Since June, key project activities have included:
Public
Meeting on November 14
Please come to a meeting on November 14 to hear scientists from Utah State University
explain the proposed technical studies that will be done in 2002 and 2003. The
meeting will be from 6-8 p.m. at the Civic Building, 322 N. Commercial St, 2nd
Floor Meeting Room, Bellingham.
The meeting will be geared for the Planning Unit and caucuses, but everyone is welcome to attend. If you think there are issues that need to be examined more closely, this is the place to be!
For more information about the meeting, please contact Whatcom County Water Resources at (360) 676-6876.
Have PowerPoint,
Will Travel
If you're part of a community group that would like to learn more about the
WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project, please contact Scarlet Tang at (360) 676-6736
or scarlet@coopext.cahe.wsu.edu to schedule a speaker. Or get together some
neighbors, brew up some coffee, and invite us over.
Refocusing the Water
Rights Review
Since January 2000, the two-person water rights review team has been working
to better understand the status of water rights in WRIA 1. The review of water
rights is now in Stage II, where the team is informing individual water right
holders about the specifics of their water right documents. Water right holders
receive information on how to protect and make changes to their water right
if necessary, transferring their right, or voluntarily relinquishing an unused
right. This is a time-intensive process that is valuable for the individual
but is not improving the data used by the WRIA 1 project. Therefore, the water
rights team has suggested that more of their time be spent examining other components
of the water budget. The team recommends scaling back its one-on-one meetings
with individual water right holders, in order to refine the water use estimates
in watersheds where better data is needed.
The Planning Unit, staff team, and Joint Board will continue to discuss this recommendation through the next few months.
Early
Action Item Wrap-Up
From the earliest days of the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project, there has
been general agreement that it's not necessary to wait for a watershed management
plan to be developed in order to start fixing known problems with water quantity,
water quality, instream flow, and/or fish habitat. This concept has evolved
into what are now being called "Early Action
Items."
If you have an idea for a possible Early Action Item, please contact the appropriate technical team (see the web site, http://wria1project.wsu.edu, for a list and contact information) and they'll walk you through the process.
In January 2001, the Joint Board funded two Early Action Items. For full reports on both items, please see the What's New page on the project web site, http://wria1project.wsu.edu.
Early Action Item:
Tenmile Creek Watershed Volunteer Restoration Project
One Early Action Item is the Tenmile Creek Watershed Volunteer Restoration Project.
The project is a neighbor-to-neighbor, voluntary effort to educate and empower
landowners to improve water quality in the streams and ditches in the Tenmile
Creek watershed, while maintaining their ability to farm and work the land.
The seed money provided by the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project was used
to set up the project and fund it for the first six months, and has led to further
grants from the Centennial Clean Water Fund and other sources.
Early Action Item:
Drayton Harbor Sewer Line Repair Project
The other Early Action Item is the Drayton Harbor Sewer Line Repair Project.
Significant levels of fecal coliform bacteria have been found in Drayton Harbor,
with one suspected source being the City of Blaine's sewer line along Marine
Drive. Funds from the WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project were used to leverage
money from the City of Blaine and other sources. Through this partnership, broken
pipe sections were replaced, pipe joints were repaired, and manholes were patched.
A final report that measures the effect of the project on fecal coliform levels
is in the works.
Update
on Technical Studies
All of the technical teams have turned in their comments on the draft Phase
II deliverables to Utah State University. USU will spend the next couple of
months incorporating the changes, and will have final drafts by the end of the
year. The information from the studies will be used in the Decision Support
System (DSS), a series of computer models that will help predict what might
happen under different water management scenarios.
The Early Data Needs studies that were mentioned in Fresh Sheet #1 are being implemented. A future fresh sheet will summarize their results.
With work on Phase II studies winding down, the road map, or scope of work, for Phase III technical work is being developed. The Planning Unit, the caucuses, and Joint Board staff are now reviewing the draft scope of work. Contact your caucus for more information, or come to the November 14 public meeting (see details on page 1). The Phase III scope of work is expected to be finalized early next year.
Selecting a Consultant
In early October, the Joint Board issued a Request for Proposals to provide
consulting services in developing a Watershed Management Plan, an Environmental
Impact Statement, and a socioeconomic analysis. The project expects to have
a consultant on board early next year.
Summary
Characterization Now Available
A review draft of the Summary Characterization of WRIA 1 is ready. Basically
a snapshot of what we know about water in WRIA 1, this 97-page document describes:
You can visit the Whatcom County Water Resources Division library to look at the Summary Characterization. You can also download a copy from the What's New page of the project web site, http://wria1project.wsu.edu.
Figuring
Out Our Options
As caucuses filled out Decision Support System (DSS) worksheets that described
the water-related problems that they wished to see resolved, they also suggested
possible solutions to these problems. All of these suggestions, plus others
that came up in the Summary Characterization and other sources, have been assembled
in a catalog of management options. Each option is described in terms of where
in the WRIA it might be applied, what its potential benefits are, what data
are needed to determine if it's workable, and so on.
The WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project is working on creating an electronic version of the catalog that everyone in WRIA 1 will be able to view and comment on. The next step is to develop criteria for evaluating the options. Eventually, the preferred options will be included in the Watershed Management Plan.
What's
Ahead
The next major task will be to finalize the Phase III technical scope of work,
which should happen in early 2002.
The WRIA 1 Watershed Management Project brings together citizens, local governments, tribes, and state and federal agencies to develop plans for allocating water, protecting water quality, and ensuring quality fish habitat. The fresh sheet is issued regularly and provides a brief update of project activities. To join the mailing list, contact Scarlet Tang at (360) 676-6736 or e-mail scarlet@coopext.cahe.wsu.edu. You can also download fresh sheets from http://wria1project.wsu.edu.