Megan Hansen of the Nisqually Valley News wrote Friday, Dec. 17, 2010:
“State approves Yelm water plan”

and included nothing of what this approval means to Yelm’s water rate payers.

Highlights of what she DID say:
“The Washington State Department of Health approved the City of Yelms Water System Plan…

The Water System Plan is a six-year plan that outlines the citys water system and infastructure plans.

Recent water rate increases over the last year are consistent with infrastructure plans highlighted in the citys water plan…

A total of 3,235 connections are approved within the budget, with 20 connections still available…

The city is expected to establish a process to maintain an accurate assessment of the remaining service capacity so that physical capacity and water right limitations are not exceeded.”

So, let’s examine what Ms. Hansen omitted:

– Yelm’s Water System Plan approval resulted in a 16% water rate increase in Summer, 2009, another 16% water rate increase April 1, 2010, and subsequent 8.25% water rate increases from 2011-2015 (a 69% rate increase for the 6-year period 2010-2015, inclusive).
CLICK HERE for those details in the Water System Plan.

– Yelm’s Water System Plan includes funding requirements for the 6 year plan at almost $11 million without Master-Planned Communities [MPC], $16.5 million with Master-Planned Communities.

– Yelm’s water rate payers will be funding almost $20 million dollars to move the city’s water system to the SW area [Thurston Highlands site]?
Why is the city moving their entire water infrastructure 2 miles from their current water system?
Their answer to lessen impacts on Yelm Creek are insufficient.

– Steve Chamberlain & co-developer Doug Bloom were owners of the Tahoma Valley Golf Course in Yelm & transferred the Golf Course’s water rights to the city for a credit to bring the Course’s water to the city with their application for the 5,000-home Thurston Highlands development. However, when Bloom & Chamberlain defaulted, the city was left with the Golf Course well project, “previously assumed to be fully developer-constructed and then to be turned over to the city, is now required to be 100% City-funded at a cost estimated to be $1.6 million”.
Now, Yelm water rate-payers will bear these costs. That well project is not completed & remains unavailable for use.
The aforementioned quote is from the City’s Draft Water System Plan, Chapter 9, page 13
CLICK HERE for that document.

– The City of Yelm’s “1995 Yelm Vision Plan” laid out how this town was to be developed with input from such locally notable people as Glen Cunningham and others. That has been totally usurped and overlooked in the planning process here in recent years.
Again, why is the city building a new water infrastructure 2 miles from the exiting one?
CLICK HERE for Yelm Vision Plan.

CLICK HERE for the link to the City of Yelm Draft Water System Plan (WSP).

CLICK HERE for the city’s engineering firm’s response to Health’s issues, prior to the Waster System Plan’s approval.

AND LAST:
In response to Mr. Graves’s Op-Ed in this week’s Nisqually Valley News where he said:
“Many websites have none of the checks and balances of proper journalism: quotes from multiple sources on the various sides of the issue, absence of opinion in news copy and, usually, supporting documents.

A lot of them regurgitate information that appears in multiple places on the Internet, true or not.

That is why its unwise to rely solely on the Internet for information.”

Unlike the local newspaper & their website, Yelm Community Blog readers have direct access to the official, supporting documents & can discern information for themselves, without bias & omissions.
Those documents are also archived here for free, so the public can easily access them anytime.