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Methow Valley News February 17, 2000 Endangered Species Planning unit to offer MOA alternative by Lee Hicks The county watershed planning unit will present a draft agreement on endangered fish and water issues that it hopes will replace a document that county, state and federal officials worked on for much of 1999. Dick Ewing of Winthrop, a member of the committee drafting the "planning unit proposal," said a PUP draft would go to the full planning unit meeting at its meeting this week. The timing appeared only coincidental with the planned meeting of NMFS’ officials and Wolf Creek Reclamation District Feb. 17 and 18 at Sun Mountain Lodge. And the News has learned that a Seattle based "auditor" with the inspector general’s office of the U.S. Department of Commerce had scheduled local interviews with irrigators. Several persons contacted said they were told the purpose of the visit would be to assess NMFS’ handling of endangered fish and irrigation issues. NMFS is an agency of the commerce department. Ewing said his committee would present the draft, including attorney Peter Fraley’s comments, to the planning unit meeting set for 6:00 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 16) at Forest Service offices in Twisp. In general the PUP is intended to provide a framework to develop scientific and hydrological data for streamflows and fish, Ewing said. The proposed agreement would include water users within the seven major basin stream reaches into a local watershed planning process to address, "obvious take issues" such as inadequate screens and fish passage barriers. It would also address future water management and development issues in the basin, Ewing said. Acknowledging "philosophical differences" in the approach, Ewing said, "Many of us feel we should be expressing what is most right for the Valley and get that on the table for our starting point," he said. Some county and state agency officials are apparently concerned that time is running out to complete an agreement with NMFS that would permit private irrigation ditches to operate with some predictability this summer. The county water unit would submit the plan to Rep. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, and Gary Chandler, R-Moses Lake. Both Parlette and Chandler have been working to convince NMFS to consider the local planning unit, created under state legislation, as the key to endangered fish recover efforts in the basin. "We primarily want to get support from legislators to work with us on a good program and try to get NMFS to work along with us. If not, we’ll have a good effort on the table and it would be their refusal (to negotiate)," Ewing added. A continuing obstacle, Ewing said, could be NMFS’ "holding to the fact they want a block of water put back in the river and they don’t want to wait for studies." Wolf Creek and Sun Mountain officials were planning to discuss details of a possible "habitat conservation plan" to give the irrigation district some basis to predict ability to operate. The Wolf Creek ditch provides water for Patterson Lake, which is Sun Mountain’s water supply, along with lodge owner Erivan Haub’s ranch on Wolf Creek Road, Moccasin Lake Ranch, the Bud Hover ranch, and the athletic fields of Liberty Bell High School among other users. Besides the Forest Service, state fish and wildlife and DOE officials, also expected to sit in on the Sun Mountain meeting were other irrigators subject to Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act and county water resources director Dennis Beich. NMFS listed steelhead trout and spring-run Chinook as endangered in the basin while US Fish and Wildlife listed bull trout as threatened. After long delays and requests from the spring of 1998 to 1999, NMFS told the Forest Service in May of last year that it should not issue special use permits for several ditches operating on Forest Service land. That action precipitated a long, dry summer for many irrigators and lengthy deliberations by various agency officials that culminated in a final draft MOA presented in November to Valley residents. Provisions requiring irrigators to give up water rights without assurances of being protected against ESA citizen lawsuits aroused intense local opposition. As a result legislators and the county planning unit began working on the PUP draft reflecting greater local control. Opinion | Sports |
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