http://www.capitalpress.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=39804&SectionID=67&SubSectionID=782&S=1

Here’s the
article about new dams and reservoirs.

I’ve highlighted
Jay Manning’s remarks, where he says that “It is inevitable that we
will take steps to increase water supply.

Storage is part of
that solution.”

If that is his
commitment on the record, then we have additional grounds for making sure that
storage is part of the solution for the WRIA 17 instream flow rule.

3/7/2008 6:00:00
AM

West turns to dams as climate change fears grow

Environmentalists split over push for additional water storage capacity

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS

Associated Press

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

SPOKANE, Wash. - The era of massive dam construction in the West - which
tamed rivers, swallowed towns, and created irrigated agriculture, cheap
hydropower and persistent environmental problems - effectively ended in 1966
with the completion of Glen Canyon Dam.

But a booming population and growing fears about climate change have
governments once again studying dams, this time to create huge reservoirs to
capture more winter rain and spring snowmelt for use in dry summer months.

New dams are being studied in Washington state, California, Oregon, Idaho,
Colorado, Nevada and other states, even as dams are being torn down across
the country over environmental concerns - worries that will likely pose big
obstacles to new dams.

"The West and the Northwest are increasing in population growth like
never before," said John Redding, regional spokesman for the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation in Boise. "How do you quench the thirst of the hungry
masses?"

There are lots of ideas for increasing water supplies in the West. They
include conservation, storage of water in natural underground aquifers,
pipelines to carry water from the mountains, desalination plants to make
drinking water from the ocean, small dams to serve local areas.

Most of those ideas are much more popular than big new dams.

In Washington state, Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire put together a
coalition of business, government and environmental groups to create the
Columbia River Management Plan, which calls for spending $200 million to study
various proposals to find more water for arid eastern Washington.

Jay Manning, director of the Washington state
Department of Ecology, believes that massive new dams on the main stems of
rivers are unlikely. But it is quite possible that tributaries will be
dammed, and reservoirs pumped full of river water.

"It is inevitable we will take steps to increase water supply,"
Manning said. "Storage is part of that solution."

Demand for water from growing cities, industry, agriculture and struggling
fish runs is already high. Increasing the pressure are fears that climate
change will cause rain instead of snow to fall in winter, reducing the
slow-melting snowpack that provides water in dry summer months.

Gregoire's plan drew the support of many environmentalists by including many
ideas they prefer, including conservation measures and metering more uses of
water.

But the state is also studying dams, drawing opposition from some
environmentalists, particularly a group called the Center for Environmental
Law and Policy.

"Our water future doesn't lies with new dams," said Dr. John
Osborn, a Spokane physician and chairman of the Sierra Club chapter in
Spokane. "It's water conservation."

Osborn contends dam boosters have run a well-orchestrated, under-the-table campaign
to push for new dams for the benefit of business, underplaying the costs and
environmental destruction and ignoring the benefits of improving water
conservation programs.

But other environmental groups have signed on to the state's bill, although they're
leery of the dams. A big reason is that one-third
of any new water would be dedicated to survival of endangered salmon.

"What we're trying to do is make sure that before going down that path,
and instead of going down that path, we understand what alternatives there
are in conservation and water markets and aquifer storage," said Michael
Garrity, of the Seattle office of American Rivers.

Major water storage projects are being studied in California, southern
Nevada, Colorado and Idaho, where some still hope to rebuild the Teton Dam,
which collapsed in 1976, killing 11 people and causing widespread
destruction.

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