If there were any doubt, the final snowpack report of the year from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service shows Oregon has little water to spare going into the height of summer.
Sixty percent of the NRCS’s automated measuring stations, called SNOTEL for snow telemetry, recorded their lowest snowpack on record. As of June 1, only one of the 81 SNOTEL sites in Oregon had any snow left.
Water forecasters and researchers have been repeating the same refrain for months: While the state’s precipitation totals were near normal over the winter, it fell as rain rather than snow and won’t be available to melt and feed streams as the weather warms.
In Western Oregon, the snowpack was 60 to 90 percent below normal. On the east side of the Cascades, the snowpack ranged from 30 to 80 percent of normal, according to NRCS.
In May, NRCS reported the snowpack wasn’t just meager, it was already gone. In many streams, the peak flow from melting snow occurred in February.
“Snowmelt in February is months too early to synchronize crop planting and irrigating,” NRCS Portland snow survey supervisor Scott Oviatt said in a news release.
The melt and runoff also came too early for Oregon reservoir operators to capture and store. Reservoirs were designed for flood control and late season irrigation, and operate under rules that govern spring water releases.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has already declared a drought state of emergency for Klamath, Lake, Malheur, Harney, Crook, Baker, Wheeler, Josephine, Jackson, Lane, Deschutes, Wasco, Grant, Morrow and Umatilla counties. The southeast corner of the state is considered an “extreme” drought area by the USDA.
Oregon’s situation isn’t as severe as California’s, where a continued drought has caused farmers to leave fields fallow and touched off a well-drilling spree that was featured in a June 7 article in the New York Times.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a statewide drought emergency in mid-May. In Idaho, the U.S. Drought Monitor lists various regions of the state as in extreme or severe drought, and the remainder in moderate drought or as “abnormally dry.”
NRCS allocated up to $2.5 million for Oregon farmers, ranchers and woodland owners in drought-declared counties to help mitigate the effects on their operations. Funding is available through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Producers should file funding applications by June 26; details are available at USDA county service centers.http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/or/contact/local/
Source: www.capitalpress.com