Drought expanded to 19 more watersheds

The Washington Department of Ecology is expanding the drought emergency declared in April to include areas in the North and Central Cascade Mountains and parts of the Puget Sound area. 

Ecology declared drought for the Yakima Basin watersheds on April 8, while issuing a drought advisory for Puget Sound region and portions of the Central and North Cascades.

Since the initial declaration, conditions in all of Whatcom and Skagit counties, and portions of Snohomish, King, Pierce, Lewis, Thurston, Okanagan, Chelan, Clallam, Jefferson and Ferry counties have deteriorated due to early and rapid snowmelt, combined with unusually dry April and May weather. 

The warmer-than-normal April also led to rapid snowmelt – two to four weeks earlier than normal across the Central and North Cascades. This means that less water will be available in summer and early fall when it’s needed most for farms and fish. 

 “With an especially early spring snowmelt, we saw the need to take action to protect water supplies for the hot months ahead,” said Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller. “Expanding our drought declaration will make more of our state eligible for tools and funding to deal with drought impacts, and help us protect Washington’s farmers, fish and the communities that depend on snowmelt for their water supplies.” 

In Washington, drought is declared when there is less than 75% of normal water supply and there is the risk of undue hardship or impacts on water users and the environment. Both the hardship and water supply conditions were met in 19 watersheds – Nooksack, Lower Skagit-Samish, Upper Skagit, Stillaguamish, Snohomish, Cedar-Sammamish, Duwamish-Green, Puyallup-White, Nisqually, Chambers-Clover, Elwha-Dungeness, Methow, Okanogan, Chelan, Wenatchee, Entiat, Nespelem, Sanpoil, and Kettle. 

The areas served by Seattle, Tacoma and Everett water utilities remain under a drought advisory. These utilities do not anticipate any impacts to their customers due to managing early for snowpack levels and healthy reservoir storage.

Water Supply 

“Drought this year is driven both by snowpack and precipitation deficits,” said Caroline Mellor, Ecology’s statewide drought lead. “While it’s normal for snow to melt in the spring, what we’ve seen over the last two months is unusually rapid, with snowpack melting away as much as 33 days earlier than normal in some river basins.”   

Spring precipitation, Mellor said, was also low in parts of the state. April precipitation was 26% of normal in the eastern Cascade Mountains, 25% of normal in Central Puget Sound and 14% of normal in the Dungeness watershed.  

Streamflow forecasts in multiple parts of the state are also low. The Chelan River is forecasted at 63% of normal, Methow River at 71%, Stehekin River at 68% and Okanogan at 48%, as of June 1. 

The longer-term forecast is also not predicted to help: Conditions are expected to be both warmer and dryer than normal for June through August, likely exacerbating current conditions in many watersheds. 

“These impacts illustrate the ways that snowpack drought impacts our water supplies in Washington,” Mellor said.  

Studies predict that Washington can expect to see snowpack drought to occur 40% of the time by 2050. 

“Even in the Evergreen State, our water supply is now less reliable in the summer and early fall than it was historically,” Mellor said. “We see the need to build resilience not for the possibility of water shortages, but the reality.” 

Hardship 

“Undue hardship” to water users or the environment is the second requirement for an emergency drought declaration. In the expanded drought area, officials expect low water levels to impact both agriculture and fish.  

Even in the wetter west side of the state, these increasingly common warm winters and springs lead to significant impacts to our water availability.  

Drought conditions will have an impact on our state’s $14 billion agricultural industry. 

“Expanding the drought declaration is a necessary step to help preserve the crops already in production and ensure our farmers have the support they need during this critical time,” said Washington State Department of Agriculture Director Derek Sandison. “While the challenges are real and immediate, this is also an opportunity to strengthen our approach to water supply management and build greater resilience for the future of Washington agriculture."

What’s next?

Declaring a drought emergency allows Ecology to distribute drought emergency response grants to public entities and to expediate processing emergency water right permits and transfer applications. 

Ecology has made up to $4.5 million available in drought emergency response grants to eligible public entities to respond to water supply impacts from the current drought conditions. 

But Mellor warns that Washingtonians can’t keep treating droughts like unexpected emergencies. Washington’s water supply infrastructure is designed for precipitation and temperature patterns that increasingly are no longer reliable, she said. This is the third year in a row that snowpack deficits, or early melt off have led to water supply concerns impacts in Washington.

“While today’s drought declaration unlocks tools to deal with the immediate emergency, the frequency of snowpack droughts in Washington is increasing – so we also need to continue planning for our long-term water supply needs,” Mellor said. “Even in western Washington, snowpack droughts are becoming the new normal, so we need to be prepared.”