NorthwestJuly 13, 2008

UI program digs for answers
UI program digs for answers

MOSCOW - Waters of the West has a grandiose ring to it, not to mention a catchy acronym (WoW) that hints of sweeping applications.

But Jan Boll, the director of the 2-year-old University of Idaho graduate program, says the $1.6 million initiative has a local target for good reason.

"We made the Palouse Basin our first pilot study to embark on what we call an integrated analysis."

In other words, Boll and other UI researchers, like hydrology professor Fritz Fiedler, have teamed with a number of graduate students to wade into the science, politics, legal and social implications of an uncertain Palouse groundwater supply.

"We need to work within that uncertainty," Boll says. "It's never great to do research in your own back yard, but since we felt we are invested here as a university, we should benefit the community."

That community, from a water resources standpoint, says Boll, includes the states of Idaho and Washington, Latah and Whitman counties, the cities of Moscow and Pullman, surrounding communities like Colfax and uncounted rural residents - all of whom currently depend on the same underground aquifers for water.

Amid the mix of jurisdictions, explains Boll, lies the challenge.

"We're working mostly with the community itself. We don't dictate what they should do. We listen to them and then say, 'OK, these are the things we might be able to investigate.' "

One thing for certain, warns Boll, no amount of scientific investigation will ever provide enough answers to erase all questions about how much water is available. "The thing we need to come to grasp with is the uncertainty we will always have. There is always going to be uncertainty about how much water is left and how much we can keep pumping."

Unfortunately, suggests Boll, the uncertainty continues to fuel the politics of water on the Palouse - to the detriment of all.

"People who are speaking out on the water issue, may it be a particular individual in an opinion piece in the newspaper, or maybe even someone in the municipalities and city councils, they all need to collectively decide how we are going to make a decision."

Without an authoritative decision-making body, says Boll, lack of both political legitimacy and trust prevail. "That's why this water issue seems to be so full of tension, and there's no need for that."

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That's because the basic framework for making community-wide water decisions, Boll insists, is already present in the form of the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee.

The committee was created in 1967 in response to declining aquifer levels. The committee - formed by and made up of officials from Whitman and Latah counties, Moscow, Pullman, Colfax, the UI and, Washington State University - has a mission "to ensure a long-term, quality water supply for the Palouse Basin region."

In practice, say critics, the commission represents the individual interests of the principal pumpers of aquifer water, not the collective good of everyone in the basin.

"The problem with PBAC," confirms Boll, "is that there are representatives of all those different agencies and municipalities, but not necessarily the conservation people."

If he had the magic wand or divining rods, says Boll, he'd form an alliance with authority. "It might be a commission. I don't really know what the best name would be, but something that everybody says, 'We've got the right people here that can make the collective decision.' "

Science will help, Boll says. But the money will never be available to drill the numbers of test wells needed to get a total picture of how much water lies where underground. And water witchers don't guarantee their work.

"I'm not saying the decisions will be here next year. I don't think the situation is that dire at all," Boll says. "But it's a planning process that we all need. And that's what our process is trying to develop."

In the meantime, Boll says no crisis is imminent. In fact, he says, the aquifers may be much deeper than realized at this point.

Surface water is plentiful. Reservoirs could be built. Treated runoff could be injected into the aquifers. The technology is even available to pump and pipe water from the major rivers to the south. While perhaps costly alternatives, Boll says the availability of water is more than adequate for the region.

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Johnson may be contacted at deveryone@potlatch.com or (208) 883-0564.

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