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Methow Valley News January 13, 2000 Endangered Species Coverage Publisher's Comment ~ by Lee Hicks Water planning unit shows value of local effort Anyone who doubts the need for better information on water use in the Methow Valley need only take a cruise through the state Department of Ecology’s water registry data base. That’s what members of the water budget committee of the county watershed planning unit did last week. It was a followup to an earlier visit some of the members had made to the department’s Yakima office. Ecology’s Ray Henecke and Ron Dixon led the committee through data bases that contain water claims, permits and certificates. They displayed the data from a laptop computer and overlaid a number of views including points of ground and surface withdrawals, topographical information and aerial surveys. The eye opener was the way veteran Valley irrigators such as Max Judd could quickly identify diversions that had long been out of use. This prompted committee members to discuss how they could proceed to help clean up the Ecology information. Water budget committee member Carl Miller put it bluntly: "Why the hell wouldn’t we want to clean it up." This effort of the water budget committee could be the most important result yet to emerge from the county watershed unit which was created early last year under state authorizing legislation. Henecke and Dixon remarked how easily the committee members could eyeball and correct some of Ecology’s information. This locally based process has already tested the often implied but questionable assumptions by state and federal officials that the Methow basin is "overallocated" in relation to the 1977 "2cfs" rule for the seven major stream reaches. The fact that the water budget committee is focusing on the overlapping and outdated information is a good example of why the watershed planning process is working. And it’s a convincing argument as to why the planning unit should be a key player along with state and federal agencies in developing strategies for water and endangered fish responses. Opinion | Sports |
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