Washington State Department of Ecology

Department of Ecology News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Nov. 16, 1999

99-237

Contacts: Sandy Howard, public information manager, 360-407-6239; pager, 360-786-3136

Historic water-right agreement earns Environmental Excellence Award

OLYMPIA - The Sequim-Dungeness Water Users Association and the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe will be honored today with the state's highest environmental award for their cooperative planning to preserve water flows in the Dungeness River.

The prestigious award will be presented by state Department of Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons during a luncheon with the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce. The event - to be held at the Vern Burton Community Center, located at 321 East 5th -- is part of Gov. Gary Locke's "capital for a day" activities in Port Angeles.

"We applaud the irrigators for their leadership and foresight, and we appreciate the tribes' willingness to be partners in this effort," Fitzsimmons said. "By agreeing to govern their water use, the growers are helping to avoid endangered-species listings here, and they have set a marvelous example for others in our state."

Under the historic agreement between the water-users association and the Department of Ecology, less water is withdrawn from the Dungeness River for irrigation, thereby benefiting the many salmon species that live in the river. On the Olympic Peninsula, Chinook, Hood Canal summer chum and Lake Ozette sockeye, were listed as threatened in March. The bull trout was listed last month.

The trust water-right agreement reserves water for future use at one-third to irrigators and two-thirds to stream flows. It also establishes procedures for transferring water to and from the trust.

"The tribe was pleased to assist the Sequim-Dungeness Water Users in their efforts to conserve water. The water-trust agreement helps ensure that the informal agreement to share water, reached through years of planning, will be preserved," said Ann Seiter, natural-resources director for the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe. "We will continue to strive for salmon recovery in the Dungeness River."

"The right to any natural resource should never be considered to be so great as to keep others from reasonably meeting their needs. The water users entered the agreement to help assure the future of agriculture here while giving some hope of meeting minimum in-stream flows for fisheries in the Dungeness River," said Roger Schmidt, former president of the Sequim-Dungeness Water Users Association, who helped negotiate the agreement. "Continued success here will pivot on the community embracing these issues together."