By MITCH LIES

Capital Press

SALEM -- Rep. Mike McLane and five other legislators are making a run at increasing irrigation water withdrawals from the Columbia River.

The lawmakers want to establish a task force "to develop recommendations for new allocations totaling 450,000 acre-feet of water from surface or storage sources for use within the Columbia River Basin."

The added withdrawals would be enough to irrigate more than 50,000 acres.

House Bill 4101 is among several farm and forestry bills lawmakers will take up in the legislative session that started Feb. 1.

The bill is similar to one introduced in 2007 that called for increasing summer withdrawals from the Columbia River by 500,000 acre-feet. That bill, called the Oasis Project, cleared the House but died in the Senate under threat of a veto by then Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Sen. Dave Nelson, R-Pendleton, believes McLane's bill could have a better fate. McLane is a Powell Butte Republican.

"We're getting a lot of support from Willamette Valley legislators," Nelson said. "That is something we didn't have in the past. It's always been viewed as an Eastern Oregon thing."

"This shows there is some statewide interest in this, and people are finally taking this water issue seriously," he said.

Only three new summer water withdrawals have been approved in the Columbia River Basin since 1992, and none for commercial irrigation. Water right holders typically also are restricted from tapping their full groundwater rights, given that the basin has six of the state's seven critical groundwater areas, with four in the Umatilla Basin.

About two dozen new water rights on the Columbia River have been issued since 1992 for winter storage and irrigation.