Lake Tapps water rights appear to be within reach

Published 12:26 pm Thursday, December 11, 2008

By Dennis Box

The Courier-Herald

The final details of an agreement to re-issue drinking water rights for Lake Tapps to Puget Sound Energy are apparently on the horizon.

Most of the major players - Puget Sound Energy, Cascade Water Alliance and the Department of Ecology - report positive, but cautious movement.

"We will issue a draft of the water right probably in May," said Curt Hart, spokesman for the Department of Ecology. "We are hoping to issue a water right that is defensible and that is not appealed. That is not to say it won't be legally challenged. This is a very big project."

If the water rights are re-issued to PSE, the company has reported it plans to sell them to Cascade Water Alliance, a Bellevue-based water purveyor.

Roger Thompson, spokesman for PSE, said an exclusivity agreement between Cascade and PSE expired at the end of March. The agreement stated PSE would only negotiate with Cascade for the sale of the rights.

"The agreement expired, but from our standpoint it doesn't mean we aren't talking to Cascade," Thompson said. "All it means is if another party wanted to talk to us we could listen. But we are talking to Cascade."

Mike Gagliardo, general manager of Cascade, said it is his understanding the water rights should be re-issued in late May if negotiations continue at the present pace.

"Cascade has always been confident this process would succeed," Gagliardo said. "We're still negotiating and we may have something as early as (this week). Things are moving."

Hart said Ecology is waiting for the final details on a 500-acre, natural habitat set-aside PSE has agreed to provide to the state if the water rights are re-issued.

One of the stipulations to issuance of the water rights is a public benefit. According to Hart, the 500-acre set-aside meets that requirement.

"We are working out now where the set-aside will be," Hart said. "We want to make sure it is in the White River water basin area and we want it to be the most beneficial environmentally as possible."

Thompson noted that PSE has more than 500 acres of land along the flume that runs from the White River diversion dam in Buckley to Lake Tapps.

The other negotiating hot button stems from involvement of the Puyallup and Muckleshoot tribes.

According to Thompson, PSE has been negotiating with the tribes, but details are not available due to a confidentiality arrangement between the parties.

"We are having very serious discussions with the tribes," Thompson said. "We are hopeful these will go well."

The consumptive water rights for Lake Tapps were originally issued to PSE in June 2003.

The Puyallup and Muckleshoot tribes and the cities of Auburn, Pacific, Algona and Buckley, along with a private citizen, Robert Cook, appealed the issuance.

The appeal was upheld by the Pollution Control Hearings Board and remanded back to Ecology in August of 2004. Ecology was to reconsider the decision in light of PSE closing the White River hydroelectric plant.

Buckley dropped out of a possible future appeal of the rights after Ecology allowed a South Prairie Creek water right for the city.

Dennis Box can be reached at dbox@cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/courierherald.