Water use and its long streamy history with the Palouse

From the 1800s to today, the challenge of water has been an integral part of the history and life in the rolling hills of the Palouse.

Tyler Palmer, Moscow’s deputy city supervisor for Public Works and Services, said that all early settlements have the same story — the story of water — and the Palouse is no different when it comes to this.

In the Palouse, our water comes from the Palouse Basin aquifers; the Wanapum and the Grande Ronde.

“There’s an old saying in the West that whiskey’s for drinking and water’s for fighting,” Palmer said. “Water is rife with conflict. The wars that were fought over oil in the last hundred years will be fought over water in the next hundred.”

While most are fighting over water, the Palouse is doing something different. The Palouse Basin aquifers provide water for not only Latah County but Whitman County, sharing water over a county line, a state line and between two universities. But as Palmer said, there aren’t significant battles of conflict between the two.

And coming together across state lines isn’t unusual to the Palouse. Moscow City Councilor Anne Zabala said the Pullman- Moscow Regional Airport is another example of the collaboration.

Collaboration is part of why Palmer and Zabala believe they can fix the water crisis.

Water has been an issue in the Palouse, since the first settlement. There have been improvements and attempts, no one has found the perfect solution.

A 1955 report, “Ground-Water Problems in the Vicinity of Moscow, Latah County, Idaho” generated by the United States Department of the Interior Geological Survey, stated that by 1970 the water needs in Moscow would double, according to an article Palmer is working on.

That meant the Palouse had to work together to find a long-term solution.

With the topic of water being prevalent, the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee (PBAC) is focusing on not just the research side but the community perspective.

Alexander Maas, a University of Idaho economist, is working with PBAC to learn what the Palouse cares about when it comes to water.

Maas has surveyed 420 Palouse residents to determine what the community cares about, what they know about PBAC and how much they are willing to pay for water supply changes.

PBAC, which first formed in 1967, is made up of 12 members, six from Latah County and six from Whitman County — prioritize members from both Washington State University and the University of Idaho. The committee is made up of elected officials like Zabala and engineers or public service managers like Palmer.

PBAC is still working with academics and researchers from UI, but UI is no longer a financial supporter of PBAC due to the UI’s budget issues, Palmer said.

While PBAC is still in the process of finding an updated solution, they are prioritizing the community input along with multiple long-term water solutions. No solution has been decided but PBAC is still working to educate the community about water.

According to the “PBAC Supply Survey” results from Maas, Moscow residents on average would be OK with up to a $14 increase in their water bill to pay for a reservoir. But there was strong opposition to outside watering restrictions, and residents would want a $6 decrease to their bill if they were asked if their water use was restricted.

The communities’ input is so important, because Palmer said the downfalls in the past of PBAC were the committee’s lack of involvement with their research and plan.

An example of this lack of communication was the pumped storage proposal in 1976, Palmer said. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had come together in Pullman with a plan to pump and store water, yet they were planning to store it on farmers’ land. The farmers came together and formed the Organization for the Preservation of Agricultural Land (OPAL) and pushed back against the Corps’ plans.

So today, the committee has a long- term city council member — Zabala — instead of rotating through councilors each year. Zabala has only worked with PBAC for a year, and when this year’s rotation comes to an end, Zabala will be staying on with PBAC — allowing her to understand the learning curve that being on the PBAC can take.

But in the meantime, the city is making sure to engage the community and promote PBAC.

Palmer and Zabala said they’ve seen an increase in support and knowledge from the community. A large part of people’s awareness comes from the city council election, as Zabala and other candidates made it the forefront of their issues.

“There’s little things — everyone generally, once they’ve been somewhere long enough knows about a community,” Palmer said. “This restaurant (is) good for this, or this sledding hill’s over here — and having water and the water situation becomes just part of the gestalt of the place. I think it’s been really gratifying to see that increase.”

Alex Brizee can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @alex_brizee