On the brink of a devastating canal collapse, a GOP district waits for Trump's help

YAKIMA, Wash. - Six mornings a week, Walter Burson Jr. hikes roughly six miles along a century-old irrigation canal here that funnels snowmelt out of the Cascade foothills - a system that keeps apples, cherries and grapes alive in the dry valley known as the fruit bowl of the nation.

The path is precarious, often no wider than Burson himself. It traverses sheer basalt cliffs and precipitous hillsides that drop away hundreds of feet below him. On his patrols, he has encountered cougars, black bears and hundreds of rattlesnakes that cool themselves on the canal’s concrete walls.

But the most alarming part of Burson’s job with the Yakima Tieton Irrigation District - and the reason even taking Sundays off makes him anxious - is that the canal is coming apart at the seams. A year ago, the Retreat Fire burned through 45,600 acres in this area, including nearly all of the canal’s 12-mile route. Trees and boulders fell into the water and banged their way downhill, gouging holes in the lining. Flames warped the seams. Since then, he and his colleagues have documented more than 2,000 leaks spurting and gurgling from the concrete.

Any one of the holes he has raced to patch could grow big enough to rip away portions of the canal and interrupt the lone water source for farmers who generate about $700 million in crop sales each year. A disruption of water supply for even a few weeks could doom the crops that send Washington state’s famous apples all over the world.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/brink-devastating-canal-collapse-gop-164008552.html