Nov. 10, 2017
Two guest editorials in the Wenatchee World highlight the differences over proposals to dam or divert more water in the Icicle.
Mark Johnston, conservation chair for the North Central Washington Audubon Society, and a Wenatchee valley resident, started the debate with an October 3 guest opinion entitled "Protect our natural water systems in Chelan County."
He applauded the Icicle Work Group for trying to address "excessive demands on the Icicle River’s waters" and cited a number of proposals in the Icicle Strategy that his Audubon chapter supports. These include:
-- improved irrigation efficiencies and domestic conservation,
-- a voluntary Icicle water market,
-- improvements at the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery, and
-- enhanced habitat protection and improvement.
These are important, Johnston said, because his Audubon chapter understands "the importance of water to our local communities and agricultural economy," as well as healthy fish populations and clear streams.
But Johnston expressed concern over proposals to treat several lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness as "engineered bathtubs."
By overfilling these lakes and then drawing them down below natural levels, he warned that the drawdown would expose their bottoms to bake in the late summer sun, eliminate aquatic habitat, dry lake bottom sediments, and harm wilderness aesthetics.
The Icicle Strategy, Johnston concluded, "relies too heavily on dams, pumps and tunnels," and not enough on conservation measures that would reduce demand on the Icicle’s waters.
One month later, Daryl Harnden responded in a November 9 guest opinion entitled "Icicle Working Group is working." Harnden is a local farmer, member of the irrigation district’s board, and a member of the Icicle Work group, although he declared that he did not write on behalf of anyone but himself.
Harnden claimed that the current Icicle dams on lakes within the Alpine Lakes Wilderness predate that wilderness by some fifty years and Congress recognized this when it set aside the wilderness. "When you listen to how people describe the wilderness today," Harnden says, "I would say the effect of those dams has been minimal." After the wilderness was created in 1976, Harnden points out that the Forest Service acquired irrigation district lands at these lakes, but in exchange gave the irrigation district an easement "for doing maintenance work on these dams." Hence, he claims, the Icicle Strategy’s proposals are legal.
In response to Johnston’s call for more conservation, Harnden cites efficiencies that the irrigation district has already applied to reduce water usage. "While there is always more to be done," Harnden says, "conservation alone is not going to solve the problems in the Icicle basin."
Moreover, Harnden says, the Alpine Lakes Wilderness contains over 700 lakes and only six of them have dams. "If people are so upset by these dams it seems to me they have plenty of options to choose from."