CBDL eyes move with water initiative

Meetings will be held in Moses Lake, Connell, Odessa

OTHELLO — Representatives from the Columbia Basin Development League will hold a series of public meetings in April to present details on the Columbia Basin Water Initiative.

The initiative is a new project undertaken by the CBDL that will bring together people who are interested in achieving a healthy water resource for eastern Washington.

League Chair Roger Thieme said in a press release that the Initiative has three major goals — to develop better public understanding of the Columbia Basin Project and its ability to address the declining water resources in the eastern part of the state; to develop cooperative partnerships with affected public agencies that would allow utilization of privately raised money to encourage and stimulate appropriate action and to support legislative action to secure appropriate funding.

"The meeting's important because we've not done a really good job of communicating with those people that have made contributions to the project," said Alice Parker, CBDL executive secretary. "We're trying to get them up to speed on what we're doing, where we're at and the actions we're taking as we move forward."

The lack of communication has been because the league has been in the process of getting everything in place and organized, Parker said.

"We've been struggling trying to get our arms around where we're going and what direction we need to be going," she said. "It's not that we haven't wanted to communicate to them, we didn't know what to report. Now we've been able to get things on track and get them moving in the right direction."

Parker said the goal now is to continue moving forward with development of the Columbia Basin Project and to try and solve the decline of the Odessa aquifer, which is impacting farmers' ability to economically pump water and hurting the water and domestic wells of that area.

But Parker said she thinks the League is moving ahead, with $100,000 in the budget for the Reclamation Budget to work on the Odessa Sub-Area issue in 2005. The League also recently met with Bureau of Reclamation chief John Keyes at a Las Vegas conference.

Keyes assured the League that the Bureau is moving ahead with an appraisal study for the Project to see what needs to be done, and that he would be getting a regional director to work with them and set up meetings with key players.

"This has been one of our problems," Parker said. "We have not had all the key players at the table. We are beginning to get that accomplished now."

Those players include the Department of Ecology, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of Agriculture, irrigation districts and some of the agricultural groups, she said, adding that inclusion of federal, state and legislative staff is expected.

The April 5 meeting will take place at the Moses Lake Convention Center. The April 6 meeting will meet in the Connell Community Center at 211 E. Elm St. and April 7 will take place at the Odessa Community Center on Main Street. Each meeting will run from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Parker said she is hoping for 75 to 100 people at each meeting. The agenda for each meeting will be the same.

"People are getting busy farming, so it will be difficult for people to get there," she said. "That's why we've having it in three different towns, at 7 p.m."