CWU Natural Science Seminar Series Continues Friday

October 18, 2005

Contact: Dr. Dan Beck (509-963-2886/fax 509-963-2730/e-mail: beckd@cwu.edu)

ELLENSBURG , Wash. - Dating back to 1906, the Bureau of Reclamation's Yakima Project today provides irrigation water for 175 miles and about 464,000 acres in central Washington. Irrigation comes from water stored at dams and reservoirs at Cle Elum, Kachess, and Keechelus in Kittitas County, and Bumping Lake, Clear Creek and Tieton, in Yakima County.

Dr. Gina Bloodworth, CWU's geography and land studies professor, will discuss "Dams, Dam Lives, and Statistics: Why Dams Will Haunt the Next Generation of Water Managers" at Central Washington University's next fall quarter natural science seminar. It's slated for Friday, Oct. 21, at 4 p.m. in Science Building 147.

It will focus on the so-called "big dam" era, beginning with the construction of Hoover Dam in 1931 and continuing through the 1950s, and the now aging infrastructure of water management, according to Bloodworth.

"We have dams all over the country that are aging," she says, "but there is no cohesive national policy on what to do with dams at the end of their life cycles."

Bloodworth will also discuss calls for the deconstruction of functional dams in areas, including the Pacific Northwest, where they are considered to be damaging the ecology.

For more information about her free, public presentation, or for persons of disability to arrange for reasonable accommodation, call (509) 963-2731, or (for the hearing impaired) TDD (509) 963-2143.