Water Shut Down
Water Shut Down. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.
The Roza Irrigation District Board of Directors have authorized a shut down beginning at 7 am on Monday May 11th. Scott Revell, district manager of the Roza Irrigation Board has more.
REVELL: We got an updated water forecast from the Bureau of Reclamation in middle April they had projected a 54% water supply. Yesterday they revised that downward to 47%. They also showed a low forecast low range, what they thought the bottom of the range was 38%. We immediately changed all of our water planning to match the low forecast. The board of directors this morning voted to shut the system down.
He says the water will be off for a couple of weeks.
REVELL: The board is going to meet on May 22nd which is a Friday in a special meeting to determine how long the shutdown will last. Prior shutdowns were 21 to 23 days. It takes about 5 days to get everything up and running, more or less. They were hearing from cherry growers in particular who didn't want the system shutdown because they're at a real critical time in the next two weeks because everything is about 2 weeks ahead.
He says these decisions are not made lightly.
REVELL: When the board votes to shut things off, I mean, it always comes at someones expense. There's no one that's left unharmed in a situation like this and all five of our board members either grow cherries or have grown them so they certainly understand the big picture.
That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.
