A perfect storm on the White River

By Chase Gallagher, Southwest Region Communications Manager

Last winter, Lake Tapps in Pierce County was drained for maintenance crews to conduct extensive work on the Lake Tapps reservoir dikes and to replace the wooden flume. This meant taking the lake down to near historic low levels, leaving what looked like a galactic landscape with stumps sticking out of the ground and normally floating docks stuck on shore.



Normally, the snowpack melts, keeping the rivers going strong throughout spring and summer. The White River would flow and Cascade Water Alliance, the owners of the Lake Tapps reservoir, could divert their allotted water and the lake would begin to refill as it normally does each spring.  But this year, with our lack of snowpack, instead of melting snow we have our first statewide drought since 2005.

It was a bit of a perfect storm – normal maintenance meeting abnormal snowpack – that left Lake Tapps drained for the last few months. With decreased flow, the threshold for Cascade Water Alliance to be able to divert water into Lake Tapps couldn’t be met.

But as it turns out, there’s another perfect storm that’s leading toward the lake being filled.

Fish Apron under repairs in the White River

The Army Corps of Engineers needed to perform repairs on a fish apron a few weeks ago, which required holding more water up at Mud Mountain Dam. When that reserved water gets released, it temporarily increases the flow of the river. Think of holding a vessel under a running faucet, which reduces the water into the drain, and then pouring the vessel along the normal flow:



That extra flow was enough to meet the threshold, and Cascade Water Alliance could test their new concrete flume, and in turn begin filling the lake. We went to Buckley last week to see the diversion in action:

That little uptick on the right side of the chart shows water returning to Lake Tapps.

The circumstances for the extended drawdown of Lake Tapps are unlikely to happen again, and the same goes for the recent news in being able to begin the refill. But within these perfect storms, the story of Lake Tapps is one of cooperation.

The partnerships between Ecology, Cascade Water Alliance, the Muckleshoot and Puyallup Tribes and the Army Corps of Engineers all led to working together - finding a solution to keep the river flowing, ensure fish passage, and get Lake Tapps back to its picturesque self.

A slightly more full Lake Tapps on the right.

People and fish benefit from White River/LakeTapps partnerships

By Dan Partridge, communications manager, Water Resources Program

Imagine enough water to fill a football field 130 miles deep.

That’s the amount of water that will stay in the White River forever thanks to a permanent donation of water rights to the state’s Trust Water Rights Program by the Cascade Water Alliance .

The trust water donation is the largest in the history of the trust water program and in conjunction with another water rights donation from Cascade – a temporary donation – will ensure that adequate flows for fish stay in the White River until 2034 and beyond.

Cascade, the water purveyor for five King County cities and two water and sewer districts, is making the donations in conjunction with its purchase of Lake Tapps in Pierce County from Puget Sound Energy (PSE). In exchange for Ecology approval of the water right transfers needed to make Lake Tapps a future municipal water supply, Cascade agreed to donate some of the water rights it acquired in the purchase of the lake to the protection of flows for fish in the river.

As large as the water right donations are for the White River, larger still are the benefits to the environment and economy resulting from Ecology’s partnerships with Cascade and the Muckleshoot and Puyallup tribes.

Strategic partnerships

"Big things happen when the state, local governments and tribes come together to form strategic partnerships,” said Ecology Director Maia Bellon.

First off, back in 2008, the Muckleshoot and Puyallup tribes signed an agreement with Ecology pledging to work together to restore flows in the White River.

Then in 2009, after lakefront property owners feared Lake Tapps would be drained with the end of PSE’s hydropower operations at the lake, Cascade purchased the lake as a future drinking water supply for Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Issaquah, Tukwila and the water and sewer districts.

Final step to ensure flows for fish

With Ecology’s approval of the water rights package needed to keep the lake filled for the benefit of surrounding homeowners and recreationists and to secure it as a municipal water supply for as much as 50 years into the future, there remained a final step to ensure flows for fish in the White River. That will be accomplished on Jan. 17, with the transaction completing Cascade’s donation of a portion of its water rights from the Lake Tapps purchase to the Trust Water Rights Program.

Today, Cascade is investing millions of dollars to develop Lake Tapps as a municipal water supply and as a community and recreational asset for boaters, swimmers, anglers and surrounding homeowners.

And in a plus for the environment, flows for fish in a 20.7-mile stretch of the White River flowing through the Muckleshoot Reservation will be protected for perpetuity. Smart water management and strategic partnerships have come together for the benefit of people and fish in Pierce County.