MOSES LAKE - The Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association is hoping to start construction on their privately funded irrigation system this summer.

The group wants to construct a system of pressurized pipes to bring surface water from the East Low Canal to parcels of land north and south of Interstate 90 now using Odessa subarea groundwater.

They are mostly ready to proceed with the first portion of the project, which will bring Columbia River water from the canal to slightly over 14,000 acres of land, Darryll Olsen, of the irrigation association, said.

"Right now, we've got two of the most important things and that is we've got the money and the water," he said Friday.

Fourteen landowners, through various lenders, have already committed the needed $48 million to move forward with the first part of the project, dubbed System 1. And the state Department of Ecology issued a secondary use permit to the Bureau of Reclamation last month that will allow surface water from Lake Roosevelt to reach some 70,000 acres within the Columbia Basin Project.

"So we've got these two pieces, now the last piece of it is the water service contract that's tied in with the Bureau's master contract they have between the bureau and the (East Columbia Basin Irrigation) district," Olsen said.

The new water service contract must have two key features to ensure the financial viability of the project, he said.

"We sat down and said these are the two things we really have to agree on or this is not going to work financially," Olsen said.

Officials will have to examine groundwater rights and verify original water rights with current irrigation practices. "What's on the nameplate of the water right not necessarily what's being irrigated right now or has been irrigated," he said in part.

He also said the water service contract must have conventional state water spreading applied to all primary and secondary irrigation lands.

The association will present a draft contract to Reclamation and ECBID in the coming weeks. Olsen said he doesn't foresee any major hurdles in finalizing the contract.

"Local project managers are really cooperative," he said. "They understand this, and they want to get water in the ground too."

The association is in a position where they can begin moving dirt on the project as soon as the water service contract is officially in place, he said.

Once work on System 1 begins, other phases of the project can move forward. The association can conduct engineering and economic reviews for the scope of work on Systems 2 and 4, Olsen explained.

If work begins this summer as anticipated, water will reach System 1 by 2016. Assuming that goal is met, then water will flow to the other systems by 2017 or 2018, he said.

"It's a realistic scenario for a private sector development," said Olsen. "We don't think that the time frame is unrealistic."

Legislators from the 9th and 13th districts, where some of the land served by the project is located, attended Friday's project briefing along with bankers, landowners and other key participants.

Olsen said legislators were instrumental in getting a major chunk of funding for East Low Canal improvements. About $32 million was earmarked for the widening of the canal to increase its capacity.

Increasing the canal's capacity will allow it to move more Columbia River water to more acres in the Odessa subarea.

Olsen asked legislators to continue to be supportive of local efforts to bring surface water to farmers.