OLYMPIA - With recently-passed legislation, irrigation districts will be able to generate renewable energy from the power of the water moving through their canals.

The Columbia Basin has several thousand miles of canals, according to Mike Schwisow of the Washington State Water Resources Association, which lobbied for the law.

"We think it only makes sense to recapture some of that energy as it moves through the canals and put it back into the system," he said.

While charged by the federal government to maintain the canals, irrigation districts did not have the authority to operate new hydropower facilities. HB 1417 clarifies their rights and duties.

Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Ellensburg, was the prime sponsor of HB 1417, which passed unanimously out of the house and with only one senator voting against. Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bill.

The measure addressed a number of concerns that irrigators had about outdated regulations, Manweller said, but the section clarifying hydropower was most important.

"Now a farmer can go out and put a little hydropower generator and generate their own power," he said.

In the future, Manweller thinks the bill will translate to a savings for farmers who pay assessments similar to property taxes to the irrigation districts.

A related piece of legislation, HB 2733, was sponsored by Rep. Larry Haler (R-Richland) and signed into law by the governor. It qualifies hydropower produced by irrigation canals as a source of renewable energy, making the electricity they generate more valuable.

Under Initiative 937, passed in 2006 by Washington voters, electric utilities have to obtain an increasing percentage of their power from a renewable source. The writers of the initiative did not count hydropower since Washington already relies heavily on dams for power generation and would have had less incentive to find alternatives.

"So if the district can get revenue from other sources, that's less they need to get from the landowners to operate," Schwisow said.

The Columbia Basin Project currently has seven hydropower-generating facilities, but they were built in the 1980s. They won't count as renewable energy sources under the new law.

But Schwisow said the Columbia Basin Project is moving forward on eight new facilities which it recently received permits for and which will fall under the new categorization and are expected to generate about 25 megawatts all together.

"The bill will help not only the (irrigation) districts work with federal and state government more efficiently, but allow the farmers themselves to expand how they can add their own resources to this," said Rep. Judy Warnick (R-Moses Lake).

Schwisow noted the13th legislative district has more land within irrigation districts than any other in Washington.