Farmers float aquifer idea to quench their thirst

Oregonian article about Umatilla farmers proposing using water from the Columbia River to recharge aquifers.

Water is life in dry eastern Oregon, and farmers in the Umatilla basin have been getting by on progressively smaller sips since the 1970s. Faced with water levels that have dropped 500 feet in some parts of underground aquifers, the state has gradually curtailed how much farmers can pump from some wells and shut off others.

Choosing not to wait and wither, farmers and a broad coalition of supporters are pushing a plan to draw water from the Columbia River, whose massive flows are dammed for electricity generation and, in spring and fall, metered closely for salmon migration.

Their solution is a novel plan to recharge the aquifers by drawing as much as 80,000 acre-feet of water from the Columbia during the winter, when it runs high with excess water. Using irrigation pumps, pipes and ditches now in place, farmers would saturate the ground and allow the water to percolate to a shallow alluvial aquifer. From there, some of that water would be pumped out and injected into deeper basalt aquifers, recharging them for use during the dry months.

It's a bold step. Drawing more irrigation water from the river in the summer and fall, when it would help crops, is a political and environmental dead end. It's needed then for endangered salmon runs. But even environmentalists concede the Columbia's winter flow can be tapped without harming fish runs.

"It's a little tough for us to swallow, watching that river go by," said Kent Madison, an Echo farmer. "We can sit here and complain about our situation or decide to solve our problem. We within the Umatilla basin have chosen to solve our problem."

An acre-foot is enough water to cover an acre of land 1 foot deep. The target of 80,000 acre-feet is roughly equivalent to 26 billion gallons. For comparison, the Portland Water Bureau produces about 38 billion gallons annually from its Bull Run reservoir and Columbia wellfield systems.

Senate Bill 1069, introduced this week in the Legislature, would provide $750,000 to complete a feasibility study. The bill also allocates $500,000 to establish a water mitigation "bank" that would rent or sell unused water rights to Umatilla basin farmers who need water. Also, it provides $10 million in lottery money grants for water storage and conservation projects statewide.

The latter provision has helped attract a broad range of supporters, but it's clear that the Umatilla basin is at the heart of the issue. The state has designated four stretches of the basin, covering 650 square miles, as "critical groundwater" areas, meaning water use is curtailed.

Because of shortages, irrigation districts, communities and farms in the Umatilla basin last year drew only 30 percent of the water allocated to them on paper under the state's water rights permit system. Although groundwater permits exist to irrigate 57,000 acres in the basin, less than half of that received any water at all last year. No other part of the state has had such extensive shortages, according to an assessment by the Oregon Water Resources Department.

The state has estimated that restoring full water rights could increase the value of crops raised in the basin by $30 million annually.

Lloyd Piercy of Echo, who grows grass seed, vegetables, wine grapes and grain, has water rights to about 6,800 acre-feet. In 2007 he was allowed to irrigate with 669 acre-feet, less than 10 percent of what he expected, and devastating because he'd already planted and fertilized when he learned he wouldn't have enough water to sustain the crop to harvest. This year he's been allocated 3,000 acre-feet.

"Last year they cut us so severely, they pretty much cut us off," Piercy said. "The uncertainty is what gets you."

Farmers have been forced to juggle crop planning based on water projections. A basin farmer, Chet Prior, said some farmers would be able to "double crop" some acreage -- plant beans on ground that yielded peas or corn after blue grass -- if water were available later in the season.

"You'd have a lot of opportunities if you got the full water right available to you," Prior said. "The driving force behind almost all the agriculture we do on this farm is the water supply."

Senate Bill 1069 is supported by the governor's office, the League of Oregon Cities, irrigation and water districts, the Oregon Farm Bureau and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, among others. WaterWatch, a Portland conservation group, is neutral on the bill, a stand that supporters count as victory.

"We've said all along that there are months when water is available from the Columbia," WaterWatch Director John DeVoe said. "We also got assurances that this Umatilla study would not look at taking water from the Columbia or its tributaries during the summer."