Pretty good year

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

By PJH Staff

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-This winter’s above average snowpack is expected to significantly recharge Jackson Lake and Palisades Reservoirs, but Wyoming and Idaho officials say it will not be enough to quench the state’s seriously parched water reserves.

In addition, this year’s snowmelt should alleviate some stress on farmers, but there is no evidence that just one year of heavy snowfall will mark the end of Wyoming’s third worst drought in recorded history, said Tony Bergantino, Wyoming’s assistant state climatologist.

The snow water equivalent, or the amount of water in a snowpack, for the Snake River drainage is at 106 percent of what the state considers a normal level. Last year, the snow water equivalent was at 68 percent. Scientists use snow water equivalent figures in stream flow forecasting.

Art Hill, a hydraulic engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation, hopes this year’s spring melt will be enough to fill Jackson Lake and Palisades Reservoir.
“It’s been really cold, and we got a good snowpack,” Hill said. “As soon as the snow starts melting … we’ll start storing as much runoff as possible.”

Jackson Lake can still take on 500,000 acre-feet, while the Palisades Reservoir can take on 750,000 acre-feet of water, he said. Hill said he hopes both reservoirs will fill completely before he starts delivering water downstream. Spring weather will determine how much water will flow into the reservoirs.

“If it just gradually starts warming up, then we’ll lose [the water] to the ground,” Hill said. “But if it warms up quickly and melts rapidly, we’ll get a really good snow runoff.” A good runoff could fill both reservoirs to the lake’s capacity of 850,000 acre-feet and the Palisades capacity of 1.2 million acre-feet.

This might be good news for boaters and sightseers, who hope for full reservoirs and a deeper lake than last year. Smaller, spring-fed tributaries and underground aquifers would benefit from a slow runoff.

But the state of Wyoming, and especially its farmers, will need much more rain to recover from a seven-year drought.

Mary Spotten, a conservationist in the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Afton office, said the snowpack now in Western Wyoming is averaging slightly above normal, which will pull the region out of its extreme drought situation for at least one year.
“Things might look good on the surface, but wells and springs will take five to 10 years to recover, depending on how severely they were affected by the drought,” Spotten said.

Spring weather will also dictate which stakeholders will benefit most from this winter’s snow. That could mean ranchers and others dependent on the region’s water levels are stuck in a waiting game with Mother Nature. Many farmers get their water from the region’s reservoirs, but some draw from spring-fed tributaries and wells drilled into aquifers. These farmers rely on groundwater levels that are recharged by slow runoff. Some don’t irrigate at all.

While most ranchers and farmers have been forced to become more efficient in their water usage because of the drought, ranchers and farmers without water rights priority have been squeezed out from the water supply. Many have had to make tough decisions about what to grow and what parcels of land get what little water exists, Spotten said.
Ron Abbott, farm programs chief of the Idaho State Office of the Farm Service Agency (FSA), said productivity of farms in Idaho, including Teton County, during the drought has often been 60 to 70 percent of normal, and in extreme cases, as low as 20 to 30 percent of normal.

“We would like to see [spring snowmelt] slow and controlled, so that it doesn’t all run off at once,” Abbott said. “When that happens, it all runs down river and there’s not a lot we can do about it.”

“In general, most of the snowpack statewide is very good, except we have been so dry for so long we would have to have above average snowpacks for the next several years in a row to catch up,” said Lois Van Mark, the Wyoming state director of the FSA. Virtually every county in Wyoming has declared a state of disaster due to drought in the last five years, she said.

The Wyoming office of the FSA is currently administering disaster programs to provide financial assistance to farmers who have had losses in crop productivity and livestock feed because of the drought.

The Crop Disaster Program paid $213,099 for losses of crops for 2005 to 2007 in Fremont County and $509,542 in Lincoln County as of April 8. Through the Livestock Compensation Program losses of livestock feed for 2006 to 2007 have given $232,758 in Fremont County and $168,492.00 in Lincoln County as of April 8.

COURTESY PHOTO
Jackson Lake Dam -- part of local history.

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Pretty good year | Planet JH News Article: General Environment

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