12/19/05 Mid-Columbia water subject of meeting

Washington Ag December 19, 2005 Numerous questions regarding approaches about managing water supplies in the mid-Columbia region of Washington state will be discussed at a public meeting scheduled for tomorrow December 20th in Moses Lake. That meeting is planned from one to 4:30 p.m. at the Moses Lake Fire House on East Third Avenue. People will be able to meet the new Ephrata water master, hear about the seasonal application process to move water from place to place and get the newest information about the declining water table in the Odessa area. State Republican Senators Mark Schoesler and Joyce Mulliken and the Department of Ecology are co-hosting the meeting. Congressman Doc Hastings recently announced he'd secured another 368-thousand dollars in federal funds to continue Bureau of Reclamation work on solving the depletion of the Odessa Subaquifer. Last year he secured 250-thousand dollars for the Bureau to address that issue. State Senate Republicans are offering podcasts on their caucus website to give the public unfiltered access to the legislature. You can listen to mp3 files on their legislative agenda, like agriculture. Audio: "First we want to ease the tax burden on farming." Or energy: "We also need to generate ideas on increasing the use of biodiesel." Of course you can hear the lawmakers' comments in their entirety on the Senate Republican website. I'm Bob Hoff.