This could clear the way for more Tri-City walking trails and other development
Public walking trails could someday replace the “No Trespassing” signs posted along miles of irrigation canals in the Tri-Cities.
The Kennewick Irrigation District will gain local control of the canals and other land now managed by the federal government under a bill passed this week by the U.S. House. It now heads to the Senate.
A bill would allow the Bureau of Reclamation to transfer control of canals, drains and wasteways to the irrigation district, starting at the headwaters about five miles west of Benton City and extending about 40 miles east to the Columbia River.
Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, submitted the bill in August and it passed, 358 to 1.
“Local resources should be responsively managed by local entities wherever possible, and that’s what my legislation will ensure on behalf of the Kennewick Irrigation District,” Newhouse told the House.
For the irrigation district this will mean they will have the chance to open the public property around the canals to the public. Federal law closed the access roads and trails bordering the canals.
While people use the access roads as walking trails, the irrigation district isn’t allowed to work with the cities to make the trails official, said Seth Defoe, the irrigation district’s land and water resources manager.
“Our canals permeate through the area,” he said. “There are pushes to do ridges to rivers walking trails, and our facilities could be a part of that.”
The move would also make it easier to work with local developers.
The canals were initially put in place when much of the area was still agricultural land, Defoe said.
This left irrigation easements in areas that are now becoming developed for housing. In one case, a property owner in the Southridge area has been trying for 10 years to get an easement removed from some land.
The irrigation district deals with an average of more than 300 property transfers a month and the Bureau of Reclamation is not staffed for that.
The bureau has one real estate position for the nearly 1.2 million acres in the Yakima and Columbia river projects.
The district is ready to pay off the last of the $4.6 million, zero-interest federal loan for the Bureau of Reclamation to build its facilities, including canals and pumps. Defoe said the fee for the payment has disappeared from ratepayer bills.
The bill now heads to the Senate, and officials hope to have it on President Trump’s desk by July.
The district needs to finish an environmental study and the reviews required by the Endangered Species Act and the national Historical Preservation Act, he said.