Changing and shaping the policies that govern how we use water.

One of the main reasons we appealed the Okanogan County Comprehensive Plan nearly three years ago was because it doesn’t align land uses and building densities with the amount of available water. Our Comp Plan needs to direct water to areas known to have legal and physical water available. While we are encouraged to see the new water availability requirements in the updated zone code, we recognize that this needs to be backed up by the foundational Comp Plan. We’ll keep you informed as the case proceeds through the court system.

Planning for Drought

Although we have little control over how much water flows in our watershed, we do have control over how much water we use. How can we equitably allocate water between homes, agriculture and the fish and wildlife that depend on it?

The Okanogan Conservation District has received a grant to conduct a drought planning process which will start this summer. The outcome will include a list of community proposed projects to improve resilence by addressing our specific vulnerabilities to drought.

Preparing for Wildfire

When we think of drought we can’t help but think of wildfire and the drought-fueled catastrophic fires that have scorched the west over the last few years. We are fortunate to have a newly adopted Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) for Okanogan County. This plan is a critical step in reducing wildfire risk and protecting our communities.

Included in this update of the plan is a chapter from Clean Air Methow about how residents can better prepare for wildfire smoke impacts. This was one of the first Wildfire Protection Plans in Washington to include a focus on smoke preparedness.

Learn more about the Plan and what it means for our region here.

If you haven’t seen our short Living River film series that we produced 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. Greg Knott of the Methow Watershed Council does a great job of explaining how connected our river and aquifer are and why we need to prepare for drought now in this video.