Olympia, Lacey and Yelm officials join tribe in ‘historic’ environmental stewardship step
Kris Peters became emotional Wednesday as he stood under the warm sun in a hay field on ancestral lands in rural Yelm.
Chair of the Squaxin Island Tribe, he and others with him said the day was a historic one, when three cities signed an agreement promising to take care of the land they all stood on, and the river that flows nearby.
Peters joined Olympia, Yelm and Lacey officials in signing a Memorandum of Understanding saying they would restore and protect the Deschutes Watershed. The MOU forms the Budd/Deschutes Watershed Environmental Stewardship Coalition, which Olympia mayor Cheryl Selby said originally came out of the need to secure more water supplies for the three cities.
“We have been tied to this river, these waterways, for 10,000 years,” Peters said. “We are connected — that’s not a cliche. And the cool thing is we’re still here today.”
The agreement builds off one from 2011 between the jurisdictions to work together on water rights issues and protect the Deschutes River and adjacent water bodies.
“The Squaxin people are the people of the water,” Peters said. “That’s because water is sacred to us. Not just the Salish Sea, but our rivers, our lakes, our streams, creeks, artesian wells, and all our wetlands are sacred and are lifelines to us. The Deschutes River is synonymous with the Squaxin people.”
All three cities had come together in the past to purchase the more than 80 acre property off Vail Road Southeast that served as a sheep ranch for a century. The property is cut off by the Deschutes River. Turning the property into farmland meant changing the springwater channels that run through what used to be wetland, and the river takes away more of the land every day as it carves its path.
Olympia was looking to transfer its water rights from McAllister Springs to the new, more protected, McAllister Wellfield. That, along with Lacey’s water rights application, were approved by the Department of Ecology. But the original MOU relied on all three cities having their water rights applications approved, and Yelm didn’t have theirs approved until 2022.
Lacey Mayor Andy Ryder said he was part of the original team in 2011 that wanted to make the stewardship coalition a reality. He said at the time, water rights was the biggest issue Lacey was facing due to the tremendous amount of population growth the city was seeing. Ryder said there wasn’t enough water to provide for that growth.
During the Wednesday’s event, he shared an African proverb, “If you want to go quickly, you go alone. But if you want to go far, you go together.”
“In this case we had no option of going alone,” Ryder said. “To succeed we had to go together, and that’s what we’ve done over the years as a coalition.”
Ryder said that listening to Peters speak made him reflect on why Lacey entered into the agreement. He said the affects the community has on the watershed are real, and if the cities are going to continue to grow, they need to mitigate those affects.
Restoration efforts
Part of the mitigation effort is a promise of $500,000 in total from all three cities to continue restoration efforts on the property. Jesse Barham, Olympia’s director of water resources, gave officials a tour of the farmland to see what’s been done so far.
Barham said he’s been providing technical assistance on the project since 2014 and was around when the first tree plantings were done on the river. The property includes a mile of riverbank that needed to be replanted with native trees and other flora. There’s lots more work to be done.
The largest part of the project was dealing with a 20-acre area that contained several long and deep ditches used for draining the farmland. At the base of the hill near this area is a small shed with a spring next to it that’s fed by Lake Lawrence just on the other side of the tree line.
The spring pumps out about 2 cubic feet of water per second, which runs into the newly constructed spring channel down to the river. It gives salmon and other fish safe and cool places to be in the summer. Barham said it’s an important habitat for Coho salmon, which stay in freshwater for a year before heading to the sea. The channel was repaired in 2018, Barham said.
Barham said probably 60,000 woody plants have been planted since 2014.
The South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group also came in to update the road that goes over the channel. It used to be a small culvert, and it’s now a bridge that allows for easier fish passage. Barham said the project was funded through a salmon habitat recovery fund.
The Deschutes loops sharply into the side of the hay field. Barham said a large tree fell in recently that will create habitat for fish and help reduce those tight bends. But there aren’t many trees on the river after decades of logging. His team planted more trees on the riverside that will grow one day to shade the river, cooling the waters for fish. And one day they, too, will fall into the water and create more safe habitats for fish.
Peters said these types of projects on the Deschutes will ensure clean water is available for everyone’s ancestors. But more of the watershed needs protection and restoration to keep that future a reality.
“We have to continue to fight for those that don’t have a voice — these waterways, these lands, this air — so that future generations can enjoy this fresh water,” Peters said. “I’m afraid it won’t be there for them, but I think things like this are ways we will have fresh water from the Deschutes River for our ancestors.”
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