purchased the hydro-
power used to pump
irrigation water,
leading farmers to
substitute diesel
generation to run
their pumps.
2001 allowed the BPA to continue exporting significant amounts of power to assist California during its power crisis. This demand for energy exports increased the challenges facing those managing the Columbia River system.
Although the drought required major efforts in the energy arena, the overall response to the drought was considered a success for the utilities. No blackouts made the headlines during the drought of 2001 in the Northwest.
Agriculture Impacts of the Drought
In the agricultural community, there was little that could be termed a success. Higher energy prices increased costs. The drought caused yields to fall. Low commodity prices worsened conditions. Because of overproduction, farmers were earning only $1.50 per 100 pounds of potatoes, although it takes $4 to $5 to grow a hundred pounds, leading the United States Farm Services Agency to institute a program to buy potatoes and raise prices.109
The irrigation buyback programs offered by utilities provided a lifeline for some of the unfortunate farmers facing low commodity prices and high energy cost. However, despite the financial appeal of the buyback programs, for a variety of reasons, it remained far more difficult to obtain water in the Upper Snake River than in other regions. By way of contrast, the Washington State Department of Ecology spent more than $300,000 to secure in-stream flows from farmers through 21 leases during this same drought.110
During 2001, buyback programs helped some farmers to survive during difficult farming conditions. According to one media report, “Some Idaho farmers reported that kilowatt hours were their best crop [in 2001].”111Implementing the recommenda-
tions discussed in Chapter 6 would allow farmers to use their water rights to provide a cushion against the challenging conditions facing them in the agricultural market. Environmental Impacts of the Drought
For Columbia Basin fish, things were even bleaker. Already struggling to migrate past numerous dams, anadromous fish faced even lower flows because of the drought. In the Hanford Reach, 1.6 million young Chinook were stranded. In 2001, the drought prevented the agencies from meeting any of the BiOp objectives. Relying on the drought emergency, federal agencies reduced spills over the summer to only 10 percent of BiOp recommendations. The Fish Passage Center and the National Marine Fisheries Service both found that “the lowest survivals and slowest travel times for smolts resulted from the lowest flow and spill that has occurred in recent years.”112In harsher terms,
Save Our Wild Salmon characterized the hydropower operations as a “massacre.”113
According to the Fish Passage Center, “the suspension of Biological Opinion measures resulted in very poor in-river migration conditions in 2001.”114For endangered fisheries,
2001 represented another disturbing step toward extinction rather than recovery. Lessons from the 2001 Drought
Was there any way to meet expected electricity needs without sacrificing the salmon? Some groups believed so. In a letter addressed to Congress on March 19, 2001,
environmental groups, scientists, and Native American tribes proposed that water be obtained from a point higher in the Columbia Basin, so that instream flows could be maintained while hydropower generators met their needs.
Clearly, hydropower generation was given the highest priority for Columbia water resources in 2001. Agricultural, industrial, and fishery interests all suffered, but there were no blackouts in the Northwest that year. Many farmers and industrial interests were compensated for reduced power—and water—use. Fish and fishery interests, including fishermen and Native Americans, however, had no choice and bore major hardships. In short, during 2001, several key factors came together:
!The drought worsened conditions for hydropower production.
!Exacerbated by diversions and power operations, the drought threatened the
environment, particularly salmon.
!Spills over hydroelectric dams were inadequate. !River flows were inadequate.
!Power prices peaked, due to the electricity crisis in California. !Commodity prices were low.
These factors and the priorities given to the various uses of water in the Columbia River system led to a particularly unfortunate outcome—Idaho farmers lost money and plowed under unwanted, but water intensive, potatoes, while fish and hydro- power production suffered from a lack of water. It is important for us to learn from this experience. It may be possible to address all of these problems during dry years by capturing some of the energy opportunity cost embedded in irrigation water in this region.
CASE STUDY RESULTS
The Columbia case study examines energy implications of water use in one large federal project, the Columbia Basin Project (CBP). This project is located near Grand Coulee Dam, upstream of many of the Federal Columbia River Power System hydroelectric generating facilities. To simplify this effort, this analysis focused on the implications of only one crop, potatoes. Potatoes are one of the major crops in the Columbia Basin. Just as salmon are an iconic wildlife species for the Pacific Northwest, potatoes are agriculture’s signature crop in parts of the region. Significant Amounts of Energy Are Embedded in Agricultural Water Use In the Columbia Basin Project, delivering water requires a significant amount of energy: 340 kWh per acre-foot. Our analysis of embedded energy use is shown as source and conveyance energy in Figure 7. This figure also shows the energy required to plant, cultivate and harvest this crop—385 kWh per acre-foot. Culti- vation and harvest energy use, however, comes primarily in the form of diesel fuel consumption. Saving this energy is not, therefore, translatable directly into electricity. Nevertheless, it is also an important energy implication of water use by agriculture.