Time to address water needs is now, not later

There's a lot of debate these days over the pros and cons of global warming, but one thing is for sure: If it happens -- and the evidence points that way -- the need for additional water storage facilities in Central Washington will become even more critical.

The Associated Press recently compiled, and this newspaper published, a revealing series of stories -- "Warming Washington" -- that looked to the possibilities of climate change for the state in general, and Eastern Washington in particular. One possible, and chilling, long-range scenario is that there eventually will be more water on the west side of the Cascades; much less on the east side.

That alone is cause for concern in the Yakima River Basin, where water from five storage reservoirs is the lifeline for an agriculture-based economy. An important part of that storage network is the mountain winter snowpack -- often referred to as the "sixth reservoir" -- that melts on a sustained basis in the spring to help fill the reservoirs and prepare the basin for the irrigation season.

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