Colfax water use spiked from 2008 to 2009

Colfax led the way in a regional increase in pumping groundwater from the aquifers beneath the Palouse during the irrigation season. Pumping figures were reported for Colfax, Palouse, Moscow, Pullman, the University of Idaho and Washington State University.

All pumping entities used 1.7 percent more water in 2009. Data came from pumping records of April through September, typically the highest irrigation months of the year. A report was given at a meeting of the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee Friday.

PBAC director Steve Robischon said the increased pumping was a result of summer 2009 weather that was hotter and mostly drier than summer 2008.

Colfax water users consumed 9.7 percent more water this year than in 2008, according to the report.

Robischon explained the big spike in Colfax pumping figure mainly reflects a comparison to the city’s low water use in 2008. Several leaking water lines were repaired by Colfax in 2008, and that lowered the city’s water use.

Also, Robischon noted, Colfax this summer sustained two major water main bursts beneath Main Street that resulted in a lot of lost water. The mains could have dumped a lot of water before they pushed through the surface.

Also seeing increased water usage were the University of Idaho, up 6.9 percent, Palouse, up 5.9 percent and Moscow, up 5.2 percent.

WSU cut water use 5.7 percent from 2008, while Pullman dropped two-tenths of a percent. Robischon said WSU’s drop in 2009 water use also reflects a unique factor from the previous year which the WSU used a high volume of water because of irrigation needs on the school’s new golf course links which were planted in 2008.

In other PBAC news, contributing agencies will be asked to pick up the slack of Department of Ecology that has been taken out of the agency’s budget for 2010 and 2011.

The agency was funding what Robischon called a “framework project” which would consolidate information gleaned from studies of Palouse aquifers over the past century. The project, he said, would allow area agencies to better prioritize aquifer projects.

The state had pledged $140,000 for the study in fiscal year 2010 and $40,000 in the 2011 fiscal year, which runs from July to June.

Robischon said the governor’s proposed supplemental budget pulled that money, and contributing agencies have pledged to fill the gap.

On another water topic, PBAC has dropped plans for a second shutdown test for pumps on the aquifer. Pumps were shut off early during Thanksgiving week, when most of the university students were gone, to determine the impact on the aquifer.

A second shutdown had been considered for the winter Christmas break, but the first shutdown averaged about 34 hours at the different entities and that is believed to be long enough to provide data for the study.