Go with the flow
Suppressing information is the opposite of transparency
Many shareholders of Sequim's oldest irrigation company, Sequim Prairie Tri-Irrigation Association [SPTIA], had not yet received their annual assessments as of the monthly Board of Directors' Meeting on April 4th. The 2023 board refuses to hand over financial documents and shareholder contact information to the 2024 board even though they both share the same Secretary/Treasurer.
The disagreement can be traced back to the Clallam Conservation District (CCD) — a nonregulatory division of state government created to help landowners conserve natural resources. The CCD has drawn criticism from several SPTIA shareholders for the installation of pressurized irrigation pipelines through private property without legal authority, permission, and oftentimes without any notification to property owners.
When an open ditch was slated to be piped through backyards and private properties in the western part of Sequim, SPTIA shareholders organized and filled open positions on their board. The newly created 2024 board elected a new president and asked the CCD for a piping pause until questions about pipeline repairs, ongoing maintenance, and replacement of aging pipes could be addressed-- without proper easements, there is no clear answer.
Recent email documents reveal that the CCD, a government agency that is a piping proponent, may be censoring the 2024 SPTIA board inappropriately and illegally.
The SPTIA president submitted a public comment to CCD's manager and requested that it be attached to the minutes and included in the public record. However, the CCD manager refused to accommodate the public comment request of Sequim's oldest irrigation association's president.
Regular attendees to the commissioner meetings on Tuesdays know that documents associated with public comments are given to the Clerk of the Board, scanned, attached to that agenda, and uploaded for public viewing. Much of CC Watchdog's research relies on these agenda documents submitted by county residents. Multiple county agencies follow this same, transparent, process. The CCD not only disallows written public comment, but the availability of agendas is confusing and restricted.
The censored public comment has to do with water from the Dungeness River being diverted to irrigation ditches and pipelines during drier months. The amount of diverted water depends on the river's flow rates — wet seasons have high flow, and dry months have lower flow. The measurement of water flow is important to irrigation shareholders because they have agreed to limit withdrawals to no more than one-half of the river’s summer flow and always protect a minimum flow of 60 cubic feet per second (cfs).
The CCD and Clallam County have promoted piping projects and supported the construction of a massive reservoir as part of its "climate resiliency" plan. The CCD fears that due to diminishing snowpack, the river will not have enough water for salmon, and irrigators will be restricted or entirely cut off from withdrawing water. Agriculture would have to adapt, tree canopies would continue to decline, and more wells would fail.
The SPTIA President sourced data from Washington's Department of Ecology that showed the Dungeness River's flow drops below 100 cfs commonly in August, September, and October.
In 2023, the flow of the river dropped earlier; it dipped below 100 cfs in July instead of August. The flow of the Dungeness River is measured by station 18A050 which is located near the East Anderson Road bridge. What engineered project was completed in 2022 that drastically changed where and how the river's water was flowing in 2023?
In 2022, just upriver from the flow measurement station, the Lower Dungeness River Floodplain Restoration Project was completed (except for the surfacing of Towne Road). The project diverted a significant amount of water from the main river and braided it into man-made channels that crisscrossed over 112 acres of new floodplain. This decades-long, multimillion-dollar project was a collaboration between several agencies including the Jamestown Tribe and Clallam County.
Station 18A050 is downstream from the floodplain restoration project and as a result, it measures lower flows due to the extensive diversion over the new floodplain. In other words, the Dungeness River has been diverted and allowed to seep into and evaporate over a vast manufactured floodplain before its flow is measured.
That reduced flow measurement is the basis for irrigation withdrawal allowances. Flow measurements also dictate how much water will be diverted into the planned Dungeness River Off-Channel Reservoir. Supporters of the reservoir, including the CCD and Jamestown Tribe, say that reservoir water is intended to charge our wells and sustain the farmers who grow our food.
Rather than addressing irrigation shareholder concerns, the Clallam Conservation District is censoring and ignoring public comments about water, how it is being measured, and how it is being controlled.
Suppressing information is the opposite of transparency.
Below is the public comment from SPTIA’s president.
I have been temporarily banned from NextDoor but anyone has permission to post this article on that site :)
'Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...here we are, stuck in the middle of goo!'
I'm so glad I'm not my body! Truth, Justice and Liberty!