May 15--REPORTING FROM OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a statewide drought emergency Friday, citing a historically low snowpack and dwindling rivers.
No mandatory rationing has been ordered, but because conditions recently worsened, Inslee took the step to declare the emergency.
"Drought has deepened dramatically over the past few weeks," Inslee said at a Friday briefing. "Conditions are expected to worsen over time."
Water deliveries have already been cut to farmers for weeks at a time in the state's most productive agricultural region, the Yakima Basin, and the Washington Department of Agriculture is projecting a $1.2-billion crop loss this year.
Flanked by somber state officials and photos of the snowpack in the Olympic mountains -- thick and white in 2013, completely gone in 2015 -- Inslee said that the drought has spread quickly and threatens important sectors of the state economy, including agriculture, tourism and recreation.
"Difficult decisions are already being made about how to save our fish runs," Inslee said. "In the Walla Walla region, water is being shifted from creek to creek to keep water flowing to steelhead, Chinook and bull trout.
"Fish are even being hauled to further upstream to cooler more abundant water," he continued, cataloguing the pain of a historic drought. "We're seeing things happen at this time of year we just haven't seen happen before. On the Olympic Peninsula, where there would normally be 80 inches of snow today in the mountains, the glacier lilies are blooming."
Snowpack in the mountains has dropped to just 16% of normal levels statewide, according to the state.
And the state is bracing for more early season fires, he said. In 2014, the Carlton Complex fire in the state's center consumed more acreage than any fire in Washington history; the 2015 season could be worse.
"Forecasters are calling for a warm and dry summer," said state Department of Ecology Director Maia Bellon. "This will only increase demands for water.... We are preparing for an intense wildfire season."
Bellon said in an interview that there are two bright spots in Washington's drought picture. The first, she said, is that water supplies for residents in the major urban areas of Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and Spokane will probably be sufficient.
"These areas have large reservoirs that are rain fed," Bellon said. "Our projections show that most households in Washington will have an adequate water supply."
And hydroelectric power is expected to be untouched at least in the short term. Most of the major hydroelectric dams and power projects are on the Columbia River, which is fed by snow from Canada, she said. Snowpack in those ranges fared better than it did in Washington's mountains.
But if the water flow at the Dalles dam, around 190 miles upstream from the mouth of the Columbia River, falls below 60 million acre feet, "then there's concerns."
"We're not close to that [water level], and we don't project that that will even occur this year," she said, which means that those hydroelectric projects will do fairly well. "What we've heard is no rolling blackouts, no spikes -- at least in the short term -- in energy bills, and that those systems are feeling like they're intact and can have a sustainable year."
UPDATE
12:50 p.m.: This article has been updated to include additional details about hydroelectric power and water supplies to residents.
11:20 a.m.: This article has been updated throughout with additional details and background.
This article was originally published at 10:44 a.m.
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