Irrigation districts filling East Low, West canals

COLUMBIA BASIN — Filling of two area irrigation canals to start the 2007 irrigation season begins March 21.

The East Low Canal serves the Moses Lake, Warden and Othello areas of the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District and the Connell (Block 18) area of the South Columbia Basin Irrigation District. Filling the canal usually takes about a week. Farm water deliveries get under way the last few days of March and first few days of April.

The East Low Canal's service area is too widespread to begin water deliveries everywhere at once, so lateral priming work is concentrated in the areas with the most water orders. Priming of lateral canals serving the district's Block 49 area, supplied by the Potholes Canal, begins March 26. Farm delivery for the area should begin the same week.

Once priming operations begin, the East Columbia district advises water users to contact their respective watermaster headquarters in Moses Lake or Othello, or contact their ditchrider to receive current information and schedules.

"We need to start filling the canals fairly early in the year, because we start getting demands for seed crops and what not," said Craig Simpson, senior assistant manager and deputy secretary for the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District. "A lot of times it's for dust control. Sometimes they actually have a need because there wasn't moisture enough in the soil profile over the winter, so we start filling fairly early at the request of our landowners."

Some years, landowners would prefer water earlier, but the district is limited due to conditions up north, when ice is still in the canals, limiting the start time.

Simpson noted the facilities need to be repaired and completed over the winter construction period.

Simpson hopes for a smooth operation and smooth startup allowing the district to provide water to customers without too many bottlenecks.

"No canal breaks is always a bonus, although every year we seem to have something minor happen," he said. "But if we can avoid those, we're happy, and get everything primed up in an orderly fashion. We hope we're able to meet the demand, especially during the peak of the season, so we don't have to interrupt any deliveries."

The Quincy-Columbia Basin Irrigation District also plans to start filling the West Canal the same day. Priming continues on smaller canals and laterals through the first week in April, depending on the weather and the demand for water deliveries.

Darvin Fales, secretary-manager for the Quincy-Columbia Basin Irrigation District, also hopes for a normal season without any large, unexpected events.

"The West Canal is one of the largest canals in the northwest, so we hope to see just a good year and being able to fill the canal, and bring it up to control water surface without any interruptions," Fales said.

The Quincy office and Royal Camp offices open on Saturdays starting April 7. Telephone reorders are available March 26 in all watermaster offices for water ordering, according to a release from the Quincy-Columbia district. The service is available Saturdays and up to 11:30 a.m. on Sundays for the following Monday's water order, throughout the season.

After March 22, the Quincy-Columbia district urges water users to contact their respective watermaster headquarters to receive current information and schedules.

Fales notes his district is going to have crews out on ditch banks doing preparation work, including patching concrete panels, cleaning ditches and clearing all debris.

"Our machines will be traveling along, our maintenance people will be traveling along with the water, making sure the pipes don't get plugged and all the debris and obstacles are out of the way so the water can flow."

If anyone sees anything abnormal, Fales advises, they should call their watermaster.

"Our main thrust is to make sure the water's available to the farm when they need it," Fales said. "It's heavily dependent upon weather patterns. Some of the water users need water early, which will probably be the last week in March. Other land owners won't need water until later in mid-April, but we need to get all the ditches that there is demand on cleaned out and filled up."