In order to pump water from the Columbia River to fill the Black Rock reservoir, the Bureau of Reclamation must obtain a water right from the State of Washington.  Because Black Rock would require substantial quantities of water, the Bureau has taken advantage of a special law and claimed all water in the Columbia River that is not allocated to other uses. 

To read the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s letter claiming the region’s water, click here.

The Bureau’s claim extends to all tributaries.  The State of Washington may not issue any new water rights to any party until the Black Rock/Yakima basin claims are satisfied.  (Of note, the Bureau reportedly waived this claim with respect to new water rights for the proposed gold mine on Buckhorn Mountain.)

Interestingly, the Bureau’s claim to all unappropriated water of the Columbia puts the Black Rock project in competition with other potential dam & reservoir sites that would draw water from the Columbia or its tributaries. 

For example, the Bureau’s own study of the Odessa Subarea proposes diversion of up to 520,000 acre-feet of water from Lake Roosevelt reservoir to expand the Columbia Project into the “second-half” of its original boundaries and serve more lands in eastern Washington.  As another example, the State of Washington is studying several new dam and reservoir sites intended to capture Columbia River water to serve irrigators in and around the Columbia mainstem and to improve instream flows for fisheries.

For additional information, see:

(1) U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Odessa Subarea Special Study;  and (2) Washington State Department of Ecology, Columbia River Water Management Project

Neither the State of Washington nor the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation have offered a comparison of the costs and benefits of differing water development proposals now being studied for the Columbia basin.

Next:  Fisheries