By JAYSON JACOBY

Of the Baker City Herald

Jim Colton searched and searched some more for a snowstorm, but after watching countless cold fronts fizzle, he’d settle now for a splattering of plain old rain.

Colton has a reservoir to fill.

Phillips Reservoir, to be specific, the Powder River impoundment whose waters irrigate about 40,000 acres of crop fields and hay pastures in and around Baker Valley.

Actually filling the reservoir is a fantasy, though, in this third consecutive year of sub-par precipitation.

andquot;My snow dance didn’t work, so I guess I’ll start my rain dance for the spring,andquot; Colton joked on Friday.

andquot;Maybe I shouldn’t dance at all.andquot;

Colton started working for the Baker Valley Irrigation District in 1968, the year the first drops of irrigation water flowed from Phillips Reservoir.

He has managed the district since 1976.

But never before during his 35-year career has Colton endured so prolonged a period of arid weather.

andquot;This is the third year in a row, and that’s killed us,andquot; he said.

At full pool, Phillips stores 73,500 acre-feet of water.

It’s holding about 9,000 acre-feet now, and Colton said he’d be satisfied if the reservoir reaches a maximum of 30,000 acre-feet in June.

Last year’s high point was between 32,000 and 35,000, a record low.

Considering that snow depths are equally paltry in the mountains that rise above the reservoir, Colton has ample cause for concern.

The snowpack across Northeastern Oregon, the main source of water during summer and fall, is 58 percent of the 30-year average, according to the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

Figures are slightly higher at several of the higher-elevation sites snow there melts later, and is the primary water source from midsummer on.

March often is a snowy month, especially in the higher mountains, but Colton knows it’s unlikely the snowpack will come close to reaching average before the spring melt commences.

Which leaves rain as the most likely savior.

And although rain probably won’t put as much water into Phillips Reservoir as melting snow would, a series of soggy storms would help him store more of the water that does flow into the reservoir.

andquot;If we get rain it takes the pressure off,andquot; Colton said.

Here’s what he means:

Most ranchers downstream from the reservoir own water rights far older than Colton’s 1958 rights.

That means that in dry years, like this year, he has to allow most of the water to flow through Mason Dam and down the Powder River rather than store it for release later in the summer.

But if rain is plentiful this spring, ranchers won’t need as much of the Powder River’s water, and Colton will be able to hold more in the reservoir.

He hopes to supply ranchers with about the same amount of water as he did last year.

Conditions are slightly better at Unity Reservoir, in part because that impoundment, with a capacity of less than one-half that at Phillips, has much less empty space to fill.

Unity is about 42 percent full, said Jerry Franke, manager of the Burnt River Irrigation District.

Yet he’s not confident the reservoir will fill this spring. Unity has failed to reach capacity just twice since it first filled in 1939, Franke said most recently in 2001.

andquot;I’m getting a little concerned,andquot; he said.

Like Colton, Franke’s fingers are crossed as he waits for spring rain showers to arrive.

But the scarcity of mountain snow will affect ranchers regardless, he said.

Franke said landowners depend on water from streams above Unity Reservoir to irrigate about 6,000 acres. When snowpacks are low, those streams turn into mere trickles early in summer; and with no reservoir to rely on, those ranchers’ sprinklers are left with nothing to spray.

Based on last week’s NRCS snow survey, Colton could at least make a case for optimism.

The snowpack at several sites rose during February, though at none did it reach average.

Unfortunately, Colton said, the newly fallen snow andquot;is not the best snow in the world.andquot;

As any skier could tell you, all snow is not the same.

But whereas skiers seek dry, light, powdery snow, Colton and his fellow irrigation managers prefer soggy snow, heavy with water.

They care less about the snow’s depth than about its water content, the measure of how much water actually will flow into streams and reservoirs when the snow melts this spring. The NRCS survey shows snow is not only shallower than average, but also drier.

At the survey site near Anthony Lake, for example, NRCS employees measured 54 inches of snow just five inches less than a year ago.

But water content this year is just 17.3 inches more than three inches below last year, and 78 percent of the long-term average.

And even at that, Anthony Lake’s snowpack is the best in the region.

At Bourne, several miles away at the opposite end of the Elkhorn Mountains, the water content is 8.1 inches less than half of average.

The situation is scarcely better at Eilertson Meadow, along Rock Creek near the center of the Elkhorns. There the water content is a meager five inches, or 52 percent of average.

A year ago the water content there was 10.7 inches.

Snowpacks are slightly better in the Wallowa Mountains, whose snow supplies irrigation water to dozens of ranches in the Eagle and Pine valleys to the south, and Wallowa Valley to the north.

Schneider Meadows, north of Halfway, showed a water content of 20.6 inches 75 percent of average.

Water content at Aneroid Lake, southeast of Wallowa Lake, is at 69 percent.