The City of Yelm issued this Press Release:
“On March 18, 2013 the City of Yelm received the Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order from the Pollution Control Hearings Board (PCHB) affirming the issuance of Water Right Permit No. G2-29085. This water right provides the City of Yelm with 20+ years of continued growth and the ability to serve its future planned population.
Approval of the water right was originally granted by the Department of Ecology in October 2011, but was appealed by a local group of residents. Since that time, the City and Department of Ecology have worked to prepare for the PCHB hearing held in December 2012.”

“The City of Yelm will be withdrawing the water from a new water source located approximately 1.3 miles west of downtown Yelm. This will be the first new water source for the community in over 50 years and will be withdrawn from a deeper more protected aquifer.”

“The City plans on spending the next couple of years working on mitigation projects associated with the water right as well as building the infrastructure necessary to deliver the water to its customers.”
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Editor’s Note:
1. The more-than-doubling of the city’s water allocation is NOT progress in the fragile Nisqually River Basin environmental ecosystem. Ecology has become nothing more than a rubber-stamp agency for municipalities and their corporate developers, rather than the protectors of the environment this agency was 20 years ago.

2. When neighbors’ wells run dry, they should send their bills to dig their wells deeper to the City of Yelm. How many more homes and how much more traffic will Yelm allowed to be built within their city limits? This city is already known for a high home foreclosure rate.

3. Yelm streets will again be torn-up to lay infrastructure piping from the Tahoma Terra well location to the city’s Public Works Dept – ripping apart newly paved streets. This time, the city should look to widen Yelm Ave. West to 5 lanes while they lay new pipe, to mitigate the continuing traffic issues.
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