News Release

November 1, 2011

Contact:

1. •Rachael Paschal Osborn  rosborn@celp.org
   

Bureau's latest Odessa proposal:  bad deal for taxpayers, environment

Public shut out as federal agency attempts to expand federal irrigation in eastern Washington

Spokane - The Center for Environmental Law & Policy today criticized the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Ecology for issuing a new "preferred alternative" for the Odessa Subarea Special Study.  The alternative, which has not previously been studied, proposes to bring new lands into agricultural production, in exchange for retiring lands in the outer Odessa subarea.

"We have enough of a water crisis in eastern Washington without opening more lands to federal irrigation," said Rachael Paschal Osborn, staff attorney with the Center for Environmental Law & Policy. "The Bureau of Reclamation needs to open up its process to evaluate this alternative."

CELP's concerns fall into four areas:

1. •Lack of transparency.  The Bureau's "preferred alternative" is a new alternative and has not been subject to public environmental and economic analysis.  The Bureau has excluded the public from review and comment process.  This lack of transparency is also a violation of federal law.
   

2. •Who will pay?  The new alternative will still cost hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more, and will reap the same energy subsidies that make the existing Columbia Basin Irrigation Project a bad deal for taxpayers and ratepayers.  These subsides include below-cost power preferences for irrigators who must move water uphill from Lake Roosevelt, and foregone hydropower revenues for the 164,000 acre-feet of water that will no longer flow through the turbines of Grand Coulee and 10 downstream dams.
   

3. •Columbia River flows.  The Bureau and Ecology claim the water for this project will be "skimmed off the top" of Columbia River flows as if it is disconnected from the river ecosystem.  In reality, the Columbia River is over-allocated and instream flow problems will worsen as the climate warms and the Columbia River Treaty requires deeper reservoir drawdowns to accommodate spring season floodwaters.   Allocating more water out of the Columbia reduces the flexibility of the system to accommodate salmon recovery.
   

4. •Impacts on shrub steppe.  The Columbia Basin Irrigation Project has destroyed most of the historic shrub steppe ecosystem with much detriment to various species including sage grouse.   This latest alternative, which contemplates bringing new lands into irrigation, may eliminate some of the last of this habitat -- although this isn't know because the Bureau failed to conduct analysis.
   

Links:

1. •Odessa Subarea Special Study DEIS
   

2. •Resource Economists Norman Whittlesey and Walter Butcher:  comments on Bureau's EA for Lake FDR drawdown
   

3. •National Academies of Science:  Managing the Columbia River: Instream Flows, Water Withdrawals, and Salmon Survival
   

4. •Rachael Paschal Osborn:  Odessa Aquifers:  Crisis in Sustainability
   

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