Yelm Public Safety Building & City Council Chambers

Last Tuesday night, the Yelm City Council approved another $76,000 to be paid to Golder and Associates “for work associated with updating the 2008 Mitigation Plan,” according to the city’s Staff Report.

You will recall on August 14, 2009, the City of Yelm withdrew their MDNS (Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance) for an incomplete and unapproved draft Water Mitigation Plan –
in which the City of Yelm determined

– that a proposed five-fold increase in pumping City water will not have a probable significant adverse environmental impact on the local aquifer.

Now, the city says,
“Since 2008, the cities of Yelm, Olympia and Lacey have been working with both DOE and the Squaxin Island Tribe to better identify these predicted impacts [impacts to the Deschutes basin] and propose mitigation measures that will enhance the affected Deschutes water bodies. The time is now for each of the cities to update their existing mitigation plans and identify the work that has been done over the last two year period. The revised mitigation plans will be re-submitted to DOE with the request for issuance of new water rights. Yelm is requesting the issuance of a Phase 1 and Phase 2 water right that would total approximately 942 acre feet of new water.”

942 acre feet of ‘new” water would more than double Yelm’s annual DOE water allocation 796.66 acre feet in 2009drawing down the aquifer.