Icicle River near Leavenworth, Washington
dam with headgates diverting water to recharge aquifer for federal fish hatchery - taking water from Icicle River.
Building Grand Coulee Dam, 1938, signature of the Columbia Basin Project. The Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery was a late effort by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to mitigate for destruction of salmon runs. The Hatchery has damaged Icicle River.
Open Letter From Harriet Bullitt
Re: Leavenworth Hatchery Construction in Icicle River
September 13, 2009
The Leavenworth Fish Hatchery’s underground water supply line from the Icicle River is breaking up. This has been known for 10 years, but now it’s in danger of blocking all water to their fish tanks.
For three years, government officials have been meeting with Hatchery personnel to make a different plan to supply 26 million gallons of water a day that the Hatchery is permitted to take from the river.
Decisions are in the final stages of completion. The plan is to re-engineer the Icicle River in so that Hatchery personnel will be able to control all the water in the river by manipulating a system of new dams, gates, and pumps, and by creating an artificial lake in the river. The Bureau of Reclamation, which is funding the construction, has stated that the project has two goals: first, to replace the supply of water from the river to the Hatchery, and second, to restore the river to allow the free passage of wild fishes. Allowing fish passage is mandated by law, but two 70-year old Hatchery dams have blocked fish from swimming upstream for the past decades.
The Hatchery’s plans proceeded slowly until the promise of 14 million stimulus dollars last April put the project on the fast track. The Bureau of Reclamation’s priority is clearly to provide water to the Hatchery which, they say, requires all the stimulus money for the construction of dams and a power plant. The current plans allocate no stimulus dollars for restoring the river. The Bureau of Reclamation claims that they will ask Congress later to appropriate extra money to restore the River. Ron Eggers, the project director, insists that restoration is still a part of the planned Project; however, there is nothing in writing and no money allocated. He said, We must trust.
The record of government taking dams out of the Icicle River is bleak. When the hatchery abandoned the River for raising salmon in the 1970s, they left eight dams to clog the river and completely close it to fish passage. Years later, after the river had deteriorated into a seasonal marsh, the Department of Fish & Wildlife steadfastly declined to remove the offending brush-covered concrete and steel. In an effort to avoid removing their broken-down dams, they even had them listed on the National Register of Historic places. It remained for a group of local residents to raise the money privately for a contractor to remove six of the dams and all the
associated concrete structures along the shorelines, and they did so at a fraction of the cost quoted by the government.
The planners for the new 14 million dollar project have been meeting regularly, unknown to the public and neighbors. The group comprises officials from State and Federal agencies, personnel from the Hatchery, engineers, and other consultants, but no one representing community leadership or local neighborhoods. Decisions are being made primarily from government bureaus in Idaho and Oregon, with no local public meetings planned for the near future.
In the event of very low water, the new construction would give the Hatchery the ability to pump almost all of the water out of the Icicle River, diverting it for their use. The very existence of this heavy construction,
designed to close the River at will, threatens the rich and varied wildlife in this unique stretch of river.
In spite of this, the government planners have stated that they have no intention of preparing an Environmental Impact Statement. Instead, they plan to file an Environmental Assessment, which finds that the massive construction will have no significant impact on the river. This is hard to believe, since the project is designed to potentially turn off the river entirely and move it into a pipe!
This does not need to happen. The state of Washington has strict laws to regulate the diversion of streams. Federal agencies must comply. The Washington State Department of Ecology grants water permits; they carry many requirements to protect natural waterways. The Department of Ecology should not grant any permit that would allow an extensive diversion of the Icicle River into the Hatchery. Any permit involving the Icicle River should be scrutinized and approved by members of the Icicle Valley community and those who value the river. It should not fall to out-of-state officials, whose appetite for stimulus money overrides both law and common sense.
Jay Manning is Director of The Department of Ecology. He is responsible for granting any permit for the diversion of Icicle River water into the Hatchery. He needs to hear opinions from community members and groups outside government bureaus, who have not yet had a chance to even learn about the current situation.
Email Jay Manning at jaym461@ecy.wa.gov
Call Jay Manning, or his assistant, Josh Baldi, at the Department of Ecology: Tel: (360) 407-7001
Or send a letter:
Jay Manning
Dept of Ecology
P.O. Box 47600
Olympia WA 98504-7600
Icicle River (ca 1925) before the construction dams, headgates as part of the National Fish Hatchery and consequence of the Columbia Basin Project.
