Odessa aquifer groups to coordinate efforts

CBDL, OARC discuss approaches to declining water

COLUMBIA BASIN — Two groups with the same goal — resolution to the Odessa Sub-Area Aquifer's declining water levels — and differing approaches will sit down at the same table in December.

Trustees of the Columbia Basin Development League (CBDL) voted last week to meet with members of the Odessa Aquifer Replenishment Coalition (OARC) in order to coordinate their approaches to resolve the problems of the declining levels of the Odessa Sub-Area Aquifer, and finished the second half of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Columbia Basin Project.

"The short-term goal of the league is to solve the Odessa aquifer problem," CBDL vice chair Steve Shinn said. "The coalition has approaches to solve the problem which may have some validity. We need to bring their methods into the league and move ahead as one voice to solve the problem."

CBDL executive secretary Alice Parker estimated that the meeting would take place in December.

The CBDL has been working to see that the second half of the project is completed and to supply long-term support for the activities that it says must be accomplished to assure more surface water will be available to the Columbia Basin Project.

The state allowed farmers to begin drawing water from the aquifer in the 1970s, believing they would ultimately get water from the planned expansion of the project. Cost concerns and concerns about restoring declining salmon runs helped to derail the expansion plans, leaving only the aquifer to supply the farms.

The state is providing $600,000 this year to begin studying ways to increase irrigation to 170,000 acres of farm land in eastern Washington.

The OARC formed earlier this year to create short-term and intermediate-term solutions to the declining levels of the Odessa Sub-Area Aquifer, proposing an aquifer recharge, where water is taken from a water source in the wintertime — in this scenario, the Columbia River —moved to the area and injected into the ground.

Last month, Washington State Department of Ecology director Jay Manning advised the CBDL to make sure that they presented one voice to legislators about the Odessa aquifer issue, which he said topped the priority list for his department and for Gov. Christine Gregoire when it comes to Columbia River concerns.

"We started to get messages from a new organization that we'd never heard of about a month ago, and they were different than the message from the League," he said following his speech at the CBDL annual meeting in October, referring to OARC and calling them more hard-edged and less constructive. "I don't care who it is, I don't care if it's the league or if it's the replenishment group, but it needs to be one group, one message and the league has been good about being constructive, helpful, giving credit where credit's due. They're the kind of partner that we can work with."

Manning said that groups that tend towards strong-arm tactics are not going to work very well.

"They haven't done that, he said of OARC, "but their tone has been a marked contrast to the tone of the league."

OARC chief consultant Pat Boss responded to Manning's comments at the time, saying that the message being put forth by the OARC is one of cooperation and that the coalition supports the completion of the project, but that he felt Manning needed to consider all the options.

"It's a viable proposal that deserves recognition by the state, and we're going to continue to push it," Boss said of the OARC proposal in October.

Boss said Friday that he had not yet received any official word or invitation to meet from the CBDL.

"We'd like to hear a plan that could be supported by both groups that included long-term solutions for Odessa along with short- to intermediate-term stop-gap solutions," he said. "If we can all sit down and agree upon six or seven elements, whether it's full completion or aquifer recharge or other ideas, that would be an ideal situation."

Boss said OARC is looking for a diversified strategy that would allow pursuit of several different options. While the coalition supports the league's efforts and thinks the long-term completion of the project is the ultimate solution, he said, there need to be solutions in the short-term.

"The aquifer is declining rapidly; there needs to be some immediate thing to help provide relief to farmers in the next one to five years," Boss said.

Parker said the perception exists that the CBDL and OARC are organizations divided, and she hopes to have that perception corrected.

"I think we need to walk out of there showing that we are both on the same page, both working for the same goal and give the perception that we are a team," she said, noting that some of the scenarios Boss and the OARC have presented are options the Bureau of Reclamation has been examining. "Everybody's got to work together in order to accomplish solving that issue out there, and we need to look at all the options and possibilities that are available that can help to solve it."