Volume 10 Issue 7 August Washington Edition 2019
For a century, the Wapato Irrigation District (WIP) has been delivering water to the diverse and productive agriculture of Washington’s Yakama Nation reservation. While some of WIP’s engineering and operating activities are handled by the Yakama Nation, it is a federally owned project operated primarily by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In our cover interview, Stuart […]
Tackling Wapato Irrigation Project’s Challenges: Stuart Crane of the Yakama Nation
Wapato Irrigation Project (WIP) was founded by the federal government in the early 20th century to irrigation the Yakama Nation reservation in central Washington State. Today, WIP diverts several hundred thousand acre-feet of water from the Yakima River and local creeks each year to service around 150,000 acres of irrigated agricultural land. While WIP is […]
Volume 10 Issue 6 July Washington Edition 2019
Irrigation Leader’s cover story this month features Washington State Senator Jim Honeyford, who has long championed water management and infrastructure bills that benefit irrigation districts and water users across his state. Senator Honeyford tells us about the legislation he has supported in the past and his priorities for the future and gives his advice […]
Volume 10 Issue 5 May/June Washington Edition 2019
The Yakima Basin Integrated Plan (YBIP) is an impressive feat of coordination and cooperation. Its basic aim is simple—to guarantee enough water for people, fish, and agriculture—but behind that simple summary there are many parties, many interests, and a lot of history. With the leadership of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Washington Department […]
Drought-Resistant Water Supplies for Yakima
The City of Yakima’s Water/Irrigation Division provides drinking water and urban irrigation services to around 70,000 urban drinking water users and around 30,000 urban irrigation users. Currently dependent on water from snowpack, the city is implementing aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) strategies as climate change shifts winter precipitation toward rain instead of snow. The city […]
Volume 10 Issue 4 April Washington Edition 2019
D avid Brown of the City of Yakima’s Water/Irrigation Division knows that straightforward improvements can have dramatic results. In 1998, the city replaced 32 miles of wood-stave pipes with PVC and polyethylene and, in so doing, reduced its diversion from 23 cubic feet per second to 9. Today, the division is taking the same […]
Sunnyside Valley Irrigation District’s Commitment to Water Conservation
The Sunnyside Valley Irrigation District (SVID), located in Washington’s Yakima Valley, serves 14,000 primarily agricultural accounts. In 1977, the Washington State Department of Ecology filed an adjudication of the Yakima River basin to determine all existing surface water rights and their respective priority dates within the basin. After a decades-long process, the Superior Court of […]
Volume 10 Issue 3 March Washington Edition 2019
T he readers of Irrigation Leader know that our field is always advancing—whether because of decades-long conservation and infrastructure projects or because of technological leaps that improve the equipment in the field. In our cover story this month, we talk with Lori Brady, the manager of Sunnyside Valley Irrigation District, which has embarked on […]
Cooperating to Restore the Yakima Basin
Phil Rigdon has over two decades of experience in the Yakama Nation’s Department of Natural Resources. and today is the department’s superintendent. He has been involved in numerous regional and intertribal initiatives, including the Tapash Sustainable Forest Collaborative, the Yakima River Basin Watershed Enhancement Project Workgroup and Conservation Advisory Group, the Washington State Columbia River […]
Volume 10 Issue 2 February Washington Edition 2019
Phil Rigdon is the superintendent of the Yakama Nation’s Department of Natural Resources, which employs over 500 people and works on fisheries, water, forestry, and environmental protection. Under Mr. Rigdon’s direction, the department has been undertaking tributary supplement and aquifer recharge projects in the Yakima basin in order to serve the Nation’s out-of-stream needs, […]