BOOK EXCERPT

BOOK EXCERPT The following passage is excerpted from Climate Affairs: A Primer, pages 198-200, by Michael H. Glantz (2003, Island Press, 291 pp., hardbound, $40.00, ISBN 1-555963-918-0). Copyright � 2003 by Island Press. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, D.C.

Several droughts occurred in 1976 in various parts of the western United States. However, drought had not yet affected the state of Washington. Nevertheless, water resource managers in the Yakima River basin, reading about droughts in areas around the Yakima watershed, had convinced themselves that a drought was sure to spread to their region. They ran their streamflow models, as they had done for many years, to identify the expected level of streamflow during the 1977 summer irrigation season. The output of their model runs suggested that streamflow would be adequate to meet the needs of all users, those with junior as well as with senior water rights. In times of low streamflow, those with senior water rights, that is, those who had first used river water for irrigation, were to get their share of water first. Those with junior rights arrived in the western United States later in time. The rule of thumb that captures water law in the western United States is "first in time, first in right."

However; the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's water managers in the Yakima River basin did not believe the results of their model runs and opted instead to reduce the amount of water available to be shared among irrigation farmers to one-third of the normal amount of streamflow. In January 1977, they decided to divide that amount among those users who had senior water rights, leaving but six percent of normal to be shared by those with junior water rights.

Within a couple months, however, forecasters and water managers as well as irrigation farmers could see that there was near-normal water in the river system and that the water was flowing unused past their fields on its way to the sea. Instead of revising their forecasts or revising their mandated water allocations, the Bureau's water managers waited for the drought conditions that they had forecast, but which had not yet appeared, to catch up with their forecasts. This water allocation decision proved to be very harmful to farmers with junior water rights. Some of these farmers chose to dig expensive wells to water their fields and livestock. Others decided not to grow annual crops that season at all. Still others sold off all their livestock for fear of being unable to provide them with adequate fodder in winter One farmer even chose to move his entire mint crop from the Yakima River basin to the Columbia River basin. These and other costly actions were taken to minimize the adverse impacts of drought.

Making a bad situation worse was the fact that no drought materialized in the Yakima basin that year. In fact, there was enough water in the river to take care of the needs of all the farmers and livestock owners, regardless of water rights. Many farmers joined together to bring a $20 million lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. government. Eventually, the lawsuit was dropped because the U.S. government did not allow itself to be sued, which was its prerogative. This case study exposes some problems associated with streamflow forecasts as well as with the perceptions of water resource managers about the output of the models they use to project seasonal stream flow patterns. In the Yakima case, the streamflow model in use had not been tested by nature-until 1977. The study also suggests that one incorrect forecast may cancel out the positive value of several good ones (Glantz, 1982).