OPINION: Another dry year brings the same dusty problems

This editorial was published in the Yakima Herald-Republic.

The moaning winds of the past few weeks could be setting the soundtrack for the coming summer months: dry and dusty as a frontier town in an old Western movie.

It’s way too soon to panic, but current water projections are sparse: scientists from the Washington State Climate Office say January was the fifth-driest on record. That on its own wouldn’t be so bad, the experts say — except for the fact that we’ve already been dealing with drought conditions for the past two summers.

Official water-watchers were hoping that with a La Niña effect bringing wetter weather this winter, we could make up some of the deficit. But this La Niña has been pretty weak so far.

So as we’ve done in many previous years, we’ll hope and pray that a cool, wet spring brings enough precipitation to replenish some reservoirs and adds enough snowpack to keep the rivers running.

For as long as anyone can tell, water has been the lifeblood of our region. But that’s always left farmers and power producers in a precarious proposition — which is partly why we’ve seen so many initiatives to reduce our reliance on the rain gods.

In recent decades, we’ve seen wind turbines sprout on the hills around us and sprawling solar farms take root on open lands that have room for acres of equipment. We’ve also seen emerging opposition to hydroelectric dams on our rivers and heard increasing buzz about nuclear energy.

The questions are complicated, and the answers aren’t any simpler.

But it seems hard to believe that we’ll be able to rely this heavily on the availability of water to feed the Northwest’s growing industrial and power needs in the coming years.

With all that in mind, we offer three hopes:

That Yakima County commissioners — who’ve just extended for another six months the moratorium on new solar farms that they’ve had in place for nearly three years — hurry up and get some zoning regulations that’ll make them feel safe in lifting the moratorium. Is it truly that complicated, or are county officials intentionally dragging their feet for some reason?

That state and federal officials come up with some coherent and consistent decisions on what to do about hydro power. Are we removing dams or keeping them up? And can the decisions please be based on science instead of politics?

That the Trump administration rethink its careless cutting of hundreds of jobs at the Bonneville Power Administration, which was already straining to meet regional energy needs. Like most of the administration’s other federal cuts, this one is ill-considered and futile — BPA operates entirely on money it raises from selling electricity, so eliminating employees won’t save the government a dime. Now, BPA officials are already warning that blackouts and rate increases might be unavoidable.

Given the long odds on those hopes, perhaps a fourth one is the most realistic: that we have a wet enough spring to shore up our water outlook for this year.

TNS