Worsening drought prompts emergency declaration from Inslee

OLYMPIA – Nearly half of Washington is expected to face hardships due to worsening drought and snowpack conditions, and state officials say they are on the lookout for problems across the state.

State agencies project the amount of runoff from melting snow this summer will be the lowest since records began to be kept 64 years ago, threatening farmers and wildlife throughout Western and Central Washington and as far east as Walla Walla.

“This is an ongoing emergency and we’re going to have some long, hard months ahead of us,” Gov. Jay Inslee said in an emergency declaration issued Friday. “We’re moving quickly so that we’re prepared to provide relief to farms and fish this summer.”

Conditions have worsened since Inslee declared a state of emergency March 13, pushing the boundaries of the affected areas to about 44 percent of the state. That includes 24 of the state’s 62 water basins where water supplies will be short.

The snowpack around Spokane is only about 40 percent of normal, but public utilities have not reported major concerns.

Department of Ecology Director Maia Bellon said a statewide emergency is possible.

The department has requested $9 million from the Legislature to support agriculture and fisheries projects and issue emergency water rights permits. State agencies plan to deepen wells and rivers, drill emergency wells, monitor forests and inoculate fish to prevent diseases caused by warmer waters.

“We aren’t experiencing many of these hardships today, but they are anticipated in the months ahead,” Bellon said. “We’ve never experienced a drought like this before. It’s not for a lack of rain – it’s for a lack of snow.”

Despite recent snow in the mountains, snowpack statewide remains only 24 percent of normal. The last statewide drought, declared in 2005, resulted from a lack of rainfall with more than 50 percent of normal snowfall. Rainfall this year was 100 percent of normal, Bellon said.

“It’s something that we took for granted – snow in the mountains that would provide us water in the summer,” Inslee said at a morning news conference.

Friday’s declaration was an effort to get through this year, but Inslee said the state needs to recognize that water shortages like this will be a recurring problem.

“Carbon pollution is causing our climate to change. To me, this is a wake-up call to the state,” said Inslee, who has asked the Legislature to approve a system to tax sources of carbon pollution. The House and Senate have not included such a system in either of their budget plans for the coming two years.