ELLENSBURG, WA - 9/27/01 — National Marine Fisheries Service officials said they are prepared to make a decision soon on the repair plan for Keechelus Dam.

The decision would come on the heels of a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation environmental report that favored repairing the dam in place. Other options include building a new dam in a new location, drastically reducing the amount of water held in Keechelus Lake or breeching part of the dam permanently.

State and local government officials and irrigators seek greater assistance to push for repairs at Keechelus Dam starting in April 2002.

“We don’t want it to get political,” said Steven Landino, the statewide habitat branch chief for the fisheries service. “It would be easy for each side to take a position in which a stalemate occurs. We don’t want that to happen.”

Nonetheless, a call for more political action came during a legislative tour of Kittitas Valley irrigation sites Tuesday. Irrigators said repair of the earth and rock dam was crucial to allow more water to be held in its reservoir. The reservoir’s maximum fill amount has been reduced since June 1998, when cavities were found inside the top of the 84-year-old dam.

Kittitas County Commissioner Bill Hinkle said immediate repairs are a must for public safety and for retaining water during water-short years. Utilizing the dam’s full capacity also is needed for flood control.

“This looks like the agencies are at an impasse,” Hinkle said. “It won’t change until they get pressure from other agencies and state and local governments. It is very frustrating to us. We are just sitting here at the whim of bureaucrats while the entire basin is at risk.”

He said he is organizing a campaign to have county commissioners in Kittitas, Yakima and Benton counties send a joint resolution to the fisheries service calling for immediate repairs in support of the bureau.

The Kittitas Reclamation District and other irrigation districts rely on the dam and reservoir 10 miles west of Easton for irrigation water. Keechelus Lake, the source of the Yakima River, runs parallel with Interstate 90. The dam’s spillway elevation is 2,516 feet.

Repairs were delayed from a planned 2001-2002 period and are now sought by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for 2002-2003.

The delay was due to concerns raised by federal and state fisheries agencies and tribes. They said environmental studies inadequately reviewed the impact of repair and operation on fish protected by the federal Endangered Species Act.

Talks are ongoing between the Bureau of Reclamation and the National Marine Fisheries Agency. They disagree on the scope of a study reviewing the impact of dam repairs and reservoir operations on steelhead and bull trout. Both species are listed as threatened in the Yakima River Basin under the Endangered Species Act.

The fisheries agency wants more study on the need for fish passage facilities at the dam and on impacts of the reservoir operations on threatened fish.

The bureau contends study should be limited to the impact of the repairs on fish. The dam was not built with fish passage facilities, and the bureau sees safety repairs coming first and fish studies later.

Dave Kaumheimer, the bureau’s manager of environmental programs for Yakima River basin, said the requirements of the Endangered Species Act don’t allow repairs to go forward without approval of the federal fisheries agency.

“We need something back from the agency,” he told irrigators Tuesday. “Without it we’re stuck.”

Fisheries service officials said Wednesday they understand the need to repair the dam at Snoqualmie Pass as soon as possible and are likely to give their decision soon to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the dam.

Landino said regional heads of the fisheries service and bureau met at Sea-Tac airport last Friday and came to a better understanding about each other’s concerns. He said the fisheries agency understands the public safety constraints faced by the bureau at the dam. And the bureau recognizes the validity of the fisheries agency’s concerns with fish passage and habitat, he said.

“We see each others’ side and they are both true,” Landino said.

Although no conclusions were reached on Keechelus Dam, each agency is mulling forming a joint team to consider a long-term study of fish passage facilities at the bureau’s five dams and reservoirs in the Yakima River basin. He said a basinwide fish passage study was recognized as a requirement by both agencies. But it wasn’t clear how the study fits in with a decision on repairs.

“It was made clear to us that the bureau cannot put off repairs to the dam,” Landino said.