Will taxpayers be taken for a ride on new state irrigation plans?
There's a lot of revision going on to make the numbers support irrigation expansion in Eastern Washington. While environmentalists worry, the state plunges forward under a 2006 law.
Dave Walsh/U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
It's all about getting to one: The federal Bureau of Reclamation can't fund a water project for which the calculated public benefits don't at least equal the calculated costs — in other words, a benefit-cost ratio of at least 1. One can argue that a cost-benefit ratio or 1-to-1 this is a pretty low bar. Spending billions of dollars on a project that may just break even makes limited sense — unless, of course, you are one of the beneficiaries. At best, the system privatizes benefits while it socializes costs. In this society, that hardly makes it unique.
Naturally, project boosters squeeze the numbers any way they can to make the calculation come out one. Naturally, project opponents point to the shakiness of assumptions required to make the numbers work out right. That has been the recent — and not-so-recent — history of efforts to expand the federal Columbia Basin Project, and especially of efforts to expand it into the farmland currently irrigated from wells sunk deep into the Odessa aquifer — where farmers have been pumping their way through a deposit of "fossil" groundwater for the past half century or so. According to the state Department of Ecology, those farmers "have seen the aquifer drop an average of 7 feet per year for decades."
Now, a lobbying group, the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association, has used state money to produce an economic "review" that proposes a way of getting Columbia River water to about half the land currently being irrigated from the Odessa aquifer. The group has already asked the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee to go along. Some people admire both the irrigators' tenacity and their idea. The Tri-City Herald says the scheme "appears to be a winner."
How did a special-interest group get taxpayer money for a study that served its own interest? It's a long story. During the New Deal, the federal government decided to use power generated by the Grand Coulee Dam to pump water uphill from Lake Roosevelt, which was created by the dam, and channel it south to irrigate more than a million acres of arid land. Congress authorized the project in 1935, and re-authorized it in 1943. Workers completed Grand Coulee in 1941.
The original idea was to do the Columbia Basin Project all at once, but farmers in the Odessa subarea, among others, didn't want to be part of the project, so the feds decided to complete it piecemeal. The water started flowing in 1952. The first half-million-acre phase of the project was finished in the late 1960s. By now, the project has grown incrementally to 671,000 acres. That makes it the largest all-federal project in the country, but if you're still dreaming of the full million acres, it's incomplete.
Originally, just about everyone farming in the Odessa area raised dryland wheat. About half a century ago, some people started irrigating their wheat from deep wells. Over the years, they drilled more wells and had to drill them deeper. After 1973, when wheat prices spiked because of a huge wheat deal with the old Soviet Union, the amount of pumping skyrocketed. The water table kept dropping. The people who were pumping it hoped against hope that federal irrigation water would come flowing over the hill to save them from themselves. It didn't.
Six years ago, in 2006, the state Legislature passed the Columbia River Basin Water Supply Act, which set up an account to "assess, plan, and develop new storage, improve or alter operations of existing storage facilities, implement conservation projects, or any other action designed to provide access to new water supplies within the Columbia River Basin for both in-stream and out-of-stream uses." One-third of the water is supposed to be left in the river for fish. Two-thirds of the money "shall be used to support the development of new storage facilities." (Translation: “new storage facilities” means new dams, albeit not on the mainstem Columbia River.) The 2006 legislation gave special treatment to the Odessa aquifer.
In October 2010, the state and the Bureau of Reclamation issued a draft environmental impact statement for the Odessa subarea. It identified two alternatives: One would provide surface water to all 102,000 acres currently irrigated from the aquifer. The other would provide surface water to 57,000 acres. Neither got to one. The draft EIS came out with a worst-case benefit-cost ratio of just .396. The best case — which critics found implausible — still amounted to only 917. “If you correct their mistakes,” retired Washington State University professor of agricultural economics Norman Whittlesey said last year, “it's probably closer to .1.” (Late last year, the Bureau announced it had come up with a new preferred alternative, which will be the subject of a final EIS due out early this year. It would serve 70,000 acres of farmland both north and south of Interstate 90 in east central Washington.)
Irrigators north of Interstate 90 figured that at best, they'd have a long, long wait for federal water. The feds and state hadn't taken a very close look at what it would take to supply them. As Derek Sandison, who heads the state's Office of Columbia River, explains, Adams County suggested taking a look at the mechanics and the economics of getting water to the northern part of the Odessa subarea. The state gave Adams County the money to do so. The county hired the irrigators group.
After that, said Sandison, "what it morphed into then was a separate proposal." The irrigators have proposed taking water only to the acreage north of I-90, where it could be served by existing canals, and suggested that the state issue $250 million in revenue bonds to pay for it. The irrigators could pay the money back over 20 years. So, now the study has produced the plan that the Tri-City paper likes.
Why should the state bail out people who are currently pumping from an aquifer created perhaps by melting glaciers tens of thousands of years ago? Not everybody thinks it should. On the other hand, you could say that bailing them out is just the right thing to do. You could point to the fact that the potatoes grown there store well; without them, local processors would have to operate more seasonally and might leave. You could say that the area lies within the boundaries of the Columbia Basin Project, and when those people — or their predecessors — started pumping, they reasonably expected the long-delayed federal water that their more distant predecessors had turned down. (In advancing this argument, it may help to skip over the fact that federal water has looked iffy at least since Washington was governed by Republican John Spellman.) You could also say that the state gave them a green light to keep pumping.
Certainly, the state didn't discourage them. Everyone knew from the start that the groundwater wouldn't last. Originally, just about everyone farming in the Odessa area had raised dryland wheat. About half a century ago, some people started irrigating their wheat from deep wells. Over the years, they drilled more wells and had to drill them deeper. After 1973, when wheat prices spiked because of a huge wheat deal with the old Soviet Union, the amount of pumping skyrocketed. By the mid-1970s, the water table was dropping up to 40 feet a year.
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Feb 15, 5:09 a.m. Inappropriate
Once again, anti government handout people get their government handout. All through that part of Eastern Washington, when you listen in on breakfast conversations in rural cafes you hear complaints on “welfare bums,” lazy people getting a free ride from the “guvmint” and all sorts of other anti government early morning whining.
Yet, they all want free water paid for by that nasty “guvmint” for their own usage. Dry land farming is the proper use of that area. If the farmers want water, let them pay for it themselves. The argument is not about feeding America; the argument is about obscene profit.
Posted Wed, Feb 15, 6 a.m. Inappropriate
"How did a special-interest group get taxpayer money for a study that served its own interest?"
Yeah, THAT never happens. Ever hear of the "non-profit" sector, Daniel? Think it is exploding on willing donations?
And if you think the 1:1 cost:benefit ratio is bad, how about the "no net impact" (not even one molecule!) standard that "environmentalists" have squeezed into state water policy. Does this mean we somehow (magically?) design projects with ZERO environmental impacts. No, silly! It means we pay extortion costs to the established cartels (tribes, environmental groups) to not further increase costs through litigation. Speaking of environmental groups... How DO those special-interest groups get taxpayer money for studies that serve their own purpose? (I think Crosscut's recent story on Norm Dicks and the Puget Sound Partnership might provide some clues for you, Dan).
Posted Wed, Feb 15, 10:30 a.m. Inappropriate
BlueLight:
Puget Sound Partnership is a governmental body. Please do inform us of even one actual environmental NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) nonprofit that has received government money to perform a study that they benefitted from, other than the contract for the study. I haven't heard of an environmental NGO performing a study justifying cutting trees that they or their buddies own, catching fish, pumping water, etc. If you have, then tell us. Otherwise, BlueLight, you are just one more obfuscating industry shill.
Posted Wed, Feb 15, 11:17 a.m. Inappropriate
The Puget Sound Partnership - and many "governmental bodies" - routinely transfer public money to allied non-profits. Here's a few, Steve.
People for Puget Sound
Skagit River System Cooperative
The Nature Conservancy
South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group
Hood Canal Coordinating Council
Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group
The list goes on and on, Steve. I am surprised you even deny the practice. Are you a non-profit/government shill?
Posted Wed, Feb 15, 12:40 p.m. Inappropriate
Very informative and interesting article about a complex subject, where "garbage in, garbage out" studies have been the norm for years.
This isn't the only attempt by eastern Washington irrigators to fleece the taxpayers. Several proposed pumped storage projects near Yakima would make even the project described in this article look sensible. And the half to three quarter billion dollar proposal to expand Bumping Lake for benefit of Yakima irrigators would be hugely expensive not only in money, but would destroy one of the premier surviving old growth forests of the Cascades.
All this for crazy things like subsidizing the growing of hay for the Japanese racehorse industry. The days when this was about feeding the nation are long past. Obviously, we are still a long ways away from making rational decisions about irrigation projects in this state. The irrigators are undisputed masters of feeding (though I guess one should say drinking,) from the public trough.
Posted Wed, Feb 15, 2:59 p.m. Inappropriate
Good article. Thank yu.
Posted Thu, Feb 16, 8:43 a.m. Inappropriate
The potential Bumping Lake expansion is part of a much larger proposed package of water management and environmental restoration and protection actions that would leave the ecology and economy of the Yakima Basin a lot better off on the whole.
The Odessa project, on the other hand, will only make it harder for water and dam managers to meet flow targets for threatened and endangered Columbia River salmon and steelhead -- targets they already miss on a regular basis.
Posted Thu, Feb 16, 9:23 a.m. Inappropriate
"The Odessa project, on the other hand, will only make it harder for water and dam managers to meet flow targets for threatened and endangered Columbia River salmon and steelhead -- targets they already miss on a regular basis."
State mandated instream flow levels are designed to be missed on a regular basis.
Posted Fri, Feb 17, 12:18 a.m. Inappropriate
Wouldn't this extra crop production help feed starving people around the world? How is that a bad thing?
Posted Fri, Feb 17, 10:13 a.m. Inappropriate
They should be looking at the economics of artificial aquifer recharge, which I suspect would be a lot cheaper. Mother nature has already provided a water distribution system with the aquifers. I have yet to see a good technical discussion of why aquifer recharge was not pursued, or at least seriously examined.
Posted Mon, Feb 20, 9 p.m. Inappropriate
No water, no food. Less water, less food. More water, more food. According to the President of the College of Agriculture at WSU, we must, between last year and 2050, produce as much agriculture as has been produced since the domestication of agriculture, some 10,000 years ago. We are on target for 9B population by 2030; 11B by 2050.
We are being pressed by ever increasing demand for more food and a greater variety of food for fast growing emerging nations amidst weather conditions that sometimes make food production so "iffy" that the United States exported rice to China last year.
Those of you who think we farmers are laying around scooping up "guvmint" (we spell it "government" and pronounce it the same) goodies need to know the following: The total Farm Bill costs Americans 1/4 of 1% of the total annual Federal Budget. Eighty percent of the Farm Bill goes to feed people with programs like SNAP (food stamps), WIC, School Lunch, Seniors meals, etc. No guarantee that this 80% goes to American farmers, btw.
Of the remaining 20%, less than 3% goes to market price stabilization funding to help keep farmers cope with the wide, unpredictable swings in market prices that are characteristic of agriculture. So, that's 3% of 1/4 of 1% which helps keep farmers producing the food that supports your life. The remaining 17% covers the loan program (loans are repaid, and that, plus services USDA provides that must be paid for by producers guarantees a refund back to the general budget at the end of each Farm Bill cycle); consumer services, food safety inspection and quality grading and services, and conservation programs like CRP, SAFE, CREP, EQIP, NRCS, etc; disaster relief, as well as research, including research on organic farming and making small farms more productive, and statistical recording including NASS and ERS.
In the nineteenth century, a philosopher-economist named Malthus made the following observational prediction:
Food supplies grow arithmetically. Populations grow geometrically. Inevitably, population will outstrip the food supply significantly. Thus far, we have avoided meeting the Malthusian Proposition head on by significantly increasing the production of food. Given the agricultural impacts of global climate change, will we be able to continue doing so?
Particularly taking into consideration the fact that the United States is losing 2 acres of farmland per minute, 24/7/365.
If we weren't growing our own food, I'd be worried. How are you at supplying your own foodstuff? Why do you think farmers should continue feeding rude, uninformed, arrogant ingrates like you who will happily put billions of dollars into taxpayer supported sports arenas, but begrudge farmers a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that amount while they and/or their families more often than not work off-farm to support their farm production.
Posted Tue, Feb 21, 2:37 p.m. Inappropriate
A return of 91.7 cents on the dollar is a bargain compared to the return we tax payers will get on President Obama’s $80 billion clean energy program. The government has already lost 535 million on the failed Solyndra solar project. Even irrigations worst case plan of a return of 39.6 cents on the dollar is a better return than Solyndra.
Before we cast aside the Odessa Sub Area irrigation plan, a review of President Obama’s buddy - buddy clean energy program is in order. Read the article published in the Washington Post on Feb 14, 2012 titled, Federal funds flow to clean - energy firms with Obama administration ties. It is documented by Carol D. Leonning and Joe Stevens . You can find it here.
–
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/venture-capitalists-play-key-role-in-obamas-energy-department/2011/12/30/gIQA05raER_print.html
Maybe Mr. Chasan could do an in-depth study of the cost benefit ratio of some of Obama’s clean energy investments.
Now we could promote the Irrigation plan as part of Obamas clean energy program to convert water to ethanol. All you have to do is develop the irrigation plan and grow 100,000 acres of corn and process the corn to ethanol. This will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make everyone happy.
wreckxxon
Posted Wed, Feb 22, 8:44 a.m. Inappropriate
The critics are unaware – The world has changed.
A few quick and critical oversights:
1. 40% of the world’s food supply comes from irrigated agriculture. It would take 36 additional Iowa’s to replace that production. There are not 36 more Iowa’s.
2. The lion’s share of crop production research is now focused on drought tolerance.
3. We know that each person requires about 1,000,000,000 gallons of water each year. Most of that water is required to grow and prepare the food for each person.
4. Large amounts of irrigated farm land are converted and not replaced by urban development.
5. Large quantities of irrigated Agriculture water are converted to urban water supplies every year.
6. Citizens in developing countries now have resources available to purchase a balanced diet.
7. Most Important – there very few areas worldwide that have adequate water, climate and land that can be developed into productive irrigated agriculture.
Everyone knows that our Federal and State governments have already spent the resources that could be used for irrigated agriculture development. The future will produce new ways to accomplish the same objective. The above article is only about jumping through the environmental hoop – an enormous waste of resources.
Mark, from the land of the Mighty Columbia!!
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