Philip Mote, the director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, was the lead author of a recent and important study that shows Western snowpack has dropped by 30% since 1915. I was surprised to see Dr. Mote state in national newspapers that “the solution” to this problem “... isn’t in infrastructure.”

Mote’s otherwise-thorough study devotes just one scant paragraph to his assertion that “new reservoirs could not be built fast enough” to offset the loss of snow storage. Instead, the report concludes that solutions should focus on demand management.

In fact, demand management, water recycling, watershed management, conveyance, desalination, water transfers, groundwater storage, regulatory reform and surface storage are all needed in a diversified management portfolio. Notably, surface storage provides a degree of operational flexibility and significant water supply volumes that cannot be provided by other management actions.

Regardless of cause, climate variability is one critical factor that perhaps makes the best argument for the need to develop new storage projects in the Western U.S. Studies predict warmer temperatures will raise the snow level in Western mountains, producing a smaller snowpack and more wintertime runoff. This means more floodwaters to manage in winter, followed by less snowmelt to store behind dams, to benefit cities, agriculture and fish in the summer months.

When you consider these realities, the call for more water storage only makes more sense.

Water storage facilities improve water management in these kinds of conditions simply because they can change the timing of water flows.

Roadblocks ahead
Unfortunately, developing new storage projects is much easier said than done. Even if federal authorization and funding are secured for a new project, the time and resources associated with navigating the permitting process can make project approval incredibly burdensome and uncertain.

Nowhere in Mote’s report does he discuss how long it takes to complete reviews and permitting for new storage projects to comply with the myriad state and federal environmental laws. This is one key reason new projects “cannot be built fast enough.” The existing procedures for developing additional water supplies need to be refined to make project approval less burdensome.

There is growing recognition among policymakers that water supply enhancement projects must be included in the toolbox used to tackle Western water challenges. States like California and Wyoming are dedicating hundreds of millions of dollars to the development of new water storage projects. The goal of Wyoming’s “Ten in Ten” initiative is the completion of a minimum of 10 small reservoirs in the next 10 years. In the current Congress, four bills have been introduced to facilitate permitting of new water storage projects.

The time is right — now — to start planning for future droughts and avoid repeating the disaster we are seeing now in California and elsewhere in the West. That includes better managing our current water supplies for multiple needs, and developing new water storage projects that will allow the greater flexibility we will need to meet the challenges of future drought years. 

Keppen is executive director of the Family Farm Alliance.