Ski Hill residences in Leavenworth are served water by Icicle Irrigation District. Inside Leavenworth, the District’s water is growing large and lush lawns, pears not so much.
‘”We have helicopters scheduled to go up to Eight Mile,” [IPID manager Tony] Jantzer said, “We’ll start on Eight Mile, digging that out. We’ll move to Colchuck on Wednesday. I hope to get more water out of those lakes . . .”
All the work will be done the old-fashioned way with picks and shovels. At Eight Mile Lake Jantzer said they should be able to clear out four or five feet, which should produce another 160 acre feet of water.
The outlet at Colchuck Lake is down three feet. Once that is dug out, it should produce another 100 acre feet of water . . .’
Ian Dunn, Leavenworth Echo, “Icicle/Peshastin Irrigation Districts struggling to provide enough water” (Sept. 2, 2015).
When the Alpine Lakes Wilderness was designated in 1976, the Icicle and Peshastin Irrigation Districts (IPID) held pre-existing rights to divert water from several of the Enchantment Lakes – and those water rights were grandfathered in. This month, however, the Irrigation Districts are taking the unprecedented step of helicoptering into the Wilderness to lower the outlets to at least two of the lakes – Eightmile and Colchuck — and take more water.
More Leavenworth lawn irrigated compliments of the Icicle Irrigation District diversions from the Enchantment Lakes. A remnant pear orchard appears in the background.
This project offers multiple ironies. The largest irony is that, although the Districts do serve water to Wenatchee Valley pear growers, many orchards have been converted into residential neighborhoods as the Cities of Leavenworth and Cashmere have expanded their urban boundaries. IPID is diverting water out of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness to irrigate not just pears, but also very large expanses of lawn.
The IPID manager acknowledged this in a Sept. 2, 2015 interview with the Leavenworth Echo, where he lamented the difficulty of getting district customers to conserve water. According to the article, there are:
“1,143 users in the Icicle Irrigation District, the bulk of which is residential. Over the course of the long, hot summer Jantzer said the Icicle users have been using record[] amounts of water.”
Adding to the incongruities, IPID’s dismantling and de-watering of the Enchantment Lakes is up for funding by the Washington Department of Ecology’s drought-relief funding program. Ecology originally granted IPID $41,000 to install pumps into Eightmile Lake, but according to a Sept. 3 Capital Press article, the District was unable to rent helicopters of the size needed to implement that project. Ecology’s website now indicates it is considering granting $12,500 to IPID for the “pick and shovel” alternative. Thus, the public will likely be paying IPID to inflict its destruction on the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
Normally an application to take more water out of a lake would require public comment and review, and strict statutory standards to prevent harm to the environment and other water users. But Ecology’s drought relief funding rule exempts applications from public review and requires expedited decisions – within 15 days. Questions regarding IPID’s relinquishment of water rights that it has not used for “80 to 100 years” remain unanswered.
Also missing in action is the U.S. Forest Service, which is tasked with managing and protecting the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Do IPID’s easements and special use permits really allow it to tamper with these lakes?
There’s a back story too. Icicle-Peshastin Irrigation District has been eyeing methods for increased access to Alpine Lakes water for some time. As described in Naiads’ February 2015 four-part series, “New Dams and Diversions for the Alpine Lakes,” IPID, Ecology, and several other public agencies formed the Icicle Work Group in order to “bargain” for more water out of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
IPID’s canal transports water from Icicle Creek to its customers. Several miles of the canal are only partially lined, and leak enough water to support a robust but artificial riparian zone.
The Center for Environmental Law & Policy resigned from the Icicle Work Group in July 2015 because of onerous new rules converting the IWG from consensus to majority rule. The new rules require IWG members to support the decisions of the majority and prohibit public dissent. (Full disclosure: CELP was represented by the author of this post.)
Before resigning, CELP circulated a Water Conservation Potential Report, describing IPID’s inefficient operations and proposing alternative methods to “solve” upper Wenatchee Valley water supply problems. Chief among these is reduction of lawn irrigation in the Ski Hill residential zone. Another solution is to line IPID’s leaky canal, which as shown in the photo at right, is supporting a substantial amount of phreatophyte vegetation.
Rather than take the “soft path” of water conservation, however, IPID has chosen the hard path of pick-axe and shovel. Apparently, during drought, no water resource is safe – even waters in federally protected wilderness.
Naiads 