What is going on in the City of Yelm’s City Hall NOW???

A Staff Report to be presented to the Yelm City Council this Tuesday night is requesting authorization to begin consulting services and scope work for drilling SW Yelm Well #2 locale totaling $615,223.

“The City of Yelm has identified in the draft Water System Plan and the 2008 Mitigation Plan a need to construct wells in the deeper aquifer in an effort to obtain additional water rights from the Department of Ecology. The city will construct a test/production well to assess the feasibility of using the proposed well as the first of several planned new wells designed to minimize the pumping impacts to surface water and senior water rights.”

There are a few issues here, as I see them:

– Does the city have permission to drill on land that is not the city’s?
– If they do currently, will they have permission to drill once the land is in foreclosure, expected April 29th according to this Olympian story: CLICK HERE?
– What about the water under the city now?
– Is the city pumping at full capacity from their current well without needlessly spending all of this money on a well located over a mile from the city’s core? No, there is plenty of water from the current well now.
Remember, the city pumped over their allocation in 2009.
– What do you think about the city spending another almost 2/3 of a million dollars on top of almost 3/4 of a million dollars for a study & test well out on Highlands’ land?
– Could Golder & Ass. use the money from the city’s coffers for another study & test well. Woo-hoo for their windfall.
– This is not part of the city’s Water System Plan (WSP), for there have been way too many changes since that came out (i.e. master-planned communities in default, etc.).
– The city’s draft Water System Plan (WSP) was never approved by the Dept. of Health and the Dept of Ecology on which the city bases this action.

And from March 13th Olympian:
“A foreclosure sale is scheduled April 9 for the unfinished phases of the Tahoma Terra master planned community in Yelm.”
That is where is well is located.
CLICK HERE
Scroll to page 30. See well W-2 in red.

Also, at City Council on Tuesday night:
“CITY RESIDENTS SHOULD BE AWARE OF ADDITIONS COMING TUESDAY EVENING TO SECTION 13.04.097 OF THE YELM MUNICIPAL CODE, WHICH ADDS TO ORD. 778 FROM APRIL, 2003 STATING:
“the city reserves the right for any cause to make any order regulating forbidding or restricting the use of water for irrigation or sprinkling or any other nonessential outside usage…”

OUCH! WHAT A RESIDENT & BUSINESS PEOPLE-FRIENDLY CITY COUNCIL YELM HAS!