(The Center Square) – The Washington State Department of Ecology has declared a water drought emergency for the fourth year in a row and for all of the state’s watersheds, citing low snowpack levels are the primary factor.
“We are really living in an unprecedented situation,” Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller said at an April 8 press conference in Yakima. “The problem compounds itself. It’s time for us to really think long-term of what are the tools that we need to manage water moving forward.”
The declaration marks the seventh time in a decade that a drought has been declared, which is when watershed levels are 75% or less than normal, though Sixkiller remarked that “drought is becoming the pattern, the new normal.”
While last year’s drought was attributed to low precipitation, this year’s drought is blamed on warm winter temperatures that resulted in above average precipitation but below average snowfall. While areas like Seattle won’t face impacts to their utilities, many agriculture regions in the state rely on the snowpack melting in the summer months for its water supply.
“(There’s) not enough when we need it and too much when we can’t store it,” Sixkiller said. “This year that system is coming up short. We need a healthy snowpack.”
He noted that the announcement “allows us to act immediately to provide funding, support water users facing shortages, and coordinate closely with local and state partners. Every week counts in how we respond.
“Water managers here in Yakima Basin are being forced to do two things, support a $4 billion agricultural economy and maintain stream flows that fish need to survive,” he added. “That means difficult decisions that affect crops, jobs and entire communities after four consecutive years of drought, that pressure is significant, and the outlook doesn’t look much better. Forecasts point to a warmer, drier than normal conditions through early summer, and little improvements beyond that.”
At the press conference, Jaclyn Hancock, a water resource scientist with the Department of Agriculture, said while it’s too early to determine the impacts this year’s drought will have on crops, she noted “multiyear drought events compound challenges to agriculture,” adding that they’re “paying attention to places we know are vulnerable to drought.”
