MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake Irrigation and Rehabilitation District will spend as much as $20,000 to examine a pair of options to improve the quality of the water in Moses Lake.

The expenditure was approved last night during a regular meeting of the MLIRD Board of Directors, and came after a short consultation with Eugene Welch, a retired University of Washington hydrologist who has studied Moses Lake since the 1960s.

The options the district is looking at include injecting alum — aluminum sulfate — into Rocky Ford Creek to lower the level of natural phosphorus before the creek empties into the lake and building a short canal (known as the W-20) connecting the Quincy canal system to Rocky Ford Creek to dilute the lake water.

Welch said he preferred the canal option, and compared treating creek water with alum as akin to building a “sewage treatment plant” in order to get phosphorus levels down to 20 parts per billion (ppb) from Rocky Ford Creek’s current level of around 160 ppb.

“That would result in exceptional water quality,” Welch said.

It would be costly, however, since alum would need to be added continually to maintain water quality, because the spring-fed Rocky Ford Creek runs year round, Welch told the district directors.

Warm temperatures combined with high phosphorus levels have led to blooms of blue-green algae in Moses Lake in the last few years, and as the algae die, they secrete potentially lethal toxins that can make humans and animals sicken or die.

“The phosphorus limits the algae,” Welch said. “The amount of algae is proportional to the amount of phosphorus.”

District General Manager Chris Overland told directors that both options were needed.

“It’s two prongs,” Overland said. “The W-20 will have to take place, and alum injection but with less alum. It’s not one or the other.”

Board members said they wanted to have several consultants knowledgeable about the lake — including Welch — make informal recommendations and cost estimates for engineering studies, as well as any permits needed for possible tests, that board members can review before the next meeting in early January, 2020.

“We’ll schedule a study session at that time,” said current Board Chair Bill Bailey.

While the board met, property owners in the MLIRD were casting ballots in the next room in the contest between former board member and property manager Jeff Foster and his challenger, Cascade Marina owner and operator Ron Sawyer.

The seat became vacant in late summer when Foster, who has served nearly six years on the board, inadvertently sold a property inside the district before he could get another property annexed in.

Irrigation district elections in this state are something of a throwback to an earlier era. Only property owners within the district are allowed to cast ballots or run for directorships, and receive two votes per parcel they own in the district.

And they have to come down in person to a polling place to cast their ballots, rather than mail in a ballot.

“It’s been slow and steady all night,” said Chamber of Commerce Executive Director and MLIRD poll volunteer Debbie Doran-Martinez.

Preliminary results were not expected to be available Tuesday evening, and the election will not be certified until Monday, Dec. 16, when absentee ballots will be tabulated.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com