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Resources and Help from ODW and Ecology

On June 5, The Washington Department of Ecology expanded the drought emergency declared in April to include areas in the North and Central Cascade Mountains and parts of the Puget Sound area.

Ecology initially declared drought for the Yakima Basin watersheds on April 8, while issuing a drought advisory for Puget Sound region and portions of the Central and North Cascades.  Since the initial declaration, conditions in all of Whatcom and Skagit counties, and portions of Snohomish, King, Pierce, Lewis, Thurston, Okanagan, Chelan, Clallam, Jefferson and Ferry counties have deteriorated due to early and rapid snowmelt, combined with unusually dry April and May weather.

The areas served by Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett water utilities remain under drought advisory. These utilities do not anticipate any impacts to their customers due to managing early for snowpack levels and healthy reservoir storage.

Please visit our Drought 2025 webpage for information and tips on preventing drinking water shortages or outages, including subjects such as:

• Checking the water level of your wells.
• Finding leaks and repairing them.
• Educating your customers about water conservation.
• Preparing a water shortage response plan.
• Identifying alternate sources of water for use during an emergency.
• Conducting testing of your emergency-use well.

The Department of Ecology is making a total of $4.5 million available in drought response grants to offset impacts from the current drought conditions for sectors such as drinking water systems, agriculture, and fish and wildlife.

Publicly owned Group A water systems such as municipalities, water districts in the drought emergency declaration area that are experiencing drought impacts should:

• Apply directly to the Department of Ecology for drought response grants.
• Alert their ODW regional engineer that they are experiencing drought challenges. Please refer to our Offices and Staff webpage for contact information.

Privately-owned non-profit Group A water systems that are experiencing drought impacts should:

• Contact their ODW regional engineer to report the situation.
• Go to our Drought 2025 webpage for information about accessing emergency drought funds through us.

We are working to support proactive projects to build resiliency, develop sustainable infrastructure, and be responsive to water supply demands now and into the future. Our DWSRF program has additional funding that supports many climate resilient projects for utilities.