The Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) issued a Report of Examination (ROE) approving the use of Lake Tapps as a municipal water supply on September 15, 2010. Final water right permits were issued December 10, 2010.  For more information, visit Ecology's Lake Tapps Public Water Supply Project website.

The Washington State Department of Ecology's Report of Examination is available for viewing >

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Letter from the Lake Tapps Community Council

9/21/2010
Chuck Clarke, CEO
Cascade Water Alliance

Chuck,

The Lake Tapps Community Council has reviewed the Record of Examination with regard to the Lake Tapps Water Rights. We are extremely pleased that CWA has fully honored and incorporated the laboriously negotiated CWA/Community Agreements into the Water Right. We also appreciate the friendly 'New Neighbor' philosophy shown recently in addressing topics of mutual interest such as the milfoil challenges. Chuck, you and your team have been clearly instrumental in achieving this outcome. We appreciate all that you and your staff have done.

We commend you for your 'Out of the Box Thinking' and willingness to go beyond the previous norms. This is clearly shown by your ability to stop the lake loss at the powerhouse [a feat accomplished by Joe that was previously thought to be impossible], your vastly improved control over inflows, and your timely refill this spring following historically low winter river flows.

We also wish to extend our congratulations and thanks to the full CWA board and especially Lloyd for his personal efforts and willingness to work toward a mutually satisfactory outcome.

The sign of a good agreement between parties with vastly differing objectives is that no one gets TOTALLY everything they asked for. Despite our pleasure with the ROE we remain concerned that the failure to provide a mechanism for dealing with unforeseen long term low river flows could cause a future Emergency with no meaningful plan or mechanism to deal with it.

With that said, the community looks forward to a warm long term and mutually beneficial relationship as we move forward into the future.

Sincerely,
Lake Tapps Community Council
Dr. Leon Stucki, VP, Lake Tapps Community Council

Download a PDF of the letter >

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Lake Tapps Water Rights and Supply Project Final Environmental Impact Statement and Water Rights

On June 16, 2010, Cascade Water Alliance (Cascade) issued the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) prepared for the Lake Tapps Reservoir Water Rights and Supply Project (Project) in compliance with the Washington State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) under Chapter 43.21C RCW. Cascade is the project proponent and lead agency. The Final EIS consists of a Fact Sheet, comments received and Cascade's responses to the comments and portions of the Draft EIS revised in response to comments received.

The EIS was prepared in support of Proposed Action, which was for Cascade's Board of Directors to approve Cascade's operation of the Project and to request approval by Ecology of the four municipal water rights Applications. The three basic elements of the Project operation are as follows:

• Cascade would divert water from the White River into Lake Tapps Reservoir, store water in, and withdraw water from the reservoir for municipal water supply purposes;
• Cascade would operate the Project in a manner to provide enhanced flows in the White River (Recommended Flows) consistent with the 2008 White River Management Agreement with the Puyallup Tribe of Indians and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe; and
• Cascade would operate the Project to store water and maintain the levels of Lake Tapps Reservoir to support recreation consistent with agreements between Cascade and the Lake Tapps Community.

Ecology's approval of Cascade’s Applications permit the following:

• Cascade may divert water from the White River into Lake Tapps Reservoir at an average annual rate of up to 75 cubic feet per second (cfs) (54,300 acre-feet per year) for municipal, industrial, and commercial water supply purposes;
• Cascade may divert water from the White River at a maximum instantaneous rate of up to 1,000 cfs (this maximum rate would vary by season and would be lower at other times of the year);
• Cascade may store up to 46,700 acre-feet of water in Lake Tapps Reservoir for municipal, industrial, and commercial water supply purposes;
• Cascade may withdraw water from Lake Tapps Reservoir at an average annual rate of up to 75 cfs (54,300 acre-feet per year) for municipal, industrial, and commercial water supply purposes. Cascade may withdraw water from Lake Tapps Reservoir at a maximum instantaneous rate of 135 cfs; and
• Cascade may divert water from the White River, store water in Lake Tapps Reservoir, and release water through the tailrace canal back to the White River in support of the following purposes: hydropower and other beneficial uses including recreational reservoir levels; winter reservoir levels; fish and wildlife habitat protection and enhancement; and maintenance of water quality for recreational purposes in the reservoir and to meet other regulatory requirements. For example, these other beneficial uses include operation of the sedimentation basins, operation of the fish screens and fish bypass pipeline, Spring Refill of Lake Tapps Reservoir, and maintaining water surface elevations in Lake Tapps Reservoir for recreation purposes.

The average flow rate of 75 cfs for municipal, industrial and commercial water supply may be increased to an average flow rate of 85 cfs through implementation of the "Regional Reserved Water” Program.  This water may be utilized by the cities of Auburn, Bonney Lake, Buckley and Sumner to mitigate impacts to the White River/Puyallup River in connection with future water right applications.