Drought Watch: 'Gloomy to Grim'

The arid fields and shrunken water catches that Jimmy Carter saw in California's San Joaquin Valley last week are a common, heartbreaking sight throughout the American West this spring. From the Pacific to the eastern slopes of the Colorado Rockies, the winter's near-record drought meant dry riverbeds and a snowpack that in some areas was less than a fifth of the usual level. In a region where more than three-quarters of the fresh water normally comes from the spring runoff of the snowpack, the water-supply outlook for the summer months is ominous. April brought none of the hoped-for relief; it marked the seventh straight month with below-normal precipitation over much of the Far West.

Disaster Areas. Last week the Salt Lake City River Forecast Center reported that the water-supply outlook for Nevada, Arizona, Utah, eastern Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming is "gloomy to grim." In the Columbia River Basin of the Pacific Northwest the outlook is "bleak and becoming bleaker." In parched California the National Weather Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noted that the drought, "nearly two years old, is expected to reduce river levels this summer to the lowest ever recorded." Further, in the Great Plains area of eastern Montana, eastern Wyoming, the Dakotas and Nebraska, the water supply is 40% to 60% below normal. Ski resort operators in nine Western states earlier reported losses totaling $50 million. Estimates of other financial casualties are growing. In Sacramento, officials predict that the drought will cause losses of $500 million in crops, $500 million in livestock and $1 billion in farm income--more than a fifth of California's 1976 $9 billion in agriculture earnings. In Oregon, where four coastal counties joined the list of nine eastern ones designated by Carter as drought-emergency areas, $1.2 billion may be lost in agriculture and the forest, recreation, food processing, primary metals and chemicals and fishing industries. In Washington, where 25 of the state's 39 counties have been designated disaster areas, the drought could cost $500 million, while a $50 million farm-production loss is predicted in neighboring Idaho.

The most severe hardships are being borne by Western farmers and ranchers. Oregon Cattleman Phil Lynch winced as he surveyed what had once been a brimming water hole but was now just mud. Said he: "That's a killer. A cow walks in looking for water and she bogs down in the mud. She gets weaker and dies." Lynch has been forced to liquidate almost half his herd of 2,000 calves and cows for lack of both water and forage or enough money to buy feed grain. He normally rotates livestock from one pasture to another as grass is consumed, but this year none of the grazing land on his 20,000-acre Lake County spread is adequate. To get water to his cattle (each cow needs about 15 gal. a day), Lynch has it hauled in from 50 to 100 miles away.

In the San Joaquin Valley, Farmer John Kochergen has cut back from 2,700 ' to 1,300 acres of oranges, melons, cotton, barley, tomatoes and alfalfa. To I save his crop, Kochergen reactivated four deep wells and dug a new one earlier this year. The new well and pump cost him $102,000, and his power bill is now $3,200 a month--a rise of 100% in two years. But these expensive measures may help out only temporarily--as long as there is underground water. "We are pumping it, and as sure as God made little apples, it won't last," says Kochergen. "Before, you could practically stick your hand in the soil and hit water; now, you got to dig to China, and there's little fresh water below 1,800 feet, which is how deep we dug our last well. Everyone's pumping water, and it just won't last."

In Washington's Yakima County --normally the fifth highest agriculture producer among the more than 3,000 counties in the nation--mint farmers have been forced to uproot and move more than 5,000 acres of the plants to get water directly from wells and the Columbia River. Recent rainfalls have eased the crisis in the Yakima Valley, but the state still has issued permits for more than 400 new wells.

In the Snake and Columbia rivers in the Pacific Northwest, 7.5 million young salmon smolts and steelhead trout began their annual run to the sea in the past few weeks. Normally, when they reach dams like the Bonneville and Lower Granite, they get past by means of a "spillover" regulated by water authorities and designed to help the young fish. Because of low water levels, there has been little or no spillover this year, and the fish faced almost certain extinction in the dams' giant turbines--their only route downstream. But the fish were diverted to holding areas. Then the National Marine Fisheries Service, along with officials in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, provided two barges, eight specially equipped fish trucks and a World War Hera PBY ("Flying Boat") to transport the fish around the dams to safe sites as much as 400 miles downriver. The $1.3 million project saved most of the 4-to 10-in. fish. Without the rescue, the salmon industry would have lost $100 million.

Fire Season. The residents of the region may not fare as well as the fish. By this summer, hydroelectric power in the Northwest is expected to be substantially curtailed. The region gets 80% of its electrical energy from water, and the Columbia River Basin snowpack is 64% below normal--the lowest figure recorded since measurements began nearly 60 years ago. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Columbia's storage reservoirs are likely to be 16 million acre-feet below normal--the equivalent of 18.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, or 17% to 18% of the total normally generated by the Columbia hydroelectric system.

Says Cliff Watkins of the federally run Bonneville Power Administration: "The reservoirs in the region could be completely emptied this summer unless conservation measures are successful in reducing electrical use by 10%." The region's Governors and utilities asked for voluntary cutbacks of that amount in February, but so far there has been only a 5% reduction. Says Washington Governor Dixy Lee Ray: "The wolf is at the door this time."

As could be expected, the West faces another major problem: forest fire. In Washington last year, there were 16 blazes from January to May that destroyed more than 15 acres of timber. In the same period this year, 172 forest fires have burned 891 acres. The worst of the fire season lies ahead for California, Oregon, Colorado and

Idaho.

It may be a long time before Westerners again rhapsodize about their region as one "where the skies are not cloudy all day."

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