Going dry

Farmers feel impact of declining Odessa aquifer levels

ODESSA — The stories Clark Kagele tells as he drives around his farming neighborhood are tales of perseverance and of failure.

This neighbor has one well which Kagele says is producing OK, another which is producing about half of its normal levels and two more from which he's ceased pumping.

That neighbor has circles in his field that have not been used to grow crops for a number of years.

Another gave up irrigation after his well failed over the course of five years, pulling off all of the equipment and switching to a dry land operation. His employee had to get other jobs because there weren't enough acres to farm.

One piece of land has seen four owners in the past nine years.

Struggling wells are the subject of conversation all year long, Kagele says grimly, noting that in this particular neighborhood, there are a dozen failed wells no longer being used.

Kagele himself has spent at least $1 million dollars on his own operation in the last four years. After water tables in the Odessa Sub-Area Aquifer dropped low enough that he was unable to pump water from two of his wells, he drilled in two deeper replacements, at a personal cost of half of a million dollars apiece.

'It's a complicated, complex issue'

The Columbia Basin Development League has established a water initiative to address the declining water level of the Odessa Sub-Area Aquifer, and is working to supply long-term support for the activities that it says must be accomplished to assure more surface water will be available to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's 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.

Congress originally authorized the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project to cover 1,095,000 acres, but to date, only about 600,000 acres have been developed.

The Washington State Department of Ecology granted farmers permits to drill wells out in the unfinished area, with the thinking that surface water from Grand Coulee would be coming very soon.

But irrigation in the unfinished areas — including portions of Grant, Adams, Franklin and Lincoln counties — was put on hold, for reasons including a moratorium on Columbia River water withdrawals and the Endangered Species Act.

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 CBDL will hold its annual conference and dinner Oct. 26 at Big Bend Community College's Advanced Technologies Education Center in Moses Lake, with the conference beginning at 1 p.m. and lasting until 5 p.m., and the dinner reception beginning at 5 p.m.

"It gives the attendees an idea that we are proceeding and we are getting to where we are," said Alice Parker, executive secretary for the CBDL. She thinks the main focus of the conference, with new Department of Ecology director Jay Manning as guest speaker, is to provide an update on what has happened and what's being looked at for the future, and offer attendees an opportunity to get better acquainted with Manning.

She also hopes that they will leave with a better understanding of what the process is going to take to get the solution to the situation accomplished.

"It's a complicated, complex issue and we can't just go out there and just do it like we would like to do," Parker said. "It is a federal project and we do have to follow guidelines that are set down by Congress, and I hope we can get the attendees to understand that. A lot of people do understand that, but a lot of people don't understand why it's taking so long and why it has to go this route."

Reaching new depths

The irrigated ranch is about 40 percent of Kagele's operation; he also farms dry land operations in Adams County. Born on the land, Kagele has been farming for 31 years on his property, raising three children — Jessica, 28, Melissa, 25, and Matthew, 21 — with his wife of 30 years, Charlene. He has about 2,100 acres of irrigated land, and 3,000 acres of dry land, upon which he grows potatoes, peas and wheat.

The first well that failed was 700 feet deep, replaced by a 2,100-foot well, now in its third year. The second was a 650-foot well, replaced by a 2,400-foot well.

"Basically, we never hit dependable water until we got to that 2,100 feet and 2,400 feet," Kagele said. "It appears to be a good water supply, but when you're working with deep wells, basically, it's like a slot machine or living in Vegas or something. You really don't know what you've got and how long it's going to last."

That doesn't necessarily mean that the water Kagele is pumping is of a decent quality. Water from the deepest well is coming out of the ground at 104 degrees, and has a high salt factor.

"It would be undrinkable, it's got such a rotten egg smell to it," Kagele said, noting that additives are used to drop the water's pH level — the measure of a solution's acidity or alkalinity — but that doesn't do anything to reduce the salt factor, which will build over time in a farmer's soil if it's not very porous.

The wells are not totally going dry; if a farmer shuts down his wells for a week, the water levels rise again, and he could run his pumps for one or two more days until the levels drop again. But there isn't enough water available to pump for a crop, Kagele said.

He estimated that his cost in redeveloping the first well was $800 per irrigated acre. The second well was $1,200 per irrigated acre, because there aren't as many circles under that particular well.

"It doesn't matter if you're redrilling a well for one circle or for six circles, it costs the same," he said. "You've got to drill the same size hole, you've got to build it to the Department of Ecology specs, and it's all very spendy."

'Proactive instead of reactive'

Kagele said he has tried to combat the declining levels with water conservation, using crop rotations requiring less water or concentrating watering on higher value crops.

"You've got to take things as they come; if you spend time dwelling on it, you'll just worry yourself to death," he said. "You try to be proactive instead of reactive; being proactive right now is getting surface water out here."

Dryland operations are less dependent upon the aquifer, and many have pulled water off of irrigated land to use it for dryland, but they are still dependent upon 7 inches of annual rainfall, Kagele said, adding that farmers' domestic supply of water is also a concern as aquifer levels decline.

Things are better this year with both wells online for his own operation, but there were battles in previous years with the failing wells, he said, again making the Las Vegas analogy.

"You're in a 100 percent good situation one day, and the next day, you walk out there and you've got nothing but air, no water whatsoever," he said. "So you've got your crops totally fertilized and dependent on water, and you're experiencing a well failure. We've had to run portable mainline 3 and 4 miles across country and try to use one well to get our crops through harvest, when normally two would be needed to do it. That's an emergency situation."

What does the future hold?

The future of eastern Washington, including Adams, Franklin and Lincoln counties, depends on the inputs put into the ground to grow irrigated and high-value crops, Kagele said, adding that if the area went dryland, eight to 10 families employed by irrigated farming operations would go out of business.

Parker has been following the situation for years, and said she is enthused by the support the project is beginning to garner.

"I think that they're beginning to understand that there is a problem there, and we've got to do something to solve it as rapidly as possible," she said. "I think we've got a lot of people who are understanding that if we don't do something as quickly as possible, eastern Washington is going to be hurting economically."

Especially in Adams County, Parker said.

"If all of those irrigated acres revert back to dryland, I don't have a clue as to what it will do to its tax base, but it has to have a tremendous impact," she said.

Kagele has served on the trustees board and the executive branch of the trustees board for the CBDL. The timeline to complete the Columbia Basin Project is a little bit long, he said, pointing to the steps required by the Bureau of Reclamation.

"Time is of the essence," he said. "I don't think we have forever to get this done anymore."