ONTARIO, Ore.—The Owyhee Irrigation District has increased its 2015 water allotment to 1.6 acre-feet and the bleak irrigation situation facing farmers who get their water from the district has improved ever so slightly.
The new allotment for the 2015 season is up slightly from the previous level of 1.5 acre-feet. But it’s still below last year’s allotment of 1.7 acre-feet and well below the normal allotment of 4 acre-feet.
A two-week stretch of rainstorms added about 10,000 acre-feet to the Owyhee Reservoir system, said Jay Chamberlin, manager of the OID, which provides water for 1,800 farms and 118,00 acres of irrigated land in Eastern Oregon and part of Southwestern Idaho.
“Spread out amongst all the acres, that’s (not a lot) but we’re going to try to get them another tenth of a foot,” Chamberlin said.
The Owyhee Reservoir was dropping at a pace of about 2,000 acre-feet a day but fell only about 200 acre-feet a day during the stretch of rain storms, said OID board member Bruce Corn, a farmer.
Stream in-flows into the reservoir increased from 135 cubic feet per second to about 900 during part of that stretch, Corn said.
Farmers in the area are suffering through a fourth straight year of drought conditions and have left a lot of ground fallow and planted less water-intensive crops as a result.
While the rains didn’t turn things around, they have helped this year’s situation a little bit by enabling OID to provide farmers a tad bit more water, Corn said.
“That’s still only 40 percent of the normal allotment, but every little bit helps,” he said.
Chamberlin said the district hopes to keep the water flowing until the first part of August, which is the same time OID stopped delivering water last year. He said the rains may add a few days to the end of the season.
Nyssa farmer Craig Froerer hopes the rains allow the water to flow until close to September.
If the season is extended, that could make a big difference for some growers, said Froerer, who estimates last year’s tight water supply had about a $1 million impact on his farm.
Froerer will be finished watering his short-term crops, like wheat and peas, by then, but the extra water would be especially important for his long-term crops, such as mint and asparagus.
“If we can last a little bit longer ... it will make a big difference to us,” he said.
The rains didn’t solve all the region’s water problems “and it was not a game-changer, but it may lengthen the season a little bit, which is very, very important,” Corn said. “It’s still a bit better than it would have been and it gives people a little hope.”
Source: www.capitalpress.com