The Newsletter of the Alpine Lakes Protection Society (ALPS) 2020 Issue No. 1 Karl Forsgaard Icicle Work Group threatens Wilderness by Rick McGuire The Alpine Lakes Wilderness the Wilderness. The Washington continues under threat from Department of Ecology’s “Office Also in this issue: rebuilding of old dams in the of the Columbia River” is pouring Icicle Creek watershed. Rebuilt millions of dollars into an effort Forest Service limits camping at dams will allow for a dramatic to enlarge the dams, enlarge Blanca Lake .................................3 increase in the amount of the footprint of the lakes, and, water to be extracted from the most of all, increase the amount USFS action regarding Wilderness lakes. of water that can be taken from Enchantments overuse .............4 Efforts are ongoing by the the Wilderness. Ecology and the County are co-conveners of Massive development plans at Icicle-Peshastin Irrigation Mission Ridge .............................5 District (IPID), Chelan County, the Icicle Work Group (IWG) to pursue this scheme. and the state of Washington to Gold Creek Pond “restoration” ...7 rebuild and enlarge dams in The taxpayers of Washington state are underwriting these efforts What is “Kittitas Conservation above: ALPS Board member to enlarge dams and lakes in a Trust”? .......................................10 Thom Peters at Eightmile Lake Wilderness area. Part of the reason Miller river road washed out .....11 dam. Continued on page 2 ALPINE 1 Icicle Work Group replacement are larger than the existing dams, thus allowing for threatens Wilderness more water to be taken. Ecology Continued from page 1 claims it is not making any water rights determinations. But by to rebuild the dams is to ensure paying for dams designed to take they are safe and do not threaten more water, Ecology is making a property and lives downstream, de facto determination that IPID something everyone supports. But has “rights” to water which it has on top of this is the goal of taking not been taking. out more water to pave the way If the Icicle project is allowed for more residential development to go ahead, it will result in in the Wenatchee valley. Both unprecedented impacts inside “domestic water supply” and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. It “new home construction” are will also help turn a wonderful cited in documents (a State valley of orchards into just more Environmental Policy Act - “SEPA” suburbia. It will degrade what – checklist), released by Chelan makes the Wenatchee valley a County and the Washington pleasant place. Will that attractive Department of Ecology. valley just become yet another Karl Forsgaard All kinds of documents, paved-over paradise? Will the Alpine Lakes Wilderness boundary committees, and endless process Alpine Lakes Wilderness pay the sign on Eightmile Lake Trail. exist to make this look like an price for all that? effort to support orchards in the valley. Almost never mentioned is Icicle process updates of water rights would be a dam at that IPID has sufficient water for As previously reported (Alpine the current elevation (4667 feet) orchards, and can and does sell 2019 issue No. 1), IPID provided and a low pipe no lower than water to developers. And if they 30% design drawings in January the current elevation (4648 feet). get more water from the Alpine 2019 for the proposed new Making the dam any higher, or Lakes Wilderness, the extra water Eightmile dam, and said it would the low pipe any lower, would will go not to orchards but to soon provide 60% drawings, but allow the dam operator to store residential developments which, if as of September 2020 that has not and extract water beyond the history is any guide, will gradually yet happened; the 30% drawings amount it has a right to. However, supplant the orchards and turn the are still under discussion. IPID’s that baseline alternative design Wenatchee valley into yet another rented excavator is still sitting at has been absent from IWG extension of suburbia. the dam, in the wilderness, where documentation thus far, including The Alpine Lakes Wilderness it has been since May 2018. the current 30% drawings. will pay the price for this. IPID In a July 3, 2019 letter to IPID, In March 2020, Ecology received has recently backed off its claim the U.S. Forest Service wrote that it bids from contractors to write a that it should be able to construct had no authority to approve a dam project-level EIS for Eightmile roads to access the dams in the elevation higher than 4671 feet, or dam construction, while internally Wilderness. IPID continues to a low outlet pipe elevation lower requesting $1.5 million to pay for claim it has the “right” to increase than 4648 feet. IPID proposes to the EIS process; as of September the size of the dammed-up lakes, make the new dam four feet higher 2020, the winning bidder had not expanding its water extraction than the current dam (it has been yet been announced. A proposed beyond precedent. at 4667 feet since 1990), and make timeline submitted to Ecology Because IPID has not been the low pipe many feet lower than predicted it will take over a year to taking the amounts of water it it has ever been. conduct project-level scoping and claims it has a right to, there ALPS participated in a July 2019 prepare the draft and final EIS, i.e., is a very good case to be made “listening session” in Leavenworth construction may not be feasible that IPID has “relinquished” its with the USFS Regional Forester, prior to the summer of 2022. rights to increased levels of water other Forest Service personnel and In 2019, Chelan County hired withdrawal. The Department IWG members. In July 2020, ALPS two facilitators. The facilitators of Ecology is funding the dam reminded the Forest Service that interviewed IWG members replacements, and so far, all of the dam design that would most and presented findings and the proposed designs for dam simply reflect the relinquishment recommendations at IWG’s 2 ALPINE September 2019 meeting, including proposed revision of Forest Service limits camping IWG operating rules; they also persuaded Icicle Creek Watershed at Blanca Lake Council to table its dispute resolution process regarding IWG process fouls. The U.S. Forest Service is taking pothole on the North Fork - steps to implement a camping Troublesome creek divide ridge In early 2020, the County’s closure at scenic Blanca Lake, along the trail to Blanca. How this hired facilitators began a series of above the North Fork Skykomish. will effect the area around Virgin meetings with several conservation lake is a question ALPS raised in nonprofits regarding the Eightmile Blanca Lake has long been a its comments to the Forest Service. dam. ALPS asked one of the very attractive and popular hiking ALPS recommended making the facilitators to stop describing destination, and was overrun years camping closure include the Virgin himself as “neutral” on the Icicle, ago. Overcrowding at the lake lake area as well. It may be that the because he is heavily invested in the Henry Jackson Wilderness Forest Service is just hoping that in the Yakima Workgroup and continues to worsen. Sanitation would be campers will find Virgin its Yakima Plan, and the Yakima problems and littering have gotten lake less attractive than Blanca Workgroup and Icicle Work Group out of control. Vandals have even itself. are related in many significant painted murals on rocks. The ways. crumbling away of the old logging Hopefully the Forest Service road system and the rise of social will be able to make the camping To uphold wilderness values media is concentrating ever higher closure work, and close Virgin lake and to oppose expansion of the levels of recreational use in fewer to camping if the problem simply human footprint in the Alpine and fewer places. Some places, like moves there. The accessible beauty Lakes Wilderness, ALPS has been Gothic Basin, Blanca Lake, and spots of the Cascades are being preparing for years to litigate worst of all, the Enchantments, mobbed, but that still leaves 95% Eightmile dam issues, and has are being loved to death and or more of the range a place where been paying its lawyers at the destruction. you’ll see no one from one year Bricklin & Newman law firm. to the next. But for the accessible ALPS has also been represented Hopefully the camping beauty spots, it’s now a case of, as pro bono by Earthjustice and limitation at Blanca will have some Yogi Berra said, “no one goes there the Western Environmental effect in limiting the damage, if anymore, it’s too crowded.” Law Center on the Icicle matter. enforced. Camping will still be In 2019, ALPS added another allowed at Virgin lake, a small coalition member, Wilderness Watch, to its attorney-client relationship regarding Icicle. ALPS is a tax-deductible 501c3 charitable organization; supporters can make tax-deductible donations to ALPS for the Icicle litigation fund. Some of the old growth they missed in the Miller river valley. JIM SCARBOROUGH ALPINE 3 USFS action regarding Enchantments overuse July 2020 This continues the story of the crisis in the Enchantments, previously covered in the 2019 Alpine in an article of the same title. That article gives an accounting of the Forest Service’s 1993 analysis of the problem, and subsequent Decision Notice of ‘No Significant Impact’. Since 2014, the Friends of the Enchantments (‘Friends’) have been presenting tabulated and pictorial evidence of gross overuse of the Enchantments terrain to the Forest Service, and Natalie Williams requesting they implement a Quiet rainy day at Snow Lake trailhead.. Day Use permit system, as the 1993 report recommends: “Areas In July 2019 the Forest Service announcement of their intention to may be added to the permit responded by inviting ALPS, change public use/parking along system if monitoring detects Friends, and a cross-section of Eightmile Road to alleviate an further resource damage or large the Alpine Lakes Wilderness unsafe condition, to commence increases I user pressure on (ALW) users to a discussion of the Sept.