Mild winter yields low snowpack, water reserves

OLYMPIA – There’s a big downside to the relatively mild winter with more rain than snow that most of Washington experienced, and it’s not for skiers and snowboarders. Parts of the state have a snowpack drought.

Gov. Jay Inslee declared a drought emergency Friday for the Olympic Peninsula, much of the eastern slope of the Cascades and the Walla Walla region, triggering special authority for state agencies to address what they expect to be water shortages for agriculture, fish and some rural water systems. Most urban water systems are expected to have adequate drinking water, and the dams along the Columbia River should have plenty of water to turn the turbines and pump out electricity.

“We were hoping for a late-season snowstorm that would turn things around,” said Maia Bellon, director of the Ecology Department. It hasn’t happened yet, and the long-range forecast sees it as less and less likely. “Conditions are expected to get worse.”

The snowpack serves as the state’s frozen water reserves, piling up in the winter and slowly melting in the spring to feed streams and rivers, Bellon said. This year, the reserves are low.

The snowpack in the Olympics is at 4 percent of normal. On the east slope of the Cascades, it ranges from 8 percent to 45 percent of normal, and in the Walla Walla region it’s at 67 percent.

The emergency declaration gives the Ecology Department the authority to take measures to transfer water or issue special water management orders. Inslee has requested $9 million in emergency funds to hold in reserve for emergency water for agriculture and fish protection.

The snowpack is lower than last year at this time, but similar early spring warm-up and rain patterns are causing vegetation to grow in the forests at a similar rate, said Mary Verner, the former Spokane mayor who heads forest health and wildfire management at the Department of Natural Resources. That vegetation is expected to dry out and provide potential fuel for wildfires this summer.

The department is urging rural residents to clear defense spaces around homes and other buildings, remove dense vegetation and use caution with fires. But officials are bracing for another busy fire season a year after the state’s biggest wildfire burned through Central Washington.

“Nature-caused fires will occur, and we can’t control lightning,” Verner said.