Farmers seek increased water rights

BY AARON CLARK
The Associated Press

March 23, 2007

Economic development officials from Eastern Oregon packed a hearing room Thursday to drum up support for a contentious bill to siphon off 500,000 acre-feet of water annually from the Columbia River to help farmers grow higher value, water-intensive crops.

Increased water rights would help rural economies by allowing farmers to grow feedstocks such as canola and corn that would help drive the alternative fuel industry that policymakers are aggressively pushing in Salem, boosters said.

"We have an opportunity to either grow that industry locally or we will be forced to import those crops from either the Midwest or from Malaysia and Indonesia," Ken Puzey, the manager of the Port of Umatilla, told a Senate panel.

But environmentalists said the proposal, dubbed the "Oasis Project" by supporters, would harm salmon that swim up the Columbia River each year into creeks to spawn throughout Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

"The fact that we have every salmon stock in the Columbia either extinct or listed under the Endangered Species Act says enough," said Rick George, a biologist who works for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, a group that opposes the bill. "We have turned that habitat inside out."

The measure, which received its first legislative airing Thursday, would allow as many as 500 million gallons per day to be pumped from the Columbia River, including during dry summer months when water is critical for both farmers and fish.

Advocates of the proposal said it could generate $220 million per year and as many as 7,300 new jobs by reinvigorating rural communities.

However, critics said it runs counter to Oregon's current "bucket-in, bucket-out" policy that requires water users to replace any water they withdraw from the river.

A better plan, some environmentalists say, would be to build water storage facilities and divert water from the Columbia during high flow periods in the winter months. But water specialists said that would cost millions of dollars.

In Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire cleared the way for more withdrawals from the river to make additional irrigation water available to farmers on that side of the river.

Of the water that's diverted from the Columbia for irrigation in the Northwest, Washington already pulls over 30 percent and Oregon takes 7 percent, according to advocates of the bill.

State Rep. Mike Schaufler, who supports the bill, said Oregon should use more water from the Columbia to generate greater economic growth. "We could take advantage and we're not. It's a shame, it's criminal," said the Happy Valley Democrat.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski's office said that the governor does not support the bill but is seeking funding for a study to determine if Oregon can withdraw more water from the Columbia without harming native fish species.

In the early 1990s, after the first listing of a Columbia fish under the federal Endangered Species Act, Oregon began limiting new water entitlements. Scientists say seasonal restrictions help support spawning salmon and steelhead but farmers say they need more water from the Columbia because groundwater is drying up.

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