Dam, reservoir project near

ELLENSBURG – When Jack Eaton looks out over the Eaton family’s land holdings in the Yakima River Canyon, he may be looking at part of the solution to adequate water supplies for the entire three-county Yakima Basin far into the future.

Or he may be seeing a point of thorny contention for basin water interests.

“We’ve known about them wanting to buy our land for some time,” said Eaton, 82, who lives with his wife, Beneitta, at the family ranch in the canyon southeast of Ellensburg. “They’re trying to come up with new reservoir sites and, we hear now, we’re definitely one of them.

“We’re waiting, just like a whole lot of folks, to see what’s going to happen.”

A dam and reservoir able to hold 162,500 acre-feet of water is planned on about 4,000 acres of family land at a point in the canyon called Wymer, with the reservoir backing up along Lmuma Creek and underneath a raised portion of Interstate 82.

The reservoir is a critical part of a long-range, $5 billion plan of projects spread over 20 years that aim to add water storage capacity to the basin, improve fish passage and habitat, and implement water conservation measures.

The goal is to steer the basin away from economy-damaging droughts, which have hit basin communities nine times since 1977.

The hope is to have a project funding request before Congress in 2013, which some believe is overly optimistic.

Most major basin water interests agree that more reliable water capacity is needed, but working out the details of the tentative plan will likely be contentious.

Approval by state and national environmental groups is key to the plan.

Tentative approval was reached in December by most major water entities and local, state and federal agencies, as well as the Yakama Nation. It came after 18 months of effort by what’s called the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Program working group.

Nine national and state environmental and conservation groups on March 9 formally unveiled their condition for support of the plan – the purchase, preservation and restoration of 71,000 privately owned acres, mostly in Kittitas County, made up of sensitive shrub-steppe and watershed areas.

The Eaton family holdings, about 13,500 acres owned by various family members, are mostly on the east side of the Yakima River and are part of what is targeted by the groups for possible purchase.

Jack Eaton said he read in newspapers that there was interest in their land by the groups, the first time the family learned more than just the reservoir land was sought.

He said a family member attended the March 9 meeting in Yakima where the environmental groups discussed their plan.

“If you count the leases we have with (federal and state agencies) for other lands, the whole ranch is about 16,000 acres,” he said.