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Today, the project delivers water to 10 times that much acreage
-671,000 acres-the rough equivalent of irrigating half the state of
Delaware. At the early summer peak of irrigation season, canals
deliver about 9,000 cubic feet of water every second to fields in
the basin. That's enough water to fill a million-gallon Olympic
pool within 15 seconds, but it's still only a fraction of the
Columbia River's natural flow.
The ingenious system employs 300 miles of large canals, 2,000
miles of smaller "laterals," 3,500 miles of drains and wasteways, a
handful of large reservoirs, and natural features such as
depressions, coulees, and underground passages to move and hold
water. The system delivers, recollects, and redelivers irrigation
water down a hundred-mile corridor from Coulee City to
Tri-Cities.
The federal government still owns tens of thousands of acres in
the Columbia Basin used to operate the system or that remain
unsuited for agriculture. The agency contracts with the state to
manage about 160,000 of those acres for wildlife habitat and
recreation. The wildlife areas contain another 40,000 acres of
state lands.
Originally, during the Great Depression, the federal government
allotted $63 million to build the project under the National
Industrial Recovery Act. Now, in an average year, the project's
value is about $20 million in prevented flood damage, $50 million
in recreational opportunity, $500 million in power generation-and a
whopping $700 million-plus at the farm gate for agricultural
products.
"That wouldn't be there if it weren't for the project's
development and the acquisition of lands," says Bill Gray, the
Bureau of Reclamation's deputy area manager. "The area would have
ended up in large sheep and cattle ranches."
Gray ('74 Recreation) oversees the Columbia Basin Project and 15
other federal irrigation projects in northwestern states from his
Ephrata office in the heart of the basin. Without the irrigation
water, he figures, the basin would have few jobs, a tiny tax base,
and scant recreation.
In other words, says Extension's Kugler, "The place would dry
up."
Mule deer pop their heads above the sage in
the shrub steppe habitat
near Evergreen Reservoir in Quincy.
Outstanding in the field
For the past 50 years, the Columbia Basin has helped drive
Washington's large agricultural economy. In fact, the basin is one
of the world's best places to grow potatoes, carrots, onions,
beans, mint, hay, vegetable seeds, and dozens of other vegetables,
fruits, and grains, as well as dairy and beef cattle.
Many of the region's new farmers were World War II veterans,
allowed to enter a drawing to buy a share of those lands the
federal government reverted back to private ownership in the newly
irrigated basin. They repaid government loans with the fruits of
their toil.
Lee Williams's farm and other holdings along Lind Coulee
originally were sold to those veterans. Williams calls his farm the
Trail's End Ranch, partly because he never plans to leave this
patch of sandy soil south of Moses Lake.
By the basin's big standards, Williams ('64 D.V.M.) is a
small-time farmer, growing five acres of chestnuts and leasing the
rest of his property to another farmer, who rotates crops such as
potatoes with the dark green alfalfa growing there now. Williams
also is a full-time field veterinarian for the state Department of
Agriculture.
Williams takes us to a ridge on the far side of his property,
where his circle irrigation system passes across an eye-shaped
patch of brush as it slowly pivots across the alfalfa. The water
creates lush places for wildlife to feed and hide. Across the
alfalfa, he's planted a few acres of millet, which brings cover and
food for songbirds and ringneck pheasants. A nearby pile of woody
debris, he says with a chuckle, is "rabbitat."
Williams is among the farmers who worked out a trade with Robert
Kent and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. In
exchange for dedicating some of his own acreage and water rights to
improve wildlife habitat, Williams farms nearly 20 acres of
wildlife-area land that falls under the sweep of his irrigator.
"I've tried to work with the neighbors as much as possible,"
Kent says. "We almost always get more [from the trade than is
required]. People like to do things for wildlife, in general."
Williams agrees: "You've got to give back a little bit
sometimes."
Suddenly, something catches the farmer's eye. He points toward
the water at the bottom of Lind Coulee, to a four-point buck
swimming toward the sagebrush hill where Kent stood the morning
before.
"He's a big son of a gun."
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Ducks take flight from one of the small
sheltered ponds that connect to the Crab Creek arm of Potholes
Reservoir.
Today, the project delivers water
to... 671,000 acres—the rough equivalent of irrigating half the
state of Delaware.
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