This website examines the various Columbia River programs underway in Washington and offers a public interest viewpoint that is largely absent in the development of most of these proposals. 

In February 2006, the Washington legislature enacted House Bill 2860, creating the “Columbia River Water Management Program” (CRWMP)  The bill is codified at Chapter 90.90 of the Revised Code of Washington. 

CRWMP (formerly the Columbia River Initiative), has spawned a significant number of new water development activities.  The Washington Department of Ecology, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are all undertaking studies to build new dams in Washington’s portion of the Columbia watershed.

The array of projects – and their relationship to each other – is confusing.  But, the goals are the same: to divert more water from the Columbia River to irrigate agriculture.  The state is spending millions of dollars on reports and studies (Ecology reports $18 million in expenditures for the current biennium, see Columbia River Investment Atlas, and is creating a new bureaucracy within the Department of Ecology to serve Columbia River water users.  Despite these activities, there has been virtually no discussion of three fundamental issues:

oFirst, environmental feasibility.  New water is not available from the Columbia River.  (See Columbia Chronology [link above] for discussion of the state’s historic resistance to this fact.)  The combination of existing irrigation withdrawals along with instream flow requirements for fisheries means that virtually all water in the Columbia River is spoken for.  Indeed, future river management will likely require that more water remain instream to keep fisheries healthy.  New dams that divert more water from the Columbia simply do not comport with reality.

oSecond, economic feasibility.  Funding is not available to build expensive new dam & reservoir systems.  The state cannot afford to build these projects on its own, and in the fiscally-strapped future, federal dollars will not be available to fund multi-billion-dollar water projects.  Moreover, despite huge outlays for project studies (listed below), not a single agency has assessed cost-benefit ratios.  The Columbia Basin Project is already the most heavily subsidized irrigation project in the United States.  Why would the public pay more?

oThird, sustainability.  Dams destroy rivers, riparian and terrestrial habitat, and cultural resources.  They degrade water quality and trap toxic chemicals in sediments.  Dams promote industrialized, corporate agriculture.  They do not support locally-based, water-efficient, chemical-free family farms.  If Washington intends to subsidize agriculture, doesn’t it make sense to promote farming that is sustainable?

Until these three questions are answered in a way that makes economic and environmental sense, Washington’s dam-building program will fail to serve the people of Washington State. 

Current Columbia River dam-building projects and studies include:

oColumbia River Mainstem Off-Channel Storage Options (Ecology).  An ongoing analysis of new dam & reservoir sites adjacent or near the Columbia River.  These sites would receive water diverted from the Columbia River to serve new irrigation and provide flow augmentation to the Columbia River.  The analysis has been narrowed to four dam sites: Hawk,  Sand Hollow and Lower Crab Creeks. Check our our Lower Crab Creek website here. 

oCRWMP Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Ecology). Note:  The Final PEIS (or “Problematic EIS,” as one of our Hawk Creek friends likes to call it) was issued in final form in February 2007.  It’s chock-full of random detail and novel policy concepts, and well-designed to confuse the average reader. The PEIS will be heavily relied on by the Department of Ecology to justify the new dam-building program, with a focus on three early action projects to divert additional water from the Columbia River (drawdown of Lake Roosevelt, new water supply routes to Potholes Reservoir, and the Columbia-Snake Irrigators Association proposal for new diversions). 

oCRWMP Columbia River Water Supply Inventory (Ecology).   A legislative-directed study of demand and supply for water in the Columbia mainstem.

oOdessa Subarea Special Study Initial Report (USBR).  A general analysis of options to substitute Columbia River water for groundwater withdrawals east of the Columbia Basin Project.  The report has identified four dam-reservoir sites (Dry, Rocky, and Lind Coulees and Lower Crab Creek) that could store water diverted from the Columbia River.  In addition to new dam sites, local momentum is building for state or federal agencies (the public) pay farmers to not irrigate.

oSupplemental Feed Route for the Potholes Reservoir (USBR & Ecology).  The Bureau has just issued its Final Environmental Assessment The new Potholes feed route will flood private property, country roads and wildlife habitat. It will also increase diversions from the Columbia River and is intimately linked to the Odessa Sub-area water supply bail-out.  The EA fails to acknowledge either of the latter two issues.   Link here for the Bureau’s EA and here for Columbia Institute’s comments. 

oYakima Basin Storage Study (USBR & Ecology).  Includes the notorious $6 billion Black Rock Reservoir proposal that would pump 3,500 cubic feet per second several miles uphill (1400 ft elevation gain) from the Columbia River to a dam-reservoir site on a fault zone that is prone to infrequent but large earthquakes.  The Yakima storage study includes analysis of Wymer Dam, which would inundate Lmuma Creek upstream of the Yakima River Canyon. The Bureau of Reclamation and Department of Ecology will issue a joint draft Environmental Impact Statement in January 2008 for public comment. Meanwhile, the Bureau will soon issue interim Black Rock reports on “water benefits” and a seepage study examining groundwater leakage from the Black Rock reservoir that will impact Hanford Reservation groundwater clean-up efforts.  Click here to monitor the USBR’s Yakima Storage website.

oWalla Walla Feasibility Study (ACOE). The Walla Walla watershed groups have worked hard to find solutions, including some sustainable concepts.  However, the feasibility study proposes new tributary dams & reservoirs and a ‘water exchange’ project that would pump water from the Columbia River at the rate of 208 cubic feet per second for 30 miles (uphill).

oShankers Bend/Similkameen River. A decades-old proposal to construct a new dam on the Similkameen River, above Enloe Dam, near the U.S.-Canada border, recently revived in response to Washington’s dam-building program.  Okanogan PUD recently filed an application for a federal energy license to build and operate Shankers Bend Dam.  Click here to link to their documents.