KENNEWICK, Wash. – The Kennewick Irrigation District (KID) is declaring an emergency for the 2022 irrigation season due to a large number of broken irrigation lines.
According to the KID, contractors have broken several main lines when installing high speed internet through trenchless excavation. Declaring an emergency will allow the district to bring in outside help for repairs.
KID plans to hire outside companies familiar with irrigation to help them with repairs and speed up water deliveries to customers before there’s any substantial loss to property or assets.
The costs of repairs will be taken from the Risk Management Mitigation Fund established by Policy 2.28 and will have no effect on assessments.
At the beginning of irrigation season, systems are started back up and breaks that happened over the inter are usually discovered and fixed. However, the additional damage caused by contractors has made it difficult to fix breaks in a timely manner.
It normally takes about two to three weeks to flush, fill and charge the KID system, but there’s been a delay in the delivery of water to many customers. There are currently 1,500 customers without water.
