Ecology Asks For Comments but Are They Listening?

Comments due November 11, 2007

Dewatering Buckhorn Mountain for the proposed mine would have the following impacts:

In order to mine, people and fish and wildlife would be deprived of clean water.
In some creeks clean water would be replaced with treated water that is supposed to meet minimum standards.
In other creeks no replacement is planned.
Mine shafts would change the way water flows from Buckhorn Mountain affecting people dependent on that water.
It would take 15-40 years to refill the aquifer inside Buckhorn Mountain. During that time the creeks, springs and seeps critical for healthy fish and wildlife would be deprived of water.

Send Comments to:
Mark Schuppe Department of Ecology
15 West Yakima Ave Suite 200
Yakima, WA 98902
msch461@ecy.wa.gov
The draft Record of Examination for the water right can be seen at:
https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/wrx/wrx/roe/wrroe_draft.aspx?region_cd=CRO

Dewatering Buckhorn Mine
When considering a water rights application, Ecology must determine that the following requirements (RCW 90.03.290) are met:
1. The proposed use of water will be a beneficial one.
2. There is water available for appropriation.
3. There will be no impairment of existing rights.
4. The requested water right will not be detrimental to the public interest.

Water Not put to Beneficial Use
While mining is generally considered a beneficial use of water, most of the water Kinross would pump out of Buckhorn Mountain is simply to get it out of the way. They claim that some of that water is to mitigate the impacts of dewatering which would be beneficial but that arguement cannot be used for the water from the west side (Bolster Creek) that would be dumped down the east side.
Since 1984, Ecology has had a policy that construction sites can be dewatered without a water right if it does not impact other people's rights, which is not the case here and besides, there must be limits to this policy. Further, the water that is being withdrawn and discharged will be degraded in quality.

Lack of Water Available for Appropriation
The cumulative impacts of this application along with current and prospective future demands must be considered. To put these applications in perspective, almost every other water right in the two basins has been rejected due to lack of available water. It has been recognized for half a century that both basins have been over-appropriated to the detriment of fish, wildlife and aquatic resources. The Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) or its predecessor has recommended denial of new water rights as far back as 1950. There is no more water available.

Existing Water Rights Would be Impaired
There is no dispute that granting the proposed water right to Kinross would result in an impairment of existing rights. OHA members live in the area and use water that would be taken away by the proposed mine. OHA members use and enjoy fish and wildlife in the area whose health and well being rely on spring, seeps, wetlands, streams and that would be depleted if the water were appropriated to the applicant. The only way to resolve this impairment would be mitigation. The proposed mitigation is insufficient and would not prevent impairment of existing rights.

Not in the Public Interest
Wasting water in overappropriated basins that would harm senior water user would not be in the public interest The public has a paramount interest in healthy aquatic resources and the life that is derived from those resources. The speculative and perpetual nature of the proposed changes to the hydrologic system resulting from the preferential pathways created by the proposed mine does not fit the requirement that new rights not be detrimental to the public interest.