Meeting Notice

DATE: Friday, April 9 "2004

TIME: 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM

LOCATION: Chehalis Tribe "Lucky Eagle" Casino

Discuss Consensus-BasedDecision Making	9:00 a.m.
Discuss Draft Plan Sections 1, 2 and 3;	-
Resolve outstanding issues blocking	-
Consensus and reach agreement.	9:30 a.m.
Chair Adjourns Meeting	11:30 a.m.

Brief summary of why this special meeting is being called

The Chehalis Basin Partnership failed to reach consensus during its March 26, 2004 meeting on sections 1, 2 and 3 of the watershed plan. Sections 4 ad 5 were approved at the February 27th Partnership meeting. John Penberth (newly appointed representative from PeEll) and J. Roach (Citizen Representative from Thurston County) each raised several issues that prevented them from approving the plan. The Partnership has adopted a consensus-based decision making process where any member can raise objections to an action. When this happens under a consensus-based process it is the responsibility of all parties to listen to the concerns of the members and attempt to resolve the issues.

Members of the Partnership have met with the Mayor of the Town of PeEll and John Penberth, and J. Roach to discuss the issues they have raised. The Partnership's Steering/Technical Committee met April I" to discuss the unresolved issues and develop recommendations.

At its April 1, 2004 meeting the STC discussed the following:

ADJUDICATION: New language was developed that will be inserted at the end of paragraph 4 under "Current Status of Water Resources in the Chehalis Basin" on page 2:

This Plan recognizes that the Department of Ecology is responsible for issuing state water rights. This Plan identifies that there is a problem of an over allocation¹ of water rights and claims within the Chehalis Basin. The Plan recognizes inconsistencies between the actual amount of surface and ground water being used with the large number of water rights and claims. This issue needs to be resolved.

BLACK LAKE: A flow monitoring station at the North end of Black Lake will be added to Appendix C of the Chehalis Watershed Monitoring Plan and Quality Assurance Project Plan Framework .

A question was raised regarding the status of the "other" issues collected through the local study area meetings, CBP meetings, STC meeting, and additional outreach that are not described in the current draft plan. The issues, for example those related to Black Lake, not contained in the current document are considered unresolved/unfinished business of the CBP. They will remain as part of the 9-26-03 document, Section IV, beginning on page 12. Please note that reference will change when the 9-26-03 document is updated to reflect the items transferred from that version and added to current draft plan. The draft Plan recognized recommendations for issues raised by citizens during the above described outreach effort. The recommendations included in the draft Plan are components of the four required plan elements (Water Quantity, Water Quality, Habitat and Instream Flows) being considered for approval by the Partnership. The more specific issues that remain unresolved, such as the Black Lake issues, still need to be addressed in the future.

CLIMATE CHANGE: J. Roach will provide copies of an article, or articles, examining the two sides of the discussion about climate change. These articles will be incorporated into an appendix to the plan with his comments recorded during the plan approval discussions according to the process described below.

RECORDING THE PLAN APPROVAL PROCESS: The STC recommends that the discussion and actions taken on the watershed plan during the Partnership's recent meetings be recorded in an appendix to the plan. This would be accomplished by including copies of the Partnership meeting summaries where plan approval action was taken, backed up with copies of the Meeting Attendance Records for those meetings.

Footnote

1 The Initial Watershed Assessment for WRIA 23 - Upper Chehalis River , (February 1995) found that in many instances during the summer months the amount of water allocated under existing rights and claims is greater than the amount of water flowing in streams. For example, during an average August at the Porter Washington stream flow gage, the amount of water allocated under existing upstream rights and claims is greater than the amount of water actually flowing in the Chehalis River by 275 percent (nearly three times).