Washington producers are preparing drought contingency plans.
The state has declared a drought emergency but we have been telling you about the dispute on that status and how some say it is not as bad as others are making it out to be.
The state is currently facing abnormal to moderately dry conditions.
The President of the Washington State Tree Fruit Association says that growers are concerned about their water supply, but are prepared.
“That’s one of the things that we’ve been trying to reassure the general public about. If they hear 60% of the normal water supply, some of the first questions we get are, ‘So, does that mean there’ll be 60% of the usual cherry supply or the usual apple supply?’ And of course, that’s not how we allocate water,” according to Jon Devaney.
He says that it would be nice if the public understood better how things really work. Unfortunately, weather is not the only worry for tree fruit growers in the state.
“There are policy issues that can impede that because if you, the grower, make a huge investment in conserving water, you just have given away that resource,” he adds. “And that can slow down making those investments because there’s not really a payoff doing so.”
Devaney says that it is important to know that you cannot count on anything until it is completely harvested and even then somethings could change.
