water-bill

Pepper Fisher

AGNEW – The Agnew Irrigation District Board of Directors is concerned about a recent drop in water flow on the Dungeness River and its concurrent effect on the irrigation ditches in their area. They asked us to help get the word to Agnew residents who use the irrigation system for watering lawns and gardens.

They’re requesting voluntary cutbacks on water usage at this time because of the drought conditions in the Dungeness Watershed occurring as of August 15.

Hydrologist Ann Soule says the issue these days isn’t so much the amount of snowpack we get in the mountains; it’s how fast it’s been melting.

“In terms of snow pack, it wasn’t too far off the norm. But here we are in August and we’re seeing the effects of ‘how long did that snowpack last?’. And I’m looking at the graph that shows what the river flow is in the Dungeness right now. So we’re well below the long-term average which is closer to 200 cubic feet per second. We’re down to 120, which means that what snowpack we had disappeared quicker than it did in the past. So we’re at a below normal year as far as the river flow goes.”

With above-average rainfall predicted for Fall in the northwest, the drought is likely short-term.

A solution to the annual water shortage, the Dungeness River Off-Channel Reservoir Project, has been actively pursued for 10 years, involving multiple federal, state and local agencies, and it’s hoped that a recent grant will allow the purchase of DNR land to get the project underway.