워싱턴 지역에서 관개에 사용되는 Yakima 강 지류는 극심한 가뭄을 원인으로 물에 대한 권한이 금지되었다. Yakima강의 북서쪽에 위치한 Cowiche만과 Yakima강의 지류인 Teanaway강은 흐름이 너무 메말른 상태이다. 이에 이번 주 워싱턴 생태부에서는 1873년도부터 권한을 수여받아 물을 끌어 쓰던 129명의 관개자들에게 그들의 땅 중 2천153에이커에 해당하는 과수원, 건초 및 알팔파 작물에 물을 공급하는 것을 중단해달라고 통보했다.

 

Yakama 주민들의 기본 권리는 Yakima Basin에서 가장 오래된 물 권한이자 1852년부터 시작된 초기합의권이었다. 대부분의 물에 대한 권리는 1870년대와 80년대에 설립되었으며, 1905년 미국 Bureau of Reclamation은 Yakima 개간 프로젝트 개발을 위해 모든 특수용수에 대한 권리를 주장했다. 그러나 이번 가뭄으로 1905년 5월 10일 이후 물 권리를 가지고 있던 모든 물 사용자들은 배수 프로젝트가 선언된 4월부터 물 사용을 중단하라는 명령을 받았다.

 

 

 

In light of extreme drought conditions, water rights that were among the earliest in the Territory of Washington to be used for irrigation have been shut off in tributaries of the Yakima River. This week, the Washington Department of Ecology announced that flows in Cowiche Creek and the Teanaway River are so dire that 129 irrigators with rights conferred as far back as 1873 must stop watering their orchards, hay and alfalfa crops on some 2,153 acres.

 

"Record-breaking heat coupled with a lack of significant snow or rain this winter and spring has reduced our mountain streams to a trickle," said Stan Isley, Ecology's court-appointed stream patroller in the Teanaway River Basin. "As a result, tributaries that drain into the Yakima River are flowing at historically low levels. It's unlike anything we've seen before."

 

For the first time this year, a stream patroller has been appointed on Cowiche Creek, where traditionally water users have policed themselves. A neighbor with a senior water right would make calls on his upstream neighbors with junior rights to turn off their water. If streamflows don't improve, even more senior irrigators in these tributaries, whose rights date back to 1869, could be shut off well before the end of the irrigation season.

 

Isley noted similar curtailments occurred in the mid-1980s, though much later in the year and in an era when water works were far less efficient and more water was diverted than is needed now. "Even with modern efficiencies, there's not enough water to meet these senior water right holders or [support] the streams for fish," said Isley.

 

The state's 1917 surface water code recognizes the legal concept of water right priority that in times of shortage, senior right holders have their water needs satisfied first, rather than all users sharing water proportionally. Thousands of water rights in the Yakima River Basin comprising Kittitas and Yakima counties and parts of Benton County have court-established priority dates associated with their rights to divert water from the river and its numerous tributaries.

 

The Yakama Nation's time immemorial rights are the oldest water rights in the Yakima Basin, and the earliest settlement rights date to 1852. Most water rights were established in the 1870s and 80s. In 1905, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation claimed all unappropriated water for development of the Yakima Irrigation Project. Water users whose rights date after May 10, 1905 have been ordered to stop watering since April when rationing of water from the project was announced.

 

[출처 = Water World / 2015년 7월 24일]