MOSCOW - Even with state-of-the-art technology, no amount of scientific probing will ever provide total understanding of the groundwater supply on the Palouse, says a University of Idaho hydrology and water quality professor.
"There are geophysical tools that you can use," Fritz Fiedler says of equipment designed to collect underground data. "But they aren't very accurate. And they don't work well in deep systems like we have. The main aquifer on the Palouse, which is the Grand Ronde, is about 1,000 feet deep."
What about more test wells?
"Drilling more wells, which has been done recently, will help to understand the situation. But each well is only a point. And to fully understand the system you'd have to physically turn the place into Swiss cheese."
Fiedler is the principal scientist in charge of what's called the Palouse Basin Integrated Analysis. It's a research project coordinated through UI's Waters of the West program.
"What we're doing is looking at the water supply situation on the Palouse," says Fiedler, "and planning for sustainability."
No new scientific data gathering is being done. Instead, historical data is being considered in a new way.
"We're in the middle of a process called participatory modeling. We're developing a tool that will help managers and planners. We're doing it as a group."
The effort is geared around the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee and the relatively newly formed Citizen Advisory Group. Together, the organizations represent a potential water-governing body with interstate local control.
"There's always going to be uncertainty that we're going to have to manage around," Fiedler says. So while more scientific data is desirable, cooperation between user groups and agencies is much more critical at this point.
"I don't think there's a looming crisis," Fiedler says. "I really don't think we're about to run dry by any means. But in the future, maybe 15 to 20 years out there, it's much harder to tell."
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Johnson may be contacted at deveryone@potlatch.com or (208) 883-0564.