Several speakers at a town hall meeting conducted Tuesday night by the DuPont City Council urged the city to reject a proposal to partially dewater an aquifer at the rate of 6.5 million gallons per day to make it easier to extract sand and gravel deposits from a 166-acre parcel CalPortland Co. wants to access south of its existing 377-acre mine.
“The aquifer dewatering is 10 times greater than the amount of water used in DuPont daily,” said Laurie Fait, a DuPont resident and member of the Sequalitchew Creek Watershed Council.
Hydrogeologists hired by the mining company have said the upper aquifer slated for pumping is not connected to the lower aquifer where the city gets its water.
In addition, groundwater monitoring wells and tests would be required to ensure the city’s water supply is safe before mining could proceed.
“They’re suggesting a certainty where there is none,” American Lake resident Don Russell said before the meeting, adding that not enough studies have been done to prove the two aquifers are separated.
He said the settlement agreement should be amended to remove the south parcel from the proposed mine expansion, leaving the mining company to expand operations on 142 acres to the north of the existing mine.
DuPont resident Darrell Reeck said the 100 or so DuPont residents he has talked to during a doorbelling campaign have all expressed “water worries” about what the mine expansion could do to city water.
City Councilman Larry Wilcox questioned the validity of Reeck’s informal survey, saying the citizens aren’t armed with all the facts.
The settlement agreement announced in June was crafted during three years of closed door talks and negotiations involving CalPortland Co., the state Department of Ecology and environmental groups who said the company’s original mine expansion plan issued in 2007 violated a 1994 legal agreement to permanently protect Sequalitchew Creek and the ravine it flows through before emptying into Puget Sound.
The pact calls on the mining company to spend $200,000 to prepare a restoration plan for the creek to improve stream flows for fish. CalPortland would also set aside a 45-acre shoreline buffer to include an easement for a one-mile public trail.
According to the settlement agreement, CalPortland will direct a portion of the groundwater it would withdraw from the south parcel mine to the west end of Edmond Marsh to increase the flows of water into Sequalitchew Creek.
“The vision of a restored Sequalitchew Creek is appealing to me,” City Councilman Michael Graham said.
The 1.25-mile Sequalitchew Creek Canyon is a greenbelt popular with today’s DuPont residents and home to several historic sites, including the 1832 Hudson’s Bay Co. Nisqually House at the mouth of the creek.
The City Council has scheduled another meeting at 9 a.m. Sept. 8 at city hall to hear engineers and scientists discuss DuPont area geology and hydrogeology.
The council is expected to decide whether or not to approve the settlement agreement when it meets Oct. 11.
Approval of the settlement agreement would set the stage for the Sequalitchew Creek restoration project study. But the company still has to go through a full-blown environmental assessment and get a number of city and state permits to expand the mine.
If the city rejects the latest settlement agreement, the parties to the 1994 agreement would go back to the drawing board.
John Dodge: 360-754-5444 jdodge@theolympian.com
