NACHES-SELAH’S OUTREACH TO LOCAL SCHOOLS Justin Harter visits a Naches Valley Middle School classroom.
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Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Justin Harter: I’ve been in irrigation for 22 years now. I started my career at South Columbia Irrigation District in Pasco, Washington, and for the last 14 years I’ve been the manager of the Naches-Selah Irrigation District. Careerwise, it’s been rewarding to work at a small, older district that needs a lot of improvements. We’ve made many of those improvements, and we have more to do.
24 | IRRIGATION LEADER
Joshua Dill: Please tell us about Naches-Selah’s school outreach program. Justin Harter: Ms. Katherine Miller, a teacher at Naches Valley Middle School, saw the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan outreach booth at the Kittitas County Fair in September 2017 and inquired about the possibility of someone coming to speak to her class. The outreach person we had for the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan was leaving the position at that point, so I was asked to volunteer. I visit a seventh grade science class twice every year—in the fall to speak for one period to a conservation-focused student group called the Green Team, and in the spring for a full day. Joshua Dill: What do you tell them about? Justin Harter: In the 40–50 minutes I have with each class, I explore the importance of water in the basin that the kids live in. I tell them what an irrigation district does and how our district serves the community and them, and I show them different parts of Naches-Selah’s irrigation infrastructure as well as irrigation infrastructure in other parts of the basin. Additionally, I show the students slides from a trip to India I took with the World Bank in 2016 to demonstrate how irrigation works on the other side of the world. I also get into broader topics, from the natural science of water to the applied physics and engineering that goes into
PHOTOS COURTESY OF NACHES-SELAH IRRIGATION DISTRICT.
he Naches-Selah Irrigation District serves more than 10,500 acres in Washington’s Yakima County and has a history going back to the 19th century. The land the district serves is devoted predominantly to apple, cherry, and pear orchards, some of which have now been in the same families for five or six generations. Justin Harter has been the district’s general manager for the past 14 years. For the past several years, he has also been involved in a simple and effective form of public outreach. Twice a year, Mr. Harter presents information about his district and about the art of water management generally to a local seventh grade class, building the community’s knowledge of and appreciation for the work of the district. In this interview with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill, Mr. Harter explains how the outreach program got started, what he teaches the students, and the benefits the program has both for the district and for the community as a whole.
