PALISADES, Wash. — The year was 1929. The tall sagebrush at the far end of central Washington's Moses Coulee hinted at a generous water supply and good soil, despite the arid habitat, so the Billingsley family settled in.
It hasn't always been easy raising cattle in the stark environment, but the one thing the Billingsleys haven't had to worry about all those years is water. They've had plenty to get by.
Water could pose a different threat if Moses Coulee becomes the site of a reservoir to store Columbia River water for dry years. A new study for the state and federal governments narrowed a list of potential reservoir sites to 11, including a 20-mile-long reservoir that would flood the tiny post office, elementary school and farm families that make up Palisades.
Dave Billingsley, whose 4,500 acres or so sit at the base of a cliff where Palisades Road climbs out of Moses Coulee, isn't sweating yet. He's heard the proposal -- and others like it -- before.
"With all of the current environmental concerns, I have a hard time thinking you could get a project like that through," Billingsley said with a wry smile.
Proposals for storing Columbia River water have been floated for years, but perhaps never more so than after last summer, when farmers, fish and cities alike suffered under a severe drought. Snowpack in the mountains was far below normal, and forecasters have predicted the potential for it to continue declining in the decades to come.
Many believe additional storage in the region is the answer. Irrigators in the Yakima Valley threw renewed support behind the proposed Black Rock Reservoir, which would store as much as 1.3 million acre-feet of water, drawn from the Columbia River, behind a 760-foot-tall dam.
An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover an acre of land a foot deep.
The reservoir, estimated to cost as much as $4 billion, would deliver water to irrigators in the lower Yakima Valley and leave more water in the Yakima River for fish. But it would do little to ease water woes in the larger Columbia basin.
Communities up and down the Columbia River have been seeking additional water to meet their growth needs, despite a moratorium on new water rights imposed by the state Department of Ecology.
Irrigators and municipalities alike face having their water shut off or slowed during dry years to ensure a full supply for those with more senior water rights.
