Water Storage: 'In Yakima basin, Wymer and Black Rock warrant further study'

kgw.com AP Wire, By SHANNON DININNY

"In addition to the proposed Black Rock reservoir, the federal government plans to study the potential for storing water in another, alternative reservoir to aid both fish and irrigators in the drought-prone Yakima River basin, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says. The proposed Wymer dam would be located about 15 miles north of Yakima in the Lmuma Creek Canyon. The resulting reservoir would extend about 6 miles east on Lmuma Creek and about 2 miles north on Scorpion Coulee Creek. It would hold an estimated 175,000 acre-feet of water and cost about $380 million to build. An acre foot is the amount of water needed to cover an acre to a depth of one foot. The federal government decided to study the proposal further after ruling out two other proposals for alleviating water needs in the Yakima Valley, said Jerry Kelso, manager of the Upper Columbia area for the Bureau of Reclamation. The two proposals that were ruled out: enlarging Bumping Lake on White Pass and connecting Keechelus and Kachess lakes on Snoqualmie Pass with a pipeline to expand storage."