Stockholm syndrome
Leaked Tribe document: "This data should not be shared"
The recent meeting presented by Seabrook regarding a new Sequim housing development covered much of the same information provided previously and attracted few attendees.
However, hearing from City of Sequim Public Works Director Paul Bucich was the highlight for many who worry that our arid region cannot provide enough water for the proposed 600-home neighborhood. Bucich soothed concerns and confirmed that a study shared by Seabrook was accurate: Sequim can sustain decades of growth and thousands more people.
“One of our water supplies is a deep infiltration system that’s adjacent to the river, but it doesn’t draw from the river,” explained Director Bucich. Initially, that statement seemed to conflict with the Dungeness Water Rule, adopted by the Department of Ecology in 2013, which determined that wells drawing from underground aquifers do affect river levels.
Bucich clarified that the City of Sequim does not draw from the upper aquifer, which is infiltrated and charged by unpiped irrigation ditches and the Dungeness River. “We draw from the second, third, and fourth aquifers — primarily the third and fourth, so they are deeper,” explained Bucich.
The City recently drilled a well near Dr. Standard Park off West Silberhorn Road. The new well, which is 500 feet deep and delivers an impressive 800 gallons per minute, is part of a well field with two other shallower wells in the same area. Once the new well is complete, Bucich said the City will determine its impacts on the upper aquifers “because every aquifer leaks from one to the other. That’s a known fact. We have to mitigate for that.”
Bucich explained a problem with the ditches that farmers engineered 130 years ago. “That water leaks through the bottom of the ditches. So that means that that water is recharging, or charging, the upper aquifer. People got used to that. They sank their wells down 75 to 125 feet.”
The Public Works Director explained that overdrawing shallow wells doesn’t affect the City. “That’s not related to our water supply; we don’t rely on that. We have deeper wells,” said Bucich, who explained that the City has another well field near Port Williams. “We also have plans, for the future, for putting another deep well in that area, another 500 to 800 feet deep, that will produce a lot of water, too.”
That’s why the information on water availability published by the City of Sequim is correct — there’s plenty of water, but it’s further below the surface than the average homeowner can access.
Bucich talked about the need for reservoirs to store water. “We are working with the folks on the — I’m not even sure if I want to mention that one — the very large reservoir the County’s proposing to put in,” said Bucich regarding the controversial Dungeness off-channel reservoir, which has been designed to charge no aquifers.
Bucich described the aquifers as being separated by layers that don’t allow water to easily flow through. This contradicted the previous statement that upper aquifers leak to lower aquifers and must be mitigated, but Bucich said the impacts of leakage are being studied right now.
In other words, the City isn’t worried about water supply because it draws from the deepest aquifer, which, besides having good flow, is fed by upper aquifers that residents depend on. Irrigation ditches charge wells in the upper aquifer, which validates why homeowners question whether their wells will go dry once the ditches are piped. This is consistent with the Clallam Conservation District’s information, which confirms that wells may go dry due to the piping project.
Despite information from the County stating that the new reservoir will charge aquifers, County leaders now admit that benefit is no longer being considered. With the Dungeness Water Rule in effect, permitting wells can be difficult and expensive. Drilling a new well can cost an estimated $25 to $65 per foot. Sequim residents may be forced to spend tens of thousands to dig new wells or deepen existing ones.
Public bypassed again
A sovereign nation has partnered with a nongovernmental organization to draft public policy, with instructions forbidding the sharing of information with the public.
“This data should not be shared with other parties or agencies without direct permission from the Point No Point Treaty Council,” reads the two-page document, which discusses streamflow projections and reservoir construction. “These data are available for use by the Washington Water Trust with regards to the proposed 2023 Dungeness River off-channel reservoir modeling effort in conjunction with the WEAP model…” [WEAP, short for “Water Evaluation and Planning,” is a software tool for integrated water resources planning.]
The 2023 document is fairly technical. What’s interesting are the phrases used in preparation for embarking on a $40 million project that will affect tens of thousands of Clallam County residents.
“Some assumptions were made… assumed the stream morphology did not change… does not contain true groundwater component… may not have been simulated appropriately… calculations in the water balance for watersheds with larger non-riverine waterbodies may contain errors… not set up to account for engineered waterways or human-induced changes… Streamflow projections are not intended to make predictions… predicting exact weather at a specific future date, especially decades into the future, is not possible at this time… leads to significant variability… potential uncertainties are introduced with climate forecasts… undoubtedly introduces assumptions that do not hold true… are not necessarily consistent… many assumptions are made in an effort to estimate future global climate trends… there remain uncertainties… uncertainty still exists… how ecosystems might respond…”
This document showcases the Treaty Council’s ability to craft data to drive desired results. While the study is based on permanent geographical features that have been stable for decades, it omits that over the past two years, the Jamestown Tribe has rebuilt the river and diverted its flow into a 112-acre engineered floodplain upriver from equipment that measures flow. Normally, this would invalidate a study.
“There is no reservoir or lake component to the model, so calculations in the water balance for watersheds with non-riverine waterbodies may contain errors,” the study says. Also, the model “was not set up to account for engineered waterways or human-induced changes to the water balance (e.g., diversions, drawdowns from wells, etc.)” In other words, a study promoting the benefits of a $40 million reservoir project involving engineered waterways (piped ditches) that may see wells go dry does not factor in a reservoir, engineered waterway diversions, or wells.
Additionally, the software used to manipulate climate change studies is purely hypothetical, which the study admits — “predicting exact weather at a specific future date, especially decades into the future, is not possible at this time.”
Could the purpose of the “should not be shared” document be to conceal accurate information, allowing a study to be crafted with selective data that furthers the Tribe's agenda to control water resources? Once the reservoir is built and the water is diverted, the Tribe could file an adjudication with Washington State and seize control of every drop of water above and below the surface in the Dungeness watershed, including the reservoir.
The secret document instructs a Seattle-based NGO, the Washington Water Trust (WWT), to use this data regarding the new reservoir. The WWT is supported by the Department of Ecology, several other NGOs, and five tribes, including the Jamestown Tribe.
Although the nonprofit collaborates with a sovereign nation to hide information that affects the public, you, the Clallam County Taxpayer, also support the Washington Water Trust:
WWT manages the Dungeness Water Exchange, a component of the Dungeness Water Rule. In 2013, the Water Rule determined that wells drawing from underground aquifers lower the entire Sequim Prairie water table. The theory proposed that groundwater reduction depletes flows in the Dungeness River, thus disrupting salmon habitat and infringing upon the treaty rights of the Jamestown Tribe, which played a significant role in creating the policy.
The Dungeness Water Exchange restricts private property owners' water use and dictates the number and types of animals they can keep. It also requires residents to purchase expensive permits before drilling a well.
However, tribal properties (like the approximate 200-acre golf course, which is kept verdantly green with irrigation, even during the driest months) are exempt from water restrictions. This is because tribal lands are not part of Clallam County or even Washington State; they are the lands of a sovereign nation (of which 217 members live locally) and are not bound by the same rules and regulations as the other 78,000 Clallam County, Washington State, and US Citizens living here.
An international partnership
Seattle-based Washington Water Trust isn’t limited to just local or statewide influence. According to an article from Newswires this week, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) is working with WWT to build a water allocation model. SEI is also the proprietor of WEAP, the water resource planning tool that the Point No Point Treaty Council mentioned in its document regarding streamflow projections.
Why is a nongovernmental organization based in Sweden participating in secret water studies of the Dungeness River?
SEI is a partner of ICLEI, the radical German-based NGO that believes populations must be divided into “colonizers” and “colonized” and that reparations are owed to colonized communities. The North Olympic Development Council (NODC), an NGO headed by its president Clallam County Commissioner Mark Ozias, is also a member of ICLEI and has been involved and supportive of the off-channel reservoir for years. The NODC funded Sequim’s ICLEI membership, and Cascadia Consultant Group, an ICLEI member, is currently drafting Clallam County’s comprehensive plan update.
When combined with the Jamestown Tribe (also an ICLEI member), five reservoir partners are influenced by a German NGO whose mission is to "build and serve a worldwide movement of local governments” through “institutional reorganization.”
Over a year ago, in a letter to Clallam County requesting that Towne Road remain closed, the Jamestown Tribe thanked the commissioners for requesting “global input” to determine the road’s future use. Why are a sovereign nation, nongovernmental organizations, and European countries influencing Clallam County projects and circumventing public processes while hiding information?
Wild exaggerations
Last month, the Washington Water Trust’s project manager wrote to Clallam County and other reservoir project leaders. “Thank you for attending the presentation of the WEAP model results at the Work Group Meeting this Monday.”
The secret study using Swedish software commissioned by the Treaty Council and fed to the WWT was presented to the city, county, irrigation districts, Department of Ecology, and Clallam Conservation District leaders.
County Public Works Deputy Director Steve Gray questioned a fivefold increase in water flow benefits that will not be realized.
Despite Gray’s straightforward question, The WWT project manager replied, “Thanks for your questions. Are you available to meet with me…? We can discuss in more detail the answers to some of your questions…”
Interestingly, when justifying the construction of a $40 million reservoir, the Treaty Council “used the worst case scenarios climate projections.”
Sometimes, the Jamestown Tribe’s hypothetical data can be inaccurate when a goal is in sight. For instance, last January, when the Tribe wrote another letter to the County pushing for Towne Road to be converted into a pedestrian trail, they drew this comparison: “For context regarding potential use, the Tribe recorded nearly 1,000 daily pedestrian users at Railroad Bridge Park in 2023 (annual count of 333,915).”
Anyone driving Towne Road on a sunny weekend knows that estimates of “1,000 daily pedestrian users” are wild exaggerations. However, that hypothetical data supported the Tribe’s objective and was utilized to influence public policy.
“Meaningful participation”
A website called “River Road Reservoir” is already dedicated to concerns about the project. It’s rich in documents and extensively addresses the fault lines beneath the proposed site. Under the “comments” section, a geology professor shared his thoughts.
Another comment reads, “We are disappointed that the neighbors were not identified as stakeholders in the planning stages of this project. We are the ones living downstream. And the ones impacted if something goes wrong.” The commenter calls for the project team “to meaningfully engage the neighbors as stakeholders.” This aligns with Jamestown Tribe’s Natural Resources Director, Hansi Hals, who wrote, “As you know, Jamestown Tribe advocates for community engagement and stakeholders to have meaningful participation.”
Hals and the Tribe have not answered recent questions about the reservoir. In August, Hals wrote to CC Watchdog, "Current work is our highest priority, and we’ll be unable to respond further.”
The minutes of the Dungeness Reservoir Work Group meetings show that the Tribe, City of Sequim, Clallam County, irrigators, agencies, and even the Stockholm Environment Institute are represented, but reservoir neighbors do not attend.
What’s certain?
Will the reservoir and irrigation ditch piping projects lead to wells drying in the area? That’s being studied and is uncertain.
As the City of Sequim draws from the third and fourth aquifers, will the upper and second aquifers drain to replenish those below it? That’s uncertain.
Seven project leaders were asked, “Who will own the water in the reservoir?” They gave seven different answers indicating that water ownership is uncertain.
The Clallam Conservation District states, “Piping of the irrigation ditches greatly reduces water loss from evaporation and from ditches leaking water into the ground, helping to conserve precious water.” If evaporation from tree-shaded irrigation ditches is problematic, an 88-acre reservoir has a surface area of 3,832,800 exposed square feet. If an irrigation ditch is 3 feet wide, this would be the equivalent of 1,277,600 feet of irrigation ditch, which is almost 242 miles of ditch. Is evaporation a concern with the new reservoir? That is uncertain.
The County purchased the reservoir property before last month’s meeting. This was before project partners consulted with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which has high-voltage powerlines crossing over the proposed reservoir. Will BPA object to a lake being constructed under power lines they must access? That is also uncertain.
The only thing that seems certain is this project depends on receiving $30 million in grant funding from FEMA. The agency is soliciting comments from the public through November 20th (three days from now). Email comments to:
fema-r10-ehp-comments@fema.dhs.gov.
I hold empathy the atrocities committed against Aboriginal people. However, the relationship between the U.S.A and the sovereign nations within U.S.A. borders bears review. Specific land area entitlements and independent rule are just reasonable and, fair. However, reaping the benefits of sovereignty when most advantageous and U.S.A. citizenship when most advantageous is not just. The projected end game of using capital acquired from U.S.A. business enterprises to purchase more land to be taken off U.S.A. tax roles would ultimately result in the sovereign nations owning the entire country. That is not consistent with fairness or equity. Neither is ancestral or sovereign rights to harvest wildlife using non-ancestral technology. To further complicate this unique relationship is blood line purity. Are there specific DNA data points that would make one person aboriginal and another not ? Mixed marriages are both common and inevitable. The Aboriginal people abused, as well as their abusers, are no longer alive. When a sovereign nation person takes fish and game it is called subsistence. When a U.S.A. citizen takes fish and game it is called sport. The lack of equity here is glaring. It is not my position that Aboriginal peoples not be allowed to use the transportation, health, sanitation and technology created by non-Aboriginals. It is my position that each of us pay our share of the cost, regardless of ancestry.
Very inciteful article Jeff! It comes down to power and control. Right now the courts have been siding in the favor of water rights being included in treaties in other areas of the state. Everyone wants a piece of the pie but eventually the slices will run out and the courts will likely decide in a different direction. Agree with Eric, we are all Americans. Most areas of the world have tossed out birth right ownership as it is inherenty wrong however in many parts of our country our American Indians still suffer excessive hardships....not so much in Washington State. Looking forward to ending all this corruption in our system some day. Hopefully our newly created D.O.G.E. will start fixing this mess in the upcoming year.