Tri-Cities KID users will wait longer for irrigation water this spring
The Kennewick Irrigation District is delaying the start of water delivery this spring after weather-related and supply chain delays to get the system ready.
The district expects to start taking water from the Yakima River on Saturday, April 9, and customers could start receiving water the following week, with the day depending on the property’s location.
KID has been working on a major project to widen and line the main canal in Badger Canyon.
Work can only be done during the irrigation off-season, and this year work has been slowed on that project and on maintenance work by supply chain issues.
In addition, a windy spring has prevented work to widen and line the main canal on as many days as planned.
Work can only be done on the project on days when there is little wind, said Jason McShane, engineering and operations manager. Cold or wet weather also stalls lining work.
Widening the canal will give the district additional space to store 80 million gallons of water, for use when needed.
“Without this type of a project, the next drought we have would be more severe,” McShane said.
“We have challenges with getting water out of the river lots of different times and the river goes up and down,” he said. “This will allow us to store water when the river is high and use that water to serve our customers when the river is down.”
Lining the canal also will reduce the amount of water that seeps into the ground rather than being delivered to customers.
The district also must do maintenance on and flush, fill and charge 100 miles of canal and more than 300 miles of piping every spring before the start of water delivery.
Crews are working seven days a week, McShane said.
Customers can get more information on when their neighborhood will see water delivery this month by checking the Water Status Map at kid.org as it is updated closer to the start of water withdrawal from the river.
They can generally expect delivery to be one week later than last year.
