{"id":16078,"date":"2026-04-09T12:45:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/?p=16078"},"modified":"2026-04-09T12:45:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T19:45:24","slug":"washington-state-declares-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/washington-state-declares-drought\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington State Declares Drought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A statewide drought (with limited exceptions) was declared April 8th, 2026, for the fourth consecutive year. The declaration includes the Yakima River Basin due to extremely low snowpack. It gives the Department of Ecology additional resources to provide assistance to qualifying public entities who may be adversely impacted by drought conditions, including $3 million in drought response grants (https:\/\/ecology.wa.gov\/Water-Shorelines\/Water-supply\/Water-availability\/Statewide-conditions\/Drought-response<\/a> ). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City of Yakima provides domestic water service to over 72,000 residents, as well as commercial, industrial and institutional customers. The City\u2019s main source of water is the surface water supply from the Naches River through our Water Treatment Plant (WTP).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naches River flows are regulated by the US Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) and come from Bumping and Rimrock reservoirs. These reservoirs are part of the Yakima River Basin system, which also includes three additional reservoirs providing regulated flows into the Yakima River. During drought conditions, including limited snowpack and reservoir storage, BOR may restrict the surface water supply of junior water right holders (water rights issued after 1905), also known as \u201cprorationing\u201d, during a period known as \u201cstorage control\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When prorationing occurs, junior water right holders are restricted to only using a set percentage of their water right during storage control, typically the months of June through mid-October. Senior water right holders are allowed their full water right, even during storage control. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City of Yakima\u2019s domestic surface water supply includes both junior and senior water rights. When prorationing occurs during storage control, the City\u2019s surface water supply is reduced due to the fact that a portion of the City\u2019s total water rights consist of junior water rights. Storage control will continue to be reviewed by the USBOR throughout spring and summer months until it ends mid-October. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, the City has a secondary water supply that comes from four deep groundwater wells. These wells are used as a backup to the surface water supply. If system demands cannot be met by the WTP, the City can supplement the supply with its groundwater wells.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City of Yakima also provides a separate irrigation supply that provides landscape irrigation to over 10,500 customers. The irrigation source of supply is also from the Naches River with senior water rights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the City manages its water supply for both domestic and irrigation systems throughout the summer months, we ask our customers to use water wisely and help conserve valuable resources. For ideas on how you can help, please visit the City of Yakima\u2019s website at https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/services\/water-irrigation\/water-conservation\/<\/a> and https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/services\/water-irrigation\/drought-conservation\/<\/a> . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contact Water\/Irrigation Division Manager Daniel Tiliano at 509-576-6480 for more information. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A statewide drought (with limited exceptions) was declared April 8th, 2026, for the fourth consecutive year. The declaration includes the Yakima River Basin due to extremely low snowpack. It gives the Department of Ecology additional resources to provide assistance to qualifying public entities who may be adversely impacted by drought conditions, including $3 million in drought response grants (https:\/\/ecology.wa.gov\/Water-Shorelines\/Water-supply\/Water-availability\/Statewide-conditions\/Drought-response ).  The City of Yakima provides domestic water service to over<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16079,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16078\/revisions\/16079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}