October 23, 2001

Environmental Watch: Nov. 7 meeting on Second Supply impact

TACOMA -- Tacoma Water will solicit comments for a draft environmental impact statement on the Second Supply Project linking Tacoma Water with Seattle Public Utilities' system.

Other partners in the project are the city of Kent, Lakehaven Utility District and Covington Water District.

Tacoma Water has determined that the project could have significant impacts on both the built and natural environment, requiring an EIS.

Comments may be made at a meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 7, to be held at the Covington Public Library, 27100 164th Ave. S.E. in Kent beginning at 6:30 p.m. For more information about the project contact Craig Gibson, project manager, at (253) 502-8694.

Hearings set on Columbia and Snake

OLYMPIA -- Regional meetings will be held next week to discuss plans to improve the health of the Columbia and Snake Rivers.

Specifically, draft plans to reduce water temperatures and dissolved gas on both the lower Columbia and the upper Columbia and the Snake will be on the agenda. The plan for the lower Columbia is scheduled to be complete by early 2002.

Participating agencies in the hearings are the Idaho and Oregon departments of environmental quality, the Washington Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in consultation with Columbia Basin tribes.

The hearing schedule -- both begin at 6:30 p.m. -- is as follows: Monday, Oct. 29, at the Red Lion Hotel in Lewiston, Idaho, 621 21st St.; and Tuesday, Oct. 30, at the Franklin County PUD auditorium, 1411 West Clark St.

Avista dam relicensing hits rapids

SPOKANE (AP) -- Avista's efforts to relicense five hydroelectric dams on the Spokane River will require compromise among some 90 groups with conflicting opinions on how water should be used.

They include homeowners on Idaho's Lake Coeur d'Alene who want to make sure water levels are high enough to keep their docks in the water, and kayakers downstream on the Spokane River who want higher water flows in the summer.

"The people in Idaho want the lake level to stay up. The people in Washington want the water," said Hugh Imhof, an Avista spokesman. "We're caught in the middle."

The license won't expire until 2007, but Avista officials already are convening work groups with government and tribal agencies, landowners and environmental and community groups in an attempt to head off lawsuits.

The strategy worked well as the company relicensed two dams on the Clark Fork River, which flows through Montana and northern Idaho. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the license with unprecedented speed last year.

The Spokane River could be much trickier to navigate.

On the Clark Fork dams, resolving conflicting issues required that the company spend $220 million over 45 years to enhance fish and wildlife habitat, answer environmental concerns and increase recreational opportunities.

Those two dams generate up to 790 megawatts of electricity, or 60 percent of Avista's energy.

The five dams on the Spokane River were built between 1890 and 1922, and produce a combined 140 megawatts.

Because the dams produce less energy, the company will be limited in how much it can spend and still earn a profit, Imhof said. The issue of summer flows in the Spokane River will be a major topic, because virtually all of the water flows from Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Boaters on the river, where use has exploded in the last decade, said holding back the water for the lake this summer made the river impassable by mid-July.

Cities using the river to discharge wastewater will also be drawn into the flow debate.

The amount of wastewater sent into the river depends on the river's flow, because the wastewater must be diluted to meet environmental standards, said Rachael Paschal Osborn, a Spokane environmental attorney.

PGE light bulb sales top 750,000

PORTLAND (AP) -- More than 750,000 customers have bought energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs using Portland General Electric discount coupons, the company said Sunday.

Those who switched to the special bulbs will save a total of $4 million a year on their combined electric bills, said spokesman Mark Fryburg.

PGE initially thought about 500,000 customers would redeem the coupons. When used for just four hours a day, the light bulbs can save about 57 million kilowatt hours per year -- enough to power a small city for about two months, said Carol Brown, PGE's efficiency services director.

The company has been mailing the coupons to its customers since April as a way to reduce energy consumption.

Drought packs a wallop in Victoria

VICTORIA, British Columbia (AP) -- Hundreds of jobs have been lost and some businesses are barely hanging on after more than six months of the most severe water restrictions ever imposed in the provincial capital.

Particularly hard hit were the pool and hot tub industry, which claims to conserve and recycle water, as well as power washers, landscapers, lawn maintenance firms and irrigation sales and service operations.

The restrictions remain in effect indefinitely, or at least after the Sooke reservoir starts to fill.

At Beachcomber Home Leisure, business has been cut in half, owner Bob Borton said Wednesday.

Borton, who would normally have hired nine full-time summer employees, is down to three family members and not all are getting full-time work.

"The community itself has lost, I would say, between $15 million to $20 million (Canadian) just in our industry alone," he said.

Barry Ross, owner of High Clean Industries for 18 years, said his power-washing business is down 45 percent.

Daniel Rondeau, a University of Victoria resource economist, said most complaints about the restrictions focus on arbitrary provisions.

"You can't do your lawn, but you can do your car," Rondeau said. "You can't clean your driveway, but you can clean your cars."

Ross said the Capital Regional District should conduct an economic impact study of the restrictions and perhaps reconsider some provisions, including bans on power washing and on filling spas and pools.

Vintage Hot Tubs owner Grant Gislason said the pool-filling ban is unreasonable because most hot-tub users only fill up twice a year and the drained water can be used to irrigate bushes and shrubs.

The district let residents water shrubs and bushes from a hose for hours on end, day after day, Gislason complained.

$2 million OK'd for protecting Skagit

MOUNT VERNON (AP) -- Congress has appropriated $2 million to buy and protect land along the Skagit River and its tributaries in northwestern Washington.

Environmentalists say the money will go a long way toward helping salmon and eagles.

The money comes from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, created by fees collected from offshore oil drilling. The amount is the most ever directed from the fund to the Skagit basin; last year, Congress allocated $1 million to the Skagit River.

The U.S. Forest Service will use the money to buy land considered critical to wildlife, especially chinook salmon, or valuable for recreation.

The Forest Service will buy the land from willing sellers, including groups such as the Nature Conservancy and Skagit Land Trust. It aims to buy land with multiple benefits, such as salmon and eagle habitat and nice views. The government prefers to buy relatively undeveloped land, rather than restore destroyed habitat, said Leslie Brown, of the Nature Conservancy.

"What's noteworthy about the Skagit is relatively speaking its still in good shape," Brown told the Skagit Valley Herald.