Wednesday, March 24, 2004
By Brian Mittge bmittge@chronline.com, The Chronicle
The river system that runs through the heart of western Lewis County through Rochester and Oakville to the ocean is like no other.
The Chehalis River and its tributaries are the largest watershed entirely in Washington, outside of the Columbia system.
Its dynamics are unique, because the Chehalis River system flows year-round entirely from rainwater.
Unlike the Cowlitz River, which flows from mountain glaciers, the Chehalis, Skookumchuck, Newaukum and Black rivers bulge in the winter and slow to a trickle in the summer.
For more than six years, a group of local leaders and citizens have been trying to agree on a voluntary plan to solve what ails the Chehalis River basin: low flows in the summer that are too hot and oxygen-starved for salmon, and an overall lack of water that has shut off the upper river system to new water rights.
On Friday, the Chehalis Basin Partnership plans to approve a watershed management plan, the culmination of countless studies and $1 million in state funding.
Once approved, the plan will go up for public hearings in Lewis, Thurston, Grays Harbor and Mason counties. County commissioners from those four counties will then gather for an unprecedented joint meeting May 28 to consider approving the plan and sending it to the state.
If approved, the plan will not have any regulatory weight and won't obligate property owners or lock up any land, said Lee Napier, project manager for the watershed management plan.
"It's more of a guidance document, showing the vision. State law doesn't allow us to obligate people, but we can make suggestions" said Napier, also deputy community development director for Grays Harbor County.
Members of the partnership who are skeptical of governmental oversight also hope the plan will help keep land management decisions local.
"An overriding reason for this plan is to ensure that the future of the resources of the Chehalis Basin remain in the hands of the residents of the basin to the greatest extent possible," the plan reads, noting that "if we do not plan responsibly for our own future, then the state reserves the right to do so." The population of the Chehalis Basin is expected to increase by 2025, according to the plan, from 140,000 to 220,000.
This growth could degrade those parts of the Chehalis River system that still have high quality water, the report said.
At the same time, a lack of information about how much ground water is in the Chehalis Basin is making it hard to decide about transfers of water rights. The upper watershed, including the Twin Cities, has been closed to new water rights for a decade.
The uncertainty has led to delays and difficult transfers of water rights for development projects, including the Tractebel power plant south of Chehalis and Cardinal's proposed window glass manufacturing plant near Evaline.
More than that, nearly 8,500 water rights claims have never been evaluated, adding uncertainty to whether any new claims can be issued.
The plan is written with the understanding that tribally reserved water rights, which have not been verified or quantified, supersede state-based water rights.
A 1908 precedent, Winters v. U.S., and a number of later rulings say that when the United States sets aside land for a reservation, it also reserves sufficient water to meet the current and future purposes of the reservation, including in-stream flows for fish.
Beyond providing water for people, there are 31 salmonid stocks in the Chehalis Basin. Of these, eight have diminished populations, and the status of seven others is unknown.
The bull trout in the Chehalis Basin is listed under the federal Endangered Species Act, and Chehalis River coho is a candidate species for listing under the ESA.
The watershed plan emphasizes improvements to habitat to help increase the fish populations. Other projects, such as removing culverts that block fish, will help improve the aquatic environment.
Still, low summer flows and habitat degradation are the critical factors limiting fish populations, the plan said, while information from the state Department of Ecology suggests that the more water taken out of the ground, the less flows into the river.
The Ecology department has already started a new ground water monitoring study by looking at private wells throughout the Twin Cities area.
The plan calls for more studies of that kind, but acknowledges that monitoring for water levels and quality will be time-consuming and expensive.
The alternative, however, is to deny future water use requests.
"If these things are done, there is hope that we will put our best foot forward in the future when pressures on Chehalis Basin water resources become more intense than they are today," the plan said.
Friday's Chehalis Basin Partnership Plan will be held in the bingo room of the Lucky Eagle Casino between Oakville and Rochester from 9 a.m. to noon.
Information is available online at www.co.grays-harbor.wa.us/info/pub_svcs/chehalisbasin/, although the plan won't be online until next week.
Brian Mittge covers politics, the environment and Lewis County government for The Chronicle. He may be reached by e-mail at bmittge@chronline.com, or by telephoning 807-8237.
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