NEAH BAY — If the Makah tribe runs out of water, state agencies will help it ship in drinking water and ensure enough water is available to put out fires.
The Makah tribe on Wednesday had only about a day-and-a-half worth of water — 625,000 gallons — left in the storage bin of its water treatment plant.
Tuesday, the tribe announced it had only a day’s supply left for the 1,800 residents of Neah Bay.
Wednesday, Makah Public Works Manager David Lucas said that enough water has been delivered through the Waatch River, which has slowed to a trickle due to lack of rain, to keep the supply to its present level,
But if the river dries up, so does the summer water source.
And Lucas said the river is the lowest he’s seen in his 14 years with Makah Public Works.
Contingency plan
Wednesday afternoon, the Makah Tribal Council met with representatives of several state agencies to devise a “worst case scenario” contingency plan in case it doesn’t rain, Tribal Chairman Ben Johnson said.
Part of the plan includes having tankers of water standing by in the event of a fire, he said.
Without the tankers, one fire could wipe out the tribe’s entire water supply, said Charles White, the tribe’s general manager.
The state is also working with the tribe to line up tankers to ship drinking water to Neah Bay if the supply dips too low, White said.
In the meantime, engineers from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs are on their way to Neah Bay to check on the situation, Johnson said.
Water restrictions
With the tribe’s back-up source, the Educkett Reservoir, almost completely dry, the Tribal Council alerted state and federal officials and put water restrictions into effect on Tuesday.
The restrictions have helped maintain the tribe’s amount of treated water, but it’s still scarce, Johnson said.
“It’s hard to say how long the water in the river will last without rain,” Johnson said.
“Be cautious on how you use your water. Every drop counts.”
Long term plans
Although Neah Bay gets between 80 to 140 inches of rain a year, according to an Oregon State University weather chart, the majority of it comes in winter months.
In the summer the river can slow or even run dry.
The tribe is developing a $6.4 million plan to address summer water shortages.
The plan includes building a new water treatment plant, and tapping into alternative water sources such as the Sooes Well and Cape Creek.
Most of the infrastructure is in place for taking water from the Sooes Well, but the tribe was denied a $595,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to complete the project.
The tribe is seeking other grant funding to complete the project, as they don’t have a tax base to draw from like other governments do, said Julie Johnson, the tribe’s director of intergovernmental relations, during a Tribal Council planning session in March.
The only part of the plan for which funding is fully secured is a $1.5 million water treatment plant.
The plant would replace the tribe’s 30-year-old plant.
It can no longer keep up with new water treatment filtration technologies, Lucas told the Peninsula Daily News in July.
No date for beginning construction has been set.