OLYMPIA — Gov. Christine Gregoire yesterday asked the Legislature for more funding than expected to battle the state's drought, proposing $12 million to respond to Washington's current and future water shortages.

"It will take more than a little bit of our rain and more than the best of our conservation efforts to minimize the potential harm to our farmers, to our cities and towns, and our fish," said Gregoire at a news conference.

"So we need to take immediate action to respond to this quickly, and we are going to start today."

On March 10, Gregoire announced that the state had reached a drought emergency due to an extremely low snowpack, warm temperatures and low stream flows, especially in Eastern Washington. This caused concern particularly for farmers, who may suffer economic losses if water is limited and crops suffer.

Last week, Gregoire had planned to ask for $10 million, but raised that number yesterday to include help for farmers to buy water and improve wells, and extra funds to educate the public about water use and train seasonal firefighters earlier than usual.

Doug Sutherland, commissioner of public lands, said what happens between now and July will depend on the weather, although even rainfall won't make up for the virtually nonexistent snowpack from the winter's intense dry spell.

"We are delighted with this bill because it does provide us with the capabilities to be able to do ... the early training, the early pre-positioning of our equipment, and the people that go with that is very important."

While $200,000 of the fund will go to preparing firefighters earlier than normal, Gregoire said, the state still may need the help of the Washington National Guard to combat the anticipated wildfire season.

Gregoire stressed that, while the drought affects the eastern part of the state differently from the west, she wants the entire state to participate in water-conservation measures.

"I don't think we should be looking at drought as a one-year or a one-time problem. It will surely happen at some point again in the future," she said. "Rather than simply focusing on this as a crisis of the day, we need to start planning for the future and getting ready for the inevitability."

As part of a long-term measure, Gregoire announced that in the 2005-2007 budget, she has allotted $16 million to pay for water-storage projects to prepare for future droughts. In addition, she has included $6.7 million to develop new storage on the Columbia River main stem, and $1.8 million to continue studying the proposed Black Rock Reservoir near Yakima.

"Water storage gets more expensive by the day," said Gregoire, who pushed for water storage in 1990 when she was director of the state Department of Ecology. "It will cost a lot more tomorrow if we don't get to it today."

Christina Siderius: (360) 236-8169 or csiderius@seattletimes.com