Water projects wait on funding, feasibility study

Bureau to work with impacted landowners

COLUMBIA BASIN - Funding and the authority to do a feasibility study are necessary ingredients in order for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to move along with area water projects.

Bureau Planning and Program Manager Norbert Ries said an environmental document was released in July for a supplemental feed route into Potholes Reservoir, indicating it would be a two-stage process.

One alternative, conveying water from the Billy Clapp Reservoir via the main canal and the West Canal through the Frenchman Hills Wasteway, would be a short-term fix and something which could be done within the next year, Ries said.

The second alternative, for the second phase, would go through upper Crab Creek. Ries said there is more land to acquire and define right of way for in the second phase and a little more construction to do, so it would take more time.

"So we've kind of chosen a two-stage option," Ries said. "One is to provide water immediately, which is not enough to do what we want to do, but it's still releasing some of the pressure off of the East Low Canal."

Bureau Special Projects Officer Jim Blanchard said all three possible alternatives were selected after the completed environmental assessment produced a finding of no significant impact.

"No significant impact, which is somewhat in the eye of the beholder," Blanchard said. "If it's your house that got wet, that's significant, but in the overall scheme of things, a couple houses may not be not as significant as not doing it would be to the economy of the area."

The bureau will work with any landowners impacted because of the need for rights of way, but Blanchard said that is in the future once funding is in place.

The third alternative uses higher spring flows to help management of invasive species in some years, replacing year-round flows, Blanchard said.

Replacing the year-round flows with spring flows is a temporary fix, he explained.

"We would be using that for one, possibly two years, and then we would go back to the year-round flows," he said. "The important part of that is it's just a short-term thing while we dry up some of the side areas so the bullfrogs don't expand out of the creek."

The findings were released in an environmental document in July.

"If we get the funding, all we need to do is kind of increase the culvert capacity on Road C S.E., maybe get some easements and that route is ready to go," Ries said.

Funding is also important for the second phase.

"Without funding, we can't start implementing," Ries said.

Blanchard said funding would come from Congress because it is a federal project.

"It happens the state Department of Ecology is proposing to fund a crossing we needed to improve on the Frenchman Hills Wasteway, a road crossing, and we're working on a design for that right now," Blanchard said. "That could possibly be constructed this winter."

Blanchard stressed any movement is a ways off.

"The process of getting funding from Congress is a long process," he said. "We won't turn around and be doing anything most likely for several years. Congress can of course include funds in a budget and direct us to specifically get working on this, but they have us on a continuing resolution right now, which means we don 't have anything other than the same amount of money we had last year, which did not include anything for this at all."

Ries said a report released by engineering company CH2M Hill in May examined possible mainstem off-channel storage sites in Crab Creek, Sand Hollow, Foster Creek and Hawk Creek.

"It ended up being Crab Creek seemed to be the most, we will say, viable because it had a smaller lift, capability of funneling 3 million feet of water, it can be built in stages, it can be filled either from pumping from the Columbia River or running, catching operational spills out of Lower Crab Creek and projects or whatever," Ries said.

"There was a lot of environmental and social concerns that needed to be answered when the time came," Ries said. "The other three alternatives were just set aside and we have told the Sand Hollow people their site was small, only could accept one reservoir of 1 million acre-feet and just at this point would not become a viable alternative."

At the Crab Creek site, irrigators, the state of Washington and the bureau are gathering information, while the bureau is still receiving letters and answering questions.

"A decision has not yet been made," Ries said. "Without authority for the Bureau of Reclamation to do a feasibility study, Reclamation is basically doing other things right now."