New E. WA Irrigation Update--Some Districts Won't Get Much

First come, first served usually works in retail, or maybe in a buffet, but for water rights, it's a testy issue.

New water report doesn't look good for Columbia Basin

The Bureau of Reclamation is the Federal agency that oversees the water supplies for irrigation and other needs in central and eastern WA.

The Bureau has just released another irrigation and water level report, as of August 1st. for Eastern WA, and southeastern WA.

There are five major basins or reservoirs in the mountains that are used for supplying water for crops, consumers, farms and more in our region. One of them is Lake Kachess (kuh-cheeze) in the Cascades, there's a total of five.

Water reports indicate some deliveries will be full, others will not, according to the Bureau:

"Storage in the Yakima basin reservoirs on Aug. 1 was 39% full with 414,781 acre-feet, which is 55% of average. Precipitation for July was 52% of average and for October–July was 76.9% of average."

Much of it is based on senior vs. junior water rights. Areas with senior rights will get 100 percent of their allotments this year, but junior water right districts only 40 percent.

Junior districts include Kennewick Irrigation, Wapato, Kittitas, and Roza. Senior districts include Yakima-Tieton, Naches-Selah, Sunnyside Valley, and the Columbia Irrigation District in our backyard. Its roots trace back to 1917.