Water plan partners celebrate new Springwood Ranch project near Thorp

THORP — Yellow balsamroot flowers were blooming on hills around the Springwood Ranch last week, as a few hundred people came together to celebrate the return of ancestral land to the Yakama Nation and a future water reservoir for the Yakima Basin.

The 3,600-acre property is now co-managed by the Yakama Nation, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, Kittitas County and the Kittitas Reclamation District. About 1,100 acres will be jointly managed between WDFW and Yakama Nation, a first-of-a-kind partnership for both.

They acquired the land from the nonprofit Trust for Public Land last fall. The Legislature agreed this session to reimburse the trust for about $24 million.

“Springwood represents a future of mutual respect and partnership,” said Carrie Hauser, of the Trust for Public Land.

Smoke from wood-cooked salmon and venison drifted inside a barn on the property. Tables were set up on fresh wood chips for a few hundred people from the tribal, state, federal, and nonprofit agencies that came together to make the acquisition happen. In lulls of conversation, the low rush of water from Taneum Creek could be heard outside.

It was a day of reflection, stories and song as Yakama Nation members held a ceremony to reintroduce themselves to land that was once an important trading site for the Yakama people for thousands of years.

“The real cool part of this, is we are the co-owners with the state of Washington for a portion of the land,” said Phil Rigdon, superintendent of Yakama Nation’s Natural Resources department. “It tells us how far we’ve come with partnership with the state of Washington.”

It’s a step built on mutual trust and commitment, Rigdon said.

“This is a historic moment,” he said. “It’s good to see a group of folks that haven’t always been on the best of terms coming together, and I really think that picture needs to be drawn out of what we need in America as a whole.”

The acquisition

The acquisition is just one project of the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan, the third phase of the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Program, which was authorized by U.S. Congress in 1979 to increase water conservation and fish passage in the region. It brought competing parties together to make management decisions, who had otherwise been battling in court over water use.

The land at Springwood Ranch is currently closed for public use, but parts of it may soon open to hiking and hunting.

The Kittitas Reclamation District has long sought additional water storage for irrigation, and Springwood Ranch could be its best bet. In 2017, the Kittitas Reclamation District scoped out potential sites for storage and determined that the ranch would be among the best locations, said manager Urban Eberhart.

Eberhart has been a dedicated supporter of the Yakima Basin water plan as he works to make sure water is delivered to his district’s 59,000 acres. He was sporting a brand-new bowler hat in honor of the occasion.

Eberhart and other water plan supporters have recently been in Washington, D.C., lobbying for continued federal support for its projects. Though the new climate skeptic presidential administration is slashing funding across government, Eberhart said that he’s been getting good signals that support is still there for the water plan.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., voiced support for the project and the integrated plan last week.

“Acquiring the Springwood Ranch is a monumental win for the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan and the Yakama Nation,” Cantwell said in an emailed statement. It’s a leap toward “improving drought resilience and ensuring water supplies for salmon survival and our Yakima agriculture.”

Kittitas County Commissioner Cory Wright, a seventh-generation rancher and irrigator, said that becoming involved with the water plan was a personal evolution for him. He said he used to think the worth of land came from its transactional value, but has come to appreciate how important the land is culturally for the Yakama Nation.

“All can win; the integrated plan has taught me that,” he said.

Debate over storage

The proposed new water storage project at the site is not without its critics, and retired Seattle attorney David Ortman is one of the most vocal.

“The Yakima plan and the billions of dollars of uneconomical and environmentally damaging water projects proposed need to be exposed for the black hole and money pit that it is,” Ortman said in an email.

He said the Legislature has appropriated over $300 million for basin projects in the past 12 years, but has little to show for it.

Area irrigators, contending with supplying water to a $4.5 billion agricultural economy threatened by climate change and global market forces, want to push forward.

“In the Yakima Basin, we need additional storage,” Eberhart said. Around 2.4 million acre-feet of water is used annually, with 1 million acre-feet of storage in the five Yakima Basin reservoirs.

Declining snowpack means that there is less of a buffer. As the climate changes, snow is melting sooner or coming as rain. Snowpack decline has led to a third year of drought conditions this year in the basin.

The Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that controls the flows of the Yakima River, recently predicted that junior water rights holders in the Yakima Basin would only receive 51% of their allocated water this year. That includes Kittitas growers, Roza Irrigation District growers, and part of the Wapato Irrigation Project.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture estimates that when the water allotment is reduced by half in the Yakima Basin, there can be revenue losses between 18.1% and 30.4% and a loss of over 7,000 jobs.

Meeting a deadline

Eberhart said that a $20.8 million feasibility study, funded by the state and federal government, is currently determining the best plans for storage at the Springwood site. The study, conducted by Jacobs Engineering, should wrap up around 2027, he said.

The study is looking at an off-channel reservoir between 20,000 and 100,000 acre-feet. It also is looking at adding a hydroelectrical component to the reservoir, capable of generating 10 megawatts.

Projects like these have taken more time than anticipated, he said.

That’s evident in the recent decision to push back an important water storage deadline.

As part of an effort to bring environmentalists to the table, the state purchased land to establish the Teanaway Community Forest near Cle Elum in 2013.

Along with it, then-state Sen. Jim Honeyford added language to ensure that 214,000 acre-feet of water storage would be built by 2025. 

Since the additional water storage hasn’t happened yet, the Legislature recently agreed to push the Teanaway deadline back another 10 years, to 2035. The change awaits Gov. Bob Ferguson’s signature.