July 9, 2002

Environmental Watch: Snoqualmie flood control pricetag: $3.8M

SEATTLE -- King County Executive Ron Sims is backing a major construction project on the Snoqualmie River to reduce flooding.

The project would involve excavation of the riverbank above Snoqualmie Falls to eliminate a bottleneck that frequently floods the city of Snoqualmie. The cost of the project is estimated at $3.83 million. Of the total, King County would contribute $894,000, the city of Snoqualmie $717,000 and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers $2.22 million.

The corps estimates the project would prevent an estimated $837,000 in flood damage annually. Snoqualmie has the highest claim rate of any city in the state under the National Flood Insurance Program, Mayor Fuzzy Fletcher said.

Among the flood-prone structures in the city are three public schools, eight churches, 39 commercial buildings, 25 mobile homes and 577 houses. The project would also include a downstream mitigation plan.

If all goes as planned, construction will start in 2003. For more information on the project, contact Tom Bean, River Section senior engineer at (206) 296-8377.

Decision due on Kitsap conservation area

OLYMPIA -- The Washington Department of Natural Resources will hold a hearing next week on the proposed boundaries for the Stavis Natural Resources Conservation Area on the Kitsap Peninsula near Seabeck.

The proposed area encompasses 2,800 acres of public and private land surrounding the Kitsap Forest Natural Area Preserve. Features within the area include Stavis Bay, a 130-year-old forest and West Fork Stavis Creek and associated wetlands. Stavis Creek provides spawning habitat for salmon and other anadromous fish.

Natural Resource Conservation Areas are lands designated by the state for protection because of their ecologic, geologic and cultural resources. Low-impact public use is also provided for. Private lands can only be acquired for the conservation areas at fair market value. If boundaries for the Stavis area are set as proposed, the Department of Natural Resources will apply for grants to purchase private land within the boundaries.

The boundary hearing will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, July 17, at Seabeck Elementary School, 15565 Seabeck Highway, in Seabeck.

Meeting on Puget Sound health

OLYMPIA -- The Puget Sound Council, the advisory body for the Puget Sound Water Quality Action Team, will meet in Federal Way next week to discuss its next work plan for Puget Sound health.

The work will include efforts to increase water quality and prevent habitat loss and the decline of species like salmon, orcas, marine birds and rock fish.

The council -- made up of representatives from businesses, environmental groups, tribes, and state and local government -- will help develop a combination two-year work plan and budget document for consideration by the legislature in 2003.

Public comment is invited at next week's hearing, to be held Tuesday, July 16, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Dumas Bay Center, 3200 S.W. Dash Point Road in Federal Way.

9 arrested at pipeline construction site

TUMWATER (AP) -- Nine environmental activists were arrested Monday while protesting construction of a natural gas pipeline in Tumwater.

Three of the protesters had chained themselves to a large hydraulic drilling machine that Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams Cos. plans to use to tunnel under the Black River, Thurston County sheriff's Capt. Dave Pearsall said.

Those three protesters were arrested for investigation of second-degree trespassing and obstructing justice. Six others who were not chained to equipment were arrested only for trespassing.

"There was no violence at all," Pearsall said. "They were cooperative when taken into custody."

About 40 protesters, most of them members of the loosely knit Cascadia Defense Network, assembled near the equipment early Monday before pipeline workers arrived, according to Matt Power, an activist from New York who came to support locals who oppose the pipeline project.

Area homeowners, farmers and environmentalists have opposed the 49-mile pipeline, saying they're concerned it might damage the Black River, its salmon and other species.

The property owner, a local gravel mining operator, called police soon after the protesters arrived.

Construction of the $82 million pipeline began in late June after Williams obtained the necessary permits.

The pipeline between Rainier and Satsop is scheduled to be completed in September. It will deliver natural gas to a 650-megawatt power plant being built by Duke Energy.

Tough luck for tribal chinook fishing

PORTLAND (AP) -- Tribal fishermen on the Columbia River were reeling in customers over the weekend -- but the fish were harder to come by.

Last week marked the first time in 37 years regulators allowed the tribes to sell summer chinook to the public, because of the strong salmon runs on the river this year.

But tribal fishermen must net or hook the fish from shore, and are prohibited from using the tangle nets preferred by commercial fishermen lower down the river in Astoria.

Not many fish were biting.

Molly and Brian Renauer drove to Cascade Locks on Saturday morning expecting to buy themselves a fresh summer chinook salmon.

But on Saturday morning, Wilson LaRoque, 49, a lifelong fisherman from the Yakama tribe, didn't have any chinook to sell from his impromptu fish stand under The Bridge of the Gods.

At the nearby Marine Park, Nathan Dick, 44, a fisherman from the Umatilla tribe, had yet to net a chinook.

The Renauers headed home to Portland with sockeye, a red salmon.

The big chinook are tough to catch from shore, tribal fishermen said.

"They run deep," said Sutterlict, as he filleted a steelhead for Steve Orgel and Shirley Jenne, a couple who had come from Portland hoping to buy chinook. "We're not able to get them off the platforms."

BC Hydro likely to spill water from reservoirs

FORT ST. JOHN, British Columbia (AP) -- Sell it or spill it. Those are the choices British Columbia Hydro is facing at two large hydroelectric generating complexes.

Water levels have nearly reached the top of reservoirs at the W.A.C. Bennett and Peace Canyon dams, forcing the provincial utility to either increase electricity production or open the spillways to release water.

Wholesale electricity rates and demand are not high enough to justify increased power production, spokesman David Conway said Wednesday.

"It looks like we will have to spill," Conway said.

"If you produce it you have to use it," he said. "You can't store it."

The spillway was last opened in 1996 as an emergency measure when a sinkhole was found in the dam.