Chris Lynch: Forecasting Future Water Supplies in the Yakima Basin
Lake Cle Elum, one of the five reservoirs on the Yakima system.
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8 | IRRIGATION LEADER | July/August 2021
Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Chris Lynch: I was born and raised for 10 years on a small farm in Pennsylvania before moving to Colorado. There, I came to understand the value of water because it was arid. I graduated from Colorado State University’s civil engineering master’s degree program with an emphasis on hydraulics and hydrology. I got my first job with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Seattle, where I worked in hydrology and water management for 12 years. I then moved over to the drier side of the state of Washington, east of the Cascade Mountains in the Yakima basin. I’ve been here for about 24 years, managing the water in the Yakima basin and doing studies to improve operations, water supplies, and fish flows. irrigationleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE BUREAU OF RECLAMATION.
s water becomes increasingly scarce across the West, the need to accurately forecast how much will be available is becoming ever more crucial to efficient water management. The Bureau of Reclamation’s Yakima Field Office has a distinctive method of forecasting water supply known as the Total Water Supply Available (TWSA) forecast. Born out of litigation and the Yakima basin’s unique characteristics, the system allows Reclamation to predict how much water will be available in total, how much will be available for each of the various water rights in the basin, and how much will be available for fish conservation and other uses. In this interview, Chris Lynch, the river operations engineer for the Yakima Field Office, tells Irrigation Leader how the forecast system came to be, how water supply levels are calculated, and how the system allows the field office to better serve all the users who depend on the Yakima for their water needs.
