EVERETT — The state Department of Ecology issued a drought emergency declaration on Thursday for 19 counties, including parts of Snohomish County.
Everett and the lower southwest portion of Snohomish County are still under a drought advisory, but Everett Public Works released a statement on Thursday that the current outlook for the city’s water supply is good.
The state declared a drought emergency on April 8 for the Yakima Basin watersheds and a drought advisory for the Puget Sound and parts of the Central and North Cascades. But in a press release on June 5, the state said conditions have “deteriorated due to early and rapid snowmelt, combined with unusually dry April and May weather.”
The new emergency declaration covers all of Whatcom and Skagit counties, and portions of Snohomish, King, Pierce, Lewis, Thurston, Okanagan, Chelan, Clallam, Jefferson and Ferry counties.
Declaring a drought emergency allows Ecology to distribute drought emergency response grants to public entities and to expediate processing emergency water right permits and transfer applications, the press release said.
“With an especially early spring snowmelt, we saw the need to take action to protect water supplies for the hot months ahead,” Ecology Director Casey Sixkiller wrote in the June 5 press release. “Expanding our drought declaration will make more of our state eligible for tools and funding to deal with drought impacts, and help us protect Washington’s farmers, fish and the communities that depend on snowmelt for their water supplies.”
April precipitation was 25% of normal averages in the Central Puget Sound area, according to the press release, and long-term forecasts are predicting above average hot and dry conditions through August.
“Even in the Evergreen State, our water supply is now less reliable in the summer and early fall than it was historically,” Caroline Mellor, Ecology’s statewide drought lead wrote in the press release. “We see the need to build resilience not for the possibility of water shortages, but the reality.”
Eliza Aronson: 425-339-3434; eliza.aronson@heraldnet.com; X: @ElizaAronson.
Eliza’s stories are supported by the Herald’s Environmental and Climate Reporting Fund.
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