Early Winters Ditch made screen improvements and completed some stream work to improve the headgate operation. Those ditches, along with Twisp Valley would be part of a suit for damages resulting from curtailed operation and threats to their water rights, according to an announcement from the Washington Farm Bureau. NMFS enforcement officers visited several ditches as water was shut off in September, including the Methow Valley Irrigation District headgates on the Twisp and Methow Rivers. The federal agency has warned MVID it must improve its fish screens among other measures. The question now is whether the MVID will be allowed to operate this season pending conversion of the ditch to wells and pumps as part of a major upgrade voted by district members and financed by federal funds.
Smaller ditches continue to face uncertainties.
Many need new screens and other improvements, but some of the work will require changes in diversion points approved by the state DOE before funds can be released. One example of productive work at the local level is that of the planning unit's water budget committee. Some of the water information is outdated by decades, committee research has revealed, and thereby inflates the amount of water used in the basin State legislators believe a Methow Valley watershed planning effort, based on provisions of HB 2514, could become a model throughout the Northwest for citizen-based responses to Endangered Species Act mandates. Scheduled to begin after the News ' weekly deadline, the hearing was to include remarks by members of the county watershed planning unit and others including Okanogan County Commission chairman Dave Schulz. Chandler was prime sponsor of legislation that authorized county-based watershed planning units.