July 7, 2018
With the clock ticking on the deadline for public comments, an article puts the draft environmental impact statement on the Icicle in context.
Karl Forsgaard, immediate past-president of the Alpine Lakes Protection Society (ALPS), has written a comprehensive article for Alpine, the publication of ALPS, about the on-going dispute in the Icicle. Summarizing events leading up to the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) Forsgaard recaps the five alternatives in it and the controversy surrounding them.
He details two specific disputes – over a bigger valve on the Snow Lake dam, and the Icicle Peshastin Irrigation District’s interactions with the US Forest Service at Eightmile Lake. The irrigation district and Chelan County declared an emergency this spring over fears of a breach in the old Eightmile Lake dam. As Forsgaard explains, the Forest Service allowed the irrigation district to harden the spillway, thereby reducing concerns about a breach, but, for a number of reasons, it did not approve the irrigation district’s plan to replace the dam.
Significantly, Forsgaard also reports that the state Department of Ecology acknowledged in June that it has not made an "extent and validity determination" on the irrigation district’s or the fish hatchery’s water rights in the Icicle. Conservationists have been arguing since the beginning of this dispute that the irrigation district’s water rights are much more limited than it claims.
Finally, Forsgaard offers a number of suggestions about public comments on the DPEIS. The deadline for those comments is July 30 31. They should be sent to Mr. Mike Kaputa, Director, Chelan County Natural Resource Department, 411 Washington Street, Suite 201, Wenatchee, WA 98801.
You can access Forsgaard’s article at http://www.alpinelakes.org/newsletters/alpine_2018_01.pdf