Washington Declares Statewide Drought Emergency

Washington has declared a statewide drought emergency.

Gatekeepers News reports that Washington Governor, Jay Inslee has declared a statewide drought emergency due to the hot, dry conditions that have plagued the region and water supply.

Inslee stated that the recent record temperature has killed at least 91 people in the state, and there has been increased wildfire activity and drought, which he described as “the summer of climate change.”

A drought emergency declaration is usually issued when the water supply is projected to be below 75% of average and poses a hardship to water users and the environment. The declaration allows accelerated emergency water right permitting and allows the state to aid state agriculture, protect public water supplies and boost stream flows to safeguard fish.

However, the governor’s office did not include the cities of Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett areas in the drought declaration, noting that those areas have enough water storage to get through the summer.

The Department of Ecology said that drinking water supplies are holding up, but that the Department of Health is monitoring closely.

The director of the state Department of Ecology, Laura Watson, said the drought came as a surprise because of the robust snowpack in the Cascade Mountains.

Last week, Inslee declared a state of emergency throughout Washington due to the growing risk of wildfires, including a statewide prohibition on most outdoor and agricultural burning through Sept. 30.

The State Commissioner of Public Lands, Hilary Franz noted that statewide there have already been more than 900 fires with an estimated 219 square miles (567 square kilometers) burned, which is just shy of the total land burned in all of 2019.

Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years. Scientists have long warned that the weather will get wilder as the world warms.

However, special calculations are needed to determine how much global warming is to blame, if at all, for a single extreme weather event.

Although Watson with the Department of Ecology, said the state had not met the statutory requirements to declare the emergency until now, he noted that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had previously declared its own drought disaster for large portions of the state which opened up federal assistance to wheat growers and other farmers who were impacted.

According to the University of Nebraska’s Drought Monitor, close to 60% of the U.S. West is considered in exceptional or extreme drought, the two highest categories, noting that this is the highest percentage in the 20 years it has been keeping track.

Meanwhile, less than 1% of the West is not in drought or considered abnormally dry.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, more than 95% of Washington is either abnormally dry or in official drought with 52.7% of the state being in severe, extreme, or exceptional drought.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also disclosed that the rain and snow in Washington from April to June was third-lowest in 127 years of recordkeeping with only 3.7 inches (9.4 centimeters).

Meanwhile, most of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho are drier than in 99% of other years.