Ground-Water Uses

Principal water uses in the Yakima River Basin include agriculture, public water supply, domestic, dairy and livestock operations, fish propagation, and commercial and industrial operations.

Most water used for agriculture is for irrigation, although some water is used for other activities, such as pre-irrigation, frost/heat protection, and fertilizer and pesticide application. Public water supply is for pumpage by municipalities and other Washington State Department of Health public water supply systems. Domestic use represents the self-supplied ground water used for drinking, preparing food, bathing, flushing toilets, cleaning and washing, and watering lawns and gardens. For this study, water for domestic use was assumed to be supplied principally by on-site, “exempt”, wells for single family households. Generally, exempt wells pump less than 5,000 gal/d (about 5.6 acre-ft), irrigate one-half acre or less, and do not need a water-right permit or certificate. In addition, for this study domestic use includes some wells that have a water right to withdraw water for a single household. Dairy and livestock operations include livestock watering, equipment cleaning, and irrigating of grazing lands. Fish propagation primarily accounts for hatchery operations. Commercial and industrial use includes heat exchange, fruit and vegetable processing and storage, and manufacturing.

Eighteen Purpose of Use (PRU) codes are identified with the water rights in WaDOE’s digital water-rights database (Water Rights Tracking System [WRTS]) (R. Dixon, Washington State Department of Ecology, written commun, 2001). These codes (10/31/2000 version) and their uses as defined in WRTS are:

CI—Commercial and Industrial Manufacturing (includes food processing and packaging, sand and gravel processing, asphalt plant, metal processing and manufacturing, pulp and paper manufacturing, aquatic plant culture, petroleum refining, car washes, and laundries)
DG—Domestic General (use of water for all domestic uses not specifically defined in the water right record or not defined by the other specific domestic use categories. Includes sewage treatment, farm supply, and laboratory use)
DM—Domestic Multiple (more than one dwelling, i.e. motels, trailer courts, campgrounds, parks, schools, port districts, public utility districts, diking and drainage districts, water districts, reclamation districts, and counties, none of which are under municipal control)
DS—Domestic Single (one dwelling with lawn and garden, up to one-half acre)
EN—Environmental Quality (includes pollution control, dust control, flood control, or any water use which improves or maintains the quality of the environment)
FP—Frost Protection (frost protection other than cranberries)
FR—Fire Protection (includes sprinkling log storage facilities)
FS—Fish Propagation (includes water service to ponds, reservoirs, hatcheries, and all other facilities involved in the overall purpose of fish propagation)
HE—Heat Exchange (use of such equipment as heat pumps, refrigeration equipment, and other cooling devices)
HW—Highway (maintenance and construction)
IR—Irrigation (includes cranberry farming, lawn/garden watering with definite acreage, golf courses, greenhouses, etc.)
MI—Mining (includes washing coal, dredge mining, and hydraulic mining)
MU—Domestic Municipal (serves general domestic, commercial, and industrial needs of an incorporated municipality, i.e. cities, towns, and outlying areas)
PO—Power (includes hydro-electric, hydraulic ram, and thermo-electric)
RE—Recreation and Beautification (includes beautifying private and public grounds and supplying water to swimming pools, boating ponds, etc.)
RW—Railway (use of water to serve railway equipment and facilities)
ST—Stock Watering (includes domestic uses of water for dairy/cattle farms, game bird farming, poultry farming, and fur-bearing animal farming)
WL—Wildlife Propagation (includes water to service non-domesticated animals such as birds, game and non-game species)

These PRUs define the legal allowable use of appropriated water for a water right, which may have 1 to 4 PRUs. Note that the PRUs of DY (dairy operations), HP (heat protection for crops), and CO (cooling for industrial processes) were not included in the version of the above codes obtained from WaDOE but currently (2006) are included in WRTS.

Considering water uses in the basin and the distribution and types of water-right uses, eight categories were defined for estimating, presenting, and comparing pumpage (table 1): (1) public water supply (includes a principal PRU of MU, DM, or, in some cases, DG and secondary PRUs of CI, HE, ST, FP, FR, and IR for wells with rights, and several wells without rights); (2) domestic (includes a single PRU of DS for wells with rights and exempt wells); (3) irrigation (includes all but public water supply systems rights with a PRU of IR and secondary PRUs of FP, ST, DS, DG, DM, EN, RE, HE, CI, and FS); (4) frost protection (includes all rights with a single PRU of FP); (5) livestock (includes PRUs of ST and DY and secondary PRUs of DS, DG, DM, EN, and CI for wells with rights and small dairies with exempt wells); (6) commercial and industrial (includes PRUs of CI, CO, HE, and RW and secondary PRUs of FR, DS, DG, DM, and EN, for the rights representative of commercial and industrial operations); (7) fish and wildlife propagation (includes all rights with a single PRU of FS or WL and two additional fish propagation [hatchery] wells); and (8) ground-water claims estimated to have existing pumpage not accounted for in categories 1–7 above. Note that categories 2 and 4–7 do not include a PRU of IR. Category 8 for ground-water claims primarily include PRUs of IR and secondary PRUs of DG and ST. Pumpage estimates for these claims are representative of the irrigation pumpage category, but are considered separate for analysis in this report.

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