Groundwater forum is November 16

MOSES LAKE - The Columbia Basin Ground Water Management Area (GWMA) is releasing details of its draft hydrologic study at 7 p.m., Nov. 16, at Big Bend Community College's ATEC Center.

The meeting is open to the public.

The event comes three weeks after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the state Department of Ecology released a draft Environmental Impact Study (EIS) about delivering surface water from the Columbia River to farmers receiving deep well water in the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project.

The EIS outlines nine options for water delivery, with most of the options entailing the further development of the irrigation project.

GWMA's territory encompasses areas outside the irrigation project, covering Grant, Adams, Franklin and Lincoln counties.

GWMA is looking at another way to solve the problem, which it claims is connected to the decline of underground water.

In the 1960s, there was 60 million acre feet of water available and now there's between 10 and 20 million acre feet left, the group claims.

"We're starting to get evidence about what's going on here," said Scott Cave, a GWMA consultant. "The groundwater is ancient, it's declining fast and there's very little recharge."

Paul Stoker, GWMA's executive director, told the Columbia Basin Herald about four solutions unrelated to finishing the irrigation project.

They are: pumping water from a reservoir or another water source, passive rehydration, such as using water placed in a dry lake bed to fill aquifers, and direct injection.

In Washington state, direct injection is controversial, as a state law requires that water must be treated to potable drinking standards before it's placed into a hole, Stoker said.

Direct injection isn't off the table, but it is more expensive, he said.

Stoker explained there are many stories about the Odessa subarea, but it's not just that area.

"It's everybody, every city, every deep basalt well in the four-county region," he commented. "The scenario is, are you connected to new water, or not?"

He also explained differences between GWMA's efforts and the EIS.

The EIS involves an economic and engineering study to determine whether or not to bring water down the canal system, he said.

GWMA is trying to create hydrologic models and water budgets to determine how much water is available and how much time remains before it is gone.

The Nov. 16 meeting features speakers John Porcello, a hydrogeologist with GSI Water Solutions Inc., Dimitri Vlassopoulos, a geochemist with Anchor QEA, Kevin Lindsey, with GSI Water Solutions, Inc., Heath Gimmestead, Columbia Basin Development League president and Derek Sandison, of the state Department of Ecology's Columbia River Office.