There are a few truths we know about water in the Methow:

It is not abundant when we need it most—our watershed is highly dependent on mountain snowpack to carry us through hot, dry summers.

Climate change will bring with it droughts and changes in how we receive our water—there will be less snowpack to sustain the river through the hotter, drier summers.

There will be more people in the Methow in the future and water will need to be equitably shared—homes, farms and local businesses will all need water with enough left in the river to sustain the fish and wildlife who depend on it.

Our community needs to be involved in solving the water challenges that will come:

Over the last nine months, the Methow Watershed Council has put on a series of educational events meant to inform the community about the Methow’s water problems and potential solutions to them. MVCC has played an active part in this—Program Director Lorah Super sits on the Watershed Council. All of these informative talks have been recorded and are available to listen to here.

The topics of these talks have included:

• Drought Planning
• Water Law 101
• Water Economics
• A Community Discussion on Water Banking

For this last topic, the Okanogan Conservation District wanted to receive feedback from the community about goals, needs and hopes for a water bank. The survey for this is still open and can be filled out here.

If you haven’t seen our short Living River film series that we produced last year we encourage you to watch one, two or all of them (2-3min each) to learn about what makes the Methow watershed unique, what threatens it and how we can protect it.