to that, I was with the South Columbia Basin Irrigation District. I’ve had a rewarding career so far and have done a lot of modernization and improvement of

irrigation canals and distribution systems. I also enjoy living in a rural area with ready access to outdoor activities.

The trestle was replaced by a custom-built elbow-shaped siphon supplied by HOBAS.

We’re large enough to be complicated and to have a manager who is involved in activities beyond the day-to-day operations of the district. Some of the smaller districts or canal companies are run by just a handful of people. We have eight full-time employees: five in the field and two in the office, plus me.

Irrigation Leader: Would you tell us about the situation when you started and what you’ve done during your time at the NSID? Justin Harter: In 2005, when I was hired, the board had already achieved a few improvements. By 2005, it had saved up some money by raising assessments and was ready to start in earnest to make improvements to the district. I took on that challenge. We started by replacing some wood pipes that were more than 80 years old. We did some planning exercises with consultants to develop more fine-tuned plans for the district’s future. Based on that, we developed a modernization plan. Since 2005, we have made improvements each year.

The 2015 main canal flume replacement and improvement project was part of that. It was probably the biggest project the district’s done in the last 60 years.

Irrigation Leader: For those who are unfamiliar with it, would you tell us how wooden pipe is constructed?

Justin Harter: We have both wood flumes and wood stave pipe. I never thought I’d be working with wood facilities and wood waterworks—the way I explain it is that the district irrigationleadermagazine.com

was built with anything that would fit in the back of a horse-drawn wagon. Using carpentry skills, early irrigators built trestle wood flumes to span small ravines, gullies, and canyons in the steep hillsides of our area.

The wood flumes are shaped like a half-circle with a diameter of 9 feet and can move 150 cubic feet of water per second. Interestingly, a 1930s sales manual that we own recommends that there only be 1 inch of freeboard for every foot of diameter, so the wood flumes we had were designed with only 9 inches of freeboard.

The wood staves have small tongues and grooves on their edges, allowing them to be fit together. A cross board with an iron rod band is used to tighten them, making them relatively watertight. Water is an important part of the sealing process, as the wood swells in the spring after drying out over the winter. Wood pipes that are buried in the ground are either wrapped in wire or, in the case of larger-diameter pipes, have individual rod bands that were tightened as the pipes were constructed in place. They’re remarkable facilities. The 1930s sales manual I mentioned states that the products would last 50 years, but we have facilities that were installed in the 1920s and 1930s and are still in service.

Irrigation Leader: How are the wood pipes joined together?

Justin Harter: There are the continuous wood staves, which are the pipes with a diameter of 30 inches or more. Smallerdiameter manufactured wood-stave pipes have machined October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 41

After completion, the siphon was buried.

ends. For lower-pressure pipe joints, that means a wood collar with rod bands clamping around the outside; for higher-pressure pipe, the joint is an iron-steel collar that was driven on by force, probably by manual labor.

Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about the pipes and siphons you used to replace some of these flumes.

Irrigation Leader: What did you replace the 50‑foot trestle with?

42 | IRRIGATION LEADER | October 2020

Irrigation Leader: What percentage of water were you losing in your system before these upgrades?

Justin Harter: In some areas, as much as 30 percent. You could see water dripping from the wood facilities with the naked eye, but what was even worse was how much water was being lost in the unlined earth sections. The biggest savings relate to reliability or the risk of failure. In 1992, a wood flume came down. The district was fortunate to reestablish water deliveries within 14 days, but it put a lot of crops at risk. That was really when the district realized that it needed to modernize.

Irrigation Leader: In addition to piping and lining, you have also automated parts of your system, correct?

Justin Harter: Yes. During the modernization, we recognized that a fully automated supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system would be necessary. The biggest lesson I learned from this process was that when you make your operations more efficient and conserve more water, you end up needing automation. Otherwise, you would have to spill the water you saved at the end of the system. In 2007, we installed our first Rubicon gate. We were happy with its performance and the service we received from Rubicon, so irrigationleadermagazine.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE NSID.

Justin Harter: As we came to the final stages of planning in 2013, steel pipe was an option, but I prefer nonferrous, less corrosive options because they do not require you to maintain coatings over the lifetime of the pipe. We looked at highdensity polyethylene. Then we looked at centrifugally cast, fiberglass-reinforced polymer water pipe manufactured by HOBAS. HOBAS had more experience installing largerdiameter pipe than its competitors. Ours was not the largest they produce, but it was quite large at 96 inches. HOBAS’s other selling points included the fact that it has a gasketed coupling system for the joints and also allowed for field cutting to length as needed. Working with HOBAS was great. It maintained a good delivery schedule. We had the contractor supply the pipe, so the contractor worked with the company on a $2 million pipe order.

We replaced our elevated wood trestles with siphons.

The highest was a 50‑foot trestle that crossed a canyon; the rest were 20–40 feet in height. In other areas, we constructed open-channel, reinforced-concrete canals.

We put geomembranes under the concrete to make them watertight, reducing future maintenance needs. We went with IPG’s Aqua Master, which seems to be a good system.

The elimination of seepage has saved us water. The concrete structures we replaced were from the 1900s—well over 100 years old—and many were deteriorating heavily, so we definitely got our money’s worth prior to replacement.

Justin Harter: At this site, a canyon interrupted a concretelined tunnel system that dates back to the 1930s. A wood flume trestle crossed the canyon, linking the sections of tunnel on either side, with about 1 foot of drop from one tunnel to the next. The wood flume trestle was replaced with a V-shaped siphon that connected to the existing tunnels with concrete inlet and outlet structures. HOBAS supplied a custom-built 96‑inch pipe tee along with two custom elbows that form the bottom section of the siphon. It integrates a manhole and drain access for future maintenance needs. The pressure rating of that pipe is 25 pounds per square inch.

In this section of the Selah Valley Canal, concrete lining dating back to 1910 was replaced by reinforced concrete.

The newly lined Selah Valley Canal.

we selected the company as our sole source and kept adding gates each year, culminating in 2012, when we installed the last six gates and implemented Rubicon’s Total Channel Control solution. It maintains a pool level—a target level on each reach between the gates—and allows our users to turn their water on and off at will without needing to inform us in detail about their needs. They do give us some notice of their delivery needs, but the automated system doesn’t really require any operator input to respond to the changes in delivery flows and user demands. Today, we have 16 Rubicon flume gates, a slip meter, and a number of monitoring sites, so our SCADA has expanded to comprise 22 remote sites.

Justin Harter: Probably around 40 percent, by flow of water.

About 3,000 of our 11,000 acres have modernized service.

Improvements have been made to the rest of the system, but not quite to our full plan. The project is ongoing.

We have paid a couple million dollars down on the bonds we took out in 2014 and 2015. After taking out those loans, we had a total of over $9 million in bonds and loan debt; now, we’re down to under $7 million. It takes time to pay things off.

Right now, bond rates are remarkably low—some recent ones are under 2 percent—so we’re looking to refinance or refund our existing bonds. We are also looking at financing our other outstanding needs. We still have about a mile of wood flumes on one of our laterals. They’re about 5 feet in diameter—about half the size of the main canal flumes we replaced—and no younger.

That’s a $10–$12 million project. We originally set up 4 miles of lateral, and we’ve got another 2½ miles of improvements, which will probably cost another $10 million. In total, the next round of modernization will cost around $22 million, and that still doesn’t fully complete our modernization plan.

Irrigation Leader: How do your farmers order their water?

Justin Harter: We keep it simple. We haven’t modernized that part. They either call or e-mail the office. We’re a senior rightholder and a nonproratable district in the Yakima basin, so we have an earlier order right. This is typical of districts like ours. Instead of having a major volume of delivery, we go off instantaneous flow, and our users are restricted to a certain flow.

We still use the antiquated measure known as a miner’s inch.

Our miner’s inch is 1/40 of a cubic foot per second, or 11¼ gallons per minute. Based on that, our users’ allotments are roughly equivalent to 5 gallons a minute per acre.

Irrigation Leader: What has the district done with the water it has conserved?

Justin Harter: In the case of grant-assisted projects, the water stays in the river. Most of our saved water is fully funded by landowners and rate payers, so we use it to assure the reliability of our delivery and enhance some of the deliveries that are available. We do have a limited acreage that we can serve with our water rights, so we are focusing on better serving the users rather than expanding acreage.

Irrigation Leader: What percent of your district’s facilities have been completely modernized? irrigationleadermagazine.com

Irrigation Leader: What advice do you have for other managers and irrigation district board members about modernizing their facilities?

Justin Harter: The old ways work—I usually say our canals are operating on 2,000‑year-old technology and haven’t changed much in the last 80 years for a reason. However, farms have embraced new technology and methods and have become more efficient, which means that it’s getting tougher to serve the farms’ demands. We’re trying to play catch up in terms of efficiency.

As a manager or board member, you need to be concerned with what happens tomorrow while planning for the next century. IL

Justin Harter is the general manager of the Naches-Selah Irrigation District. He can be contacted at justinh@n-sid.org.

October 2020 | IRRIGATION LEADER

| 43

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The

PV30

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The

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7 Issue 5 6

Volume 7 Issue 6

June 2016

Water Conservation and Delivery Efficiency in the Central Valley: A Conversation With Peter Rietkerk of South San Joaquin Irrigation District

8 Issue 2

February 2017

Volume 7 Issue 7

The Australia Issue

Volume 8 Issue 3

March 2017

July/August 2016

Volume 7 Issue 8

April 2017

Volume 7 Issue 9

Volume 6 Issue 8

September 2015

October 2016

Making a Good First Impression: A Conversation About Public Outreach With Roosevelt Water Conservation District General Manager Shane Leonard

Greater Wenatchee Irrigation District: Efficient Water Delivery for the Apple Capital

Managing From the Ground Up: A Conversation With Mark Zirschky of the Pioneer Irrigation District

Volume 8 Issue 4

September 2016

Volume 8 Issue 6

June 2017

Volume 7 Issue 10

November–December 2016

Volume 8 Issue 1

Hope for the Hi-Line: A Conversation About Rehabilitating Aging Infrastructure With the Milk River Joint Board of Control Project Manager Jennifer Patrick

Volume 8 Issue 7

July/August 2017

Janua

Stepping Into the Breach: A Conversation Wit Kennewick Irrigation District Manager Chuck Freema

Volume 8 Issue 8

Septem

Reflecting on Leadership, Education, and Safety With Kevin Adams of Farmers Irrigation District

RICK DIEKER of

Building Out the Future of Agriculture in Arkansas: An Interview With the White River Irrigation District’s Dennis Carman

8 Issue 9

October 2017

Sustaining Irrigation for Future Generations in Alberta: A Conversation With Terrence Lazarus of the St. Mary River Irrigation District

Volume 8 Issue 10

November/December 2017

Building Flexibility Into Water Delivery Systems: A Conversation With Kennewick Irrigation District’s Chuck Freeman

The New Zealand Issue

Volume 9 Issue 1

January 2018

Volume 9 Issue 2

February 2018

Modernizing Aging Irrigation Infrastructure in El Paso: A Conversation With Jesus Reyes of El Paso County Water Improvement District #1

Volume 9 Issue 3

March 2018

Volume 9 Issue 4

April 2018

Volume 9 Issue 5

M

RLING JUEL

f Greenfields Irrigation District

John Sweigard Preserving Water and History in the Imperial Valley

a conversation with reclamation commissioner

June 2018

Truckee-Carson

COMMON-SENSE

brenda burman Irrigation District

Craig Elmore President, IVH2O

9 Issue 6

of Merced Irrigation District

leadership at the

Volume 9 Issue 7

July/August 2018

Volume 9 Issue 8

September 2018

Volume 9 Issue 9

October 2018

SAFETY at the Salt River Project

Volume 9 Issue 10

November/December 2018

Volume 10 Issue 1

January 2019

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 2

Febr

eremy Sorensen of e Strawberry Water Users Association

Brian Olmstead of Twin Falls Canal Company

SSUE 3

ISSUE 10

march 2019

Mobile Drip Irrigation

An Interview With Dragon-Line Founder Monty Teeter

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 4

April 2019

IRRIGATION LEADER TOURS CHILE

Nebraska Husker Harvest Days 2018

New Zealand Tours

Nebraska VOLUME 10 ISSUE 5

may/June 2019

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 6

Shane Leonard of RWCD: Saving Money Through Public Outreach

VOLUME 11 ISSUE 1

january 2020

July 2019

Capital Improvements After Title Transfer: A Conversation With Matt Lukasiewicz

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 7

August 2019

David Dejong of the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project: Nation-Building Through Irrigation Infrastructure

Past issues of Irrigation Leader are archived at irrigationleadermagazine.com VOLUME 11 ISSUE 3

november/december 2019

training The Next Generation of Water Leaders

AARON DALLING OF FREMONT MADISON IRRIGATION DISTRICT

March 2020

VOLUME 11 ISSUE 4

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 8

Jason Phillips Friant water authority

September 2019

DALE BALLARD: MAINTAINING HISTORIC CARLSBAD IRRIGATION DISTRICT

VOLUME 10 ISSUE 9

Elizabeth Soal: How Irrigation New Zealand Promotes Innovation and Sustainability

april 2020 VOLUME 11 ISSUE 7

july/august 2020

VOLUME 11 ISSUE 8

The New Zealand Issue

@IrrigationLeader

Wendy Christensen of the Bureau of Reclamation:

irrigationleadermagazine.com

THE MANAGERS ISSUE

/IrrigationLeader Catastrophic Failure on the Milk River Project

Fighting Groundwater Nitrate Contamination in the Bazile

oc

Paul Cook: Groundwater

septe