Peninsula Daily News and The Associated Press
OLYMPIA — The governor has declared a statewide drought emergency, clearing the way for state officials to ramp up aid to deal with hardships from water shortages.
Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday that parts of the state have been severely impacted by snowpack levels that have reached just 16 percent of normal.
“This drought has deepened dramatically over the past few weeks,” Inslee said, noting the snowpack was at an unprecedented low.
“On the Olympic Peninsula where there would normally be 80 inches of snow today in the mountains,” he added later, “the glacier lilies are blooming.”
Before Friday’s statewide declaration, the governor first declared drought emergencies in March for three regions of the state, including the Olympics, and later expanded the areas to include nearly half of Washington.
State agriculture officials estimated a loss of $1.2 billion in crops this year because of dry conditions.
And state wildfire managers expected blazes earlier than normal in the season and at higher elevations.
“The rain the past few days is bringing some temporary relief. However, with no snow in the mountains to sustain us through the dry summer months, we have some really tough months ahead of us,” said Maia Bellon, director of the state Department of Ecology.
Some water managers in the Puget Sound region, including Seattle, Tacoma and Everett, aren’t anticipating water shortages.
“The large public utilities have planned well,” Bellon said. “Our projections show that most households in Washington will have an adequate water supply.
“Our focus in this snowpack drought is on farms, fish and smaller community water systems.”
State officials already have taken drought-relief measures in many areas to help protect municipal water supplies along with water needed for crop irrigation and fish populations.
Some districts have had to shut off water to farmers based on seniority of water rights.
Major irrigators can volunteer to divert their water rights with a cost-sharing option from the state.
Irrigation in Sequim area
Some farmers in the Sequim area have applied for the program, said Gary Smith, spokesman for the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Agricultural Water Users Association, an umbrella organization for the valley’s seven irrigation ditch companies.
The water leasing program pays people who used water on commercial areas larger than 5 acres last year to refrain from using water from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15 this year, Smith said.
He didn’t know how many are participating from the Sequim area but said there was “a better participation rate than in earlier years.”
Both the Clallam County Public Utility District and the city of Port Angeles have announced early conservation measures.
The PUD is asking customers in the upper Fairview Water District to begin voluntary water conservation measures, while the city canceled a lower summer water rate intended to help residents afford to green-up their yards.
Irrigation districts in the Yakima basin — one of the state’s main agricultural regions — are turning off water for weeks to extend supplies, Inslee said.
Water managers in the basin have tapped reservoirs two months earlier than usual.
Inslee said the state is seeing record-low water levels in rivers, and water is being diverted from creeks to aid steelhead, chinook and bull trout. In some cases, fish are being moved to cooler waters upstream.
