Project Specifics

Many areas of Eastern Washington are dealing with decades of unsustainable declines in groundwater levels in local aquifers due to withdrawals exceeding natural recharge. These declines have significant economic impacts on local municipalities, agricultural users, and single domestic-well users, all of whom rely on this groundwater. These declines also have long-term impacts on local stream flows and fish habitat.

The East Moxee Black Rock (EMBR) area, near Yakima, Washington, is a structural subbasin that is experiencing some of the most significant declines in groundwater in the larger Yakima basin. Our client, the Selah-Moxee Irrigation District, is leading multidisclininary feasibility studies to better understand the nature and extent of groundwater declines in the EMBR and to create a strategy to develop a new water market that would import more reliable surface water to the EMBR and reduce reliance on local aquifers. On their behalf, Geosyntec helped lead the Phase II investigations and coordinated with many stakeholders throughout the basin.

Geosyntec Scope of Services

Following the execution of their Phase I water market strategy and groundwater study, the Selah-Moxiee Irrigation District hired Geosyntec to conduct the three-year Phase II investigation, addressing key questions and barriers.

Our work included the following:

• Spearheading public outreach with stakeholders in the basin, including surveys of local groundwater users
• Conducting a groundwater study of declines and likely future risks to local users, including updating the hydrogeologic conceptual model of groundwater declines in the different aquifers
• Performing an economic study of impacts to the local community, quantifying the value of the EMBR
• Identifying viable options for a new surface-water source and investigating their feasibility, in coordination with the Yakima Basin Integration Plan and the Office of the Columbia River
• Developing interlocal agreements between public agencies in the Yakima basin
• Developing a water market action plan to lay the framework for future market operations
• Leading intial project planning for the Envronmental Impact Statement, including conducting scoping tasks to support environmental review as set forth by the State Environmental Policy Act
• Supporting our client with development of integrated funding sources for the project

Notable Accomplishments

In addition to successfully completing the many aspects of Phase II work, we developed a draft water market action plan to support the new water market and estimated overall project costs for future work.

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