Members Attendance

VISITORS:  John Bush, UI Professor Geological Sciences; Nancy Chaney, Moscow City Council; Bill French, PWCN; Farida Leek, WSU Ph D Student; Dale Ralston, Ralston Hydrologic Services; Hansue Qiu, Post Doctorate, WSU; Gary Wells, Senior Facility Engineer, WSU.
 

1)      Call to Order and Approval of December 18, 2003 Minutes
Jay Becker, PBAC Chair, called the meeting to order at 1:40 PM.  The minutes of the December 18, 2003 meeting were approved by consensus.

2)      Administrative Items- Chair Becker reported that the budget accounting sheets are still in progress and that the new PBAC contracting agreements are still being reviewed by UI legal council. 
        Becker reported on the Quarterly Regional Breakfast sponsored by the University of Idaho at the UI Best Western Inn.  The focus was regional water issues.  The Breakfast was very well attended; more than 50 persons from the Palouse cities, counties, universities and various interested groups plus individuals were there.  Les MacDonald, the new Director of City of Moscow Public Works, was introduced.  He reviewed briefly City of Moscow actions in recent months concerning hearings and conservation activities dealing with municipal water supply.  Becker briefly summarized who PBAC is and reported on recent PBAC activities which he listed in a handout.  Mark Workman, Director of City of Pullman Public Works, updated the attendees on the progress toward the joint Pullman-WSU irrigation project using recycled water from the Pullman Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP).  Workman was hopeful that this session of the Washington Legislature would provide at least the initial phase of funding so that the project could commence this summer.  Workman also mentioned the possibility of Washington DOE requiring the Pullman WWTP to discharge water to the South Fork of the Palouse River for water quality reasons and downstream water rights.  This issue is still under discussion along with the use attainability assessment issue. 
        Rob Buchert, Palouse Conservation District Manager, and Bob Anderson of Golder Associates reviewed the status of the Palouse Basin Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA) 34 planning actions.  They used a watershed map of the Palouse Basin to emphasize the extent of the Palouse Basin in both Washington and Idaho and then talked about the unique involvement of Idaho representatives on WRIA 34 and the good working relationship between entities in the two states.  Anderson talked briefly about the Washington Watershed Planning Act and watershed technical assessments.  The Palouse WRIA is just starting the Phase II assessment. 
There was discussion of setting up a tour of the Naylor Farm with Phil Nisbet discussing the exploratory drilling work that was done this past fall.  Workman said he would check with Brent Thomson of the Naylor Farm group and get back to PBAC members.
The possibility of the proposed new turnoff to Sunshine Road from  the Pullman-Moscow Highway destroying the DOE monitoring well was discussed.  Kirkland is to contact John Covert of Washington DOE about whether a letter from PBAC is needed to assure that a new well, if needed, is put in early to allow for overlap and correlation of the monitoring records.
        Recent PBAC accomplishments were briefly discussed and it was suggested that a report be made to each county and a presentation to the cities. Nancy Chaney encouraged more presentations to the public in all the communities.

3)      New Business- Workman reported on a discussion with Dan Boone, a Port of Whitman commissioner.  The Port is interested in PBAC and the local water supply situation.  The Port of Whitman is a municipal taxing agency that has funds that could be invested in local businesses, especially around the Pullman-Moscow Airport.  However, the Port of Whitman commissioners are concerned about the availability of water for new businesses.  The Port might be interested in investing some funds with PBAC to assure the availability of water to new businesses.  Workman said Pullman is evaluating extending a water main out to the airport.  Workman then asked PBAC about the possibility of inviting Port of Whitman to participate in PBAC, since it is a governmental agency similar to those who constitute the PBAC membership.  This was followed by a discussion of definitions of public interest and consideration of what might happen if the PBAC membership door is opened to other entities and groups.  No formal action was taken.

4)      Possible Indications of Stabilization of Water Levels in Grande Ronde - Kirkland handed out graphs of recent water level measurements in WSU wells and the DOE monitoring well which show a flattening or decrease in the fall of water levels in recent years.  This seems to corroborate the flattening in water levels previously shown for Moscow deep aquifer water levels.  It is too early to speak definitively about the specific cause of the flattening but the logical hypothesis is that stabilization of pumping from the Grande Ronde aquifer system is starting to take affect.  It is just slower than expected, probably because the recharge is less than originally estimated.

5)      Preliminary Presentation by Dale Ralston of what he will present at IDWR Information Session in UI Law Bldg Court Room on February 2, 2004- Ralston began by showing diagrammatically with a simple water trough with an inflow and a “V” notch outflow that water levels will continue to drop as long as pumping from the trough (or from the Grande Ronde aquifer system) is increased on an annual basis.  If pumping is stabilized, the water level in the trough or aquifer will also stabilize at some lower level such that the reduction in natural losses balances the increase in pumping.  If increases in annual pumping exceed the inflow, this will cause the water levels to fall below the outfall (natural aquifer losses), and water levels will continue to fall in the trough or aquifer.  Ralston said it is unclear whether pumping in the Palouse Basin has exceeded recharge. 
Ralston then discussed the Lum, Smoot and Ralston model published in 1990 which said that if pumping for the Palouse Basin is stabilized, water levels will eventually also stabilize.  The model predicted that it would take 10 to 15 years for stabilization to occur.  However, the recharge used in the model is now recognized to be too large so the time for stabilization may be longer if stabilization is to occur.   Pumping from the Grande Ronde aquifer system has remained stable for the past 14 years.  Some tantalizing decreases in the rates of fall are showing up on the graphs of water levels in several area wells.  These could be reflecting the aquifer water levels beginning to stabilize as predicted by the model; however, it is too early to speak dogmatically about what is causing the flattening.
The session was then opened to questions which covered various aspects of how the model works and the implications for the Palouse Basin aquifer system.

6)      Palouse Basin WRIA- Becker reported that the Palouse Basin WRIA planning unit is now working with Golder and Associates out of Coeur d’Alene as the Phase II consultant.  Golder and Associates is gathering information to assess where more data are needed to complete the Basin evaluation.  The Palouse Conservation District, which is the administrative agency, is now applying for supplemental grants for in-stream flow, water quality and storage assessments.  The latter likely will include evaluation of aquifer storage and recovery which will be of considerable interest to PBAC.   The in-stream flow recommendations will also be very important since they can determine whether there is any stream water available for direct use and/or recharge and whether waste water treatment plants must supply effluent to the streams in low flow periods.
 

7)      University of Idaho Use of Effluent for Irrigation- Becker reported that University of Idaho use of recycled water for irrigation exceeded 100 million gallons this past year for the first time.  A new pumping station will be in place this coming spring and the administrative lawn, the last big area not being irrigated with recycled water, should be connected to the recycled water system this summer.  The system’s operation was discussed.  More and more campus irrigation is being automated so that irrigation can occur at the most effective time of day.
    Townsend asked about the possibility of getting recycled water to the Palouse Mall.  Becker said there is no access at this time but a connection may be put in when the highway is torn up.  French asked about getting recycled water across Palouse River Drive to the City of Moscow’s proposed park and soccer playfield area.  It is being discussed but no decision has been made.

8)      Presentation by John Bush after PBAC Meeting in UI McClure 209 - (This presentation actually occurred after the PBAC meeting but a few highlights are presented here because of the interest and because PBAC is sponsoring Dr. Bush’s work to produce the fence diagrams of the regional subsurface geology. Dr. Bush’s handout will be made available at the February 19 PBAC meeting.)
Even though the surface geology appears to indicate flat, uniform basalt flows, the subsurface geology is very complex.  In the subsurface geology flows stopped between Pullman and Moscow and in the Pullman area creating barriers to streams that could have been 100 feet high.  These barriers trapped sediment from the mountains to the east and forced the streams, which originally flowed out a deep canyon to the southwest to turn and flow toward the Columbia River to the north.  The piling up of flows in the Pullman area and sinking of the basin to the west under the weight of all the basalt created a barrier to several later Wanapum flows so that they did not get past the Pullman high into the Moscow side of the basin.  A second smaller basin formed to east and north of Pullman.  The basalts appear to slope down into this basin from both the Pullman area and the Palouse area.  Secondarily there are mild anticline and syncline slopes from the Moscow-Pullman area toward the Colfax area where the top of the Grande Ronde is two hundred lower than in Pullman.
        According to Bush, before the first basalt flow there was a deep canyon in the granitic basement rocks which sloped from Palouse through the Pullman area to the southwest.  He then presented how the basalt likely flowed into the area.  The lowest or oldest flow, the Imnaha, only made it up the canyon to about the Pullman area.  Some of the subsequent flows made it farther; a few made it to the Moscow area.  One flow front appears to have stopped just to the west of the new WSU well # 8.  A major stream flowed alone this flow front depositing the cobble encountered in the bottom of well # 8.
        In the Hanford area, there is approximately 10,000 feet of basalt flows made up of about 100 flows of 100 feet thick each.  Significant settling has occurred under the weight of these flows causing the subsurface to slope from the Pullman area westward.

 

9)      NEXT MEETING DATE

The meeting was adjourned by consensus.

Respectfully Submitted,

Larry Kirkland