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WSDA presents economic model showing large Yakima losses under low water scenarios
Summary
Kelly McClain of the Washington State Department of Agriculture described a drought assessment tool built with university partners that estimates large revenue and job losses in the Yakima Basin under low‑water scenarios and shows how increased storage could reduce economic harm.
Kelly McClain, assistant director of Agricultural Environmental Services at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, briefed the committee on a drought assessment tool (DAT) developed with the University of California Merced and funded by Ecology's Office of the Columbia River. The model links irrigation water availability to crop choices and regional economic impacts using an agricultural production module and an input‑output framework.
McClain said irrigation accounts for a majority of Yakima Basin agricultural value and that the model prioritizes high‑value tree fruit in water‑short scenarios. Using data from the 2015 drought and Yakima Basin planning assumptions, the DAT projects that under a 70% supply scenario (the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan target), revenue losses would range from roughly 7.3% to 19.4% with job impacts in the thousands. Under roughly 50% supply (similar to recent prorated years), the model projects revenue losses of 18.1% to 30.4% and as many as 7,000 lost jobs in the basin, McClain said.
She summarized that increased storage under the integrated plan could save hundreds of millions in total economic impacts and preserve thousands of jobs; the first DAT runs showed potential total impact reductions in the hundreds of millions of dollars when supply approaches the 70% target. McClain stressed the model is a tool to quantify direct, indirect and induced economic effects, to inform policy decisions and to prioritize investments in storage, conservation and other mitigation.
McClain closed by noting that DAT does not capture non‑monetary losses (cultural, ecological, recreational) and that WSDA lacks permanent drought resources but is using the tool to inform infrastructure and resilience planning for agriculture.
