WS considering other water supply sources after grant request rejection

“Due to funding limitations, only the highest-rated applications have been identified for awards,” the letter from Grants Officer Irene M. Holby stated.

City Administrator and Public Works Director Pat Munyan said the rejection from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is a setback for the proposed $1.5 million project, but the city has other options. This project would re-establish a diversion and collection system for Jewett Springs waters northeast of town that the city holds a right to.

White Salmon also has applied to the state Department of Ecology for drought relief mitigation funding for the same project. The city is seeking $1 million to pay for everything from engineering to construction.

In a signal that the city may be moving away from the Jewett Springs project, Mayor David Poucher said Monday that city officials planned to meet Wednesday with Department of Ecology and representatives and “other interested parties,” including the Yakama Nation, “to look at another emergency option.”

City officials declined to say what the “another emergency option” is.

“We will not have a public comment till after those meetings,” Poucher said.

Munyan said the city remains in a water crisis but is keeping up with demand.

“We’re maintaining,” Munyan said. “Am I nervous about maintaining? Yes, but we’re doing it.”

In actuality, he noted, the city is putting more water back into the White Salmon River basin than it is diverting from its primary source, Buck Creek.

Currently, Munyan said, the city has a good base in Buck Creek, which is being fed by spring and glacier water runoff. Without a snowpack this year, the city has up to 1.75 cubic feet of water per second available to it from the creek.

“Our sand filtration plant is only capable of producing 2.25 cubic feet per second,” Munyan explain-ed. “We are using less than 1 cubic foot per second and putting 2 cubic feet back in, so we’re actually adding water into the river system, not taking anything away.”

There are 7.48 gallons in a cubic foot and 748 gallons in 100 cubic feet (hcf). In order to quantify large volumes of water use, this water use is expressed in acre feet numbers. One acre foot equals 43,560 cubic feet or 435.6 hundred cubic feet and is equivalent to 325,851 gallons. To picture this, just imagine one acre of land covered by one foot deep in water.

The city holds right to 4.25 cubic feet per second (cfs) off Buck Creek, but 2 cfs in held in a water trust managed by Ecology as mitigation for water being withdrawn from Buck Creek. Mitigation for fish in the basin is achieved by keeping an additional 2 cfs running through a diversion of Black Sands Creek, on Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

“Truth be told, we are conserving water,” Munyan said. “By mitigating, we aren’t taking anything away from the basin.”

Munyan said the city’s objective is maintain an in-stream flow of 2 cfs at all times below the White Salmon Irrigation District’s Buck Creek diversion. If flows below that diversion drop below 2 cfs, the city will have to reduce what it draws from Buck Creek to ensure 2 cfs in-stream flow is maintained.

The biggest worry city officials have right now is fire danger because of the dry conditions within and surrounding the city. They would like to see residents play a role by greening up the city environs.

“We would like to see people water a little more to keep their lawns and outdoor areas around their homes greener,” Munyan said. “We have the water for that now, and we are encouraging people to use it for that purpose.”