SEQUIM — The proposed Dungeness Off-Channel Reservoir project off River Road in Sequim continues to pack rooms, draw questions and raise concerns nearly two years after the last public input session nearly two years ago.
Hundreds of residents filled the Guy Cole Event Center last month to hear from Clallam County and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staff while asking about a breadth of topics.
The project has been in development for more than a decade, with proponents saying it will better help late-season water flow in the Dungeness River during possible drought periods to support fish species on the Endangered Species Act, meet irrigation needs east of the river and downstream of the reservoir, and intercept storm flows to help prevent flooding.
Four new proposed designs for the reservoir were presented Oct. 22 with varying water storage sizes and lower embankment heights — now proposed at 17-20 feet, depending on the design — to address concerns about flooding after an earthquake.
Dave Rice of Anchor QEA, the lead engineering company for the project, said the reservoir will store water for irrigation 1 mile south of the U.S. Highway 101 interchange in the winter and spring and release water for irrigation primarily in the late summer and early fall.
He said the reservoir is being proposed “so water that’s currently diverted by irrigators can be left in the water to improve stream flow and the irrigators will rely on the water in the reservoir.”
Clallam County, the sponsor agency on the project, has applied for about a $30 million FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grant to assist with the project and has secured about $15.1 million in grants in recent years.
In October, the county finalized a $1.2 million purchase of the 396-acre property from the state Department of Natural Resources with tentative plans in place to clean a former Sequim dump site next spring or summer.
FEMA staff said the meeting opened the comment process for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to go through Nov. 21 to seek comments to help reduce impact of future disasters.
“Our responsibility is to make sure this project doesn’t cause unnecessary or unknown environmental impact in the future that we didn’t realize today,” said Galeeb Kachra, FEMA senior environmental specialist.
He said they will consider a no-action option as well.
The county also has a public survey open until Nov. 21 at clallamcountywa.gov/188/Dungeness-Off-Channel-Reservoir-Project. FEMA comments can be submitted via email at fema-r10-ehp-comments@fema.dhs.gov.
Kachra said there will be future opportunities to comment on the plan’s draft. After Nov. 21, FEMA staff will start on an environmental review that looks at the overall environmental impact to be included in the plan.
New design options
Steve Gray, Clallam County deputy director of public works, said the property will remain open to hikers, bikers and equestrians, and the Clallam County Parks, Fair and Facilities Department will work on short- and long-term plans for the space as a park.
The new reservoir designs shared, called E1-4, all shift the reservoir south of the property to move out of a potential seismic activity area.
Rice said an April 2023 investigation supported a hypothesis that an active fault zone crosses the previously proposed reservoir site on the northern portion of the property, so they’ve shifted the new designs to the south portion of the property because it didn’t show any signs of subsurface deformation.
He said they also heard consistent concerns about the height of the embankment (about 30 feet) and desires to put more water storage below ground elevation.
The E1-4 designs place 76 percent to 85 percent of capacity, ranging from 959 acre-feet to 1,610 acre-feet, below ground level.
Rice reiterated that they must follow stringent requirements from the state Department of Ecology’s Dam Safety Office to protect lives and property downstream. With moving the proposed reservoir south, new designs also account for a Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) easement that has power lines going through the property.
Rice said they originally planned to keep out of the easement but pivoted to follow community concerns and the seismic study.
Option E1 (about 952 acre-feet of storage) is split by the easement and is connected by a pipeline, while Option E2 has more volume (1,236 acre-feet) and an irregular shape, but is one area going under a portion of the BPA easement.
Option E3 (1,465 acre-feet) is the least likely option, Rice said, as it would require the county to rebuild a portion of the site’s roadway while respecting the BPA easement.
Option E4 provides the largest reservoir (1,610 acre-feet) but operates under the presumption the county can negotiate with BPA to raise or relocate power lines.
“The preferred configuration is likely to be somewhere in between (E1 and E4),” Rice said.
He added they will need to talk with BPA staff first to understand their easement and potential costs to help inform them of the best proposal for a site.
Rice said staff hopes to narrow down the preferred reservoir configuration by early next year. A timeline presented to the audience last month showed staff completing a detailed design and permitting by winter 2026.
Feedback
Questions to county and federal staff covered public access, funding, safety, insurance rates, private interests and more at the October meeting.
Gray said there are no plans to fence off the property or reservoir and that the property will not support year-round boating.
“It’s only going to be filled or partially filled during parts of the year and be drained in the summer going into the fall/winter,” he said.
There also will not be a plastic liner in the bottom of the reservoir, Gray said.
Asked about the project’s purpose, he said it dates back decades and that the “reservoir is one piece of the toolbox to address climate resiliency.”
He said it won’t supply drinking water but rather serve as a “management tool for irrigation water that’s already being diverted from the river but providing a mechanism to store it and release it.”
“We’ll fill it when water is more available and release it when water is less available so irrigation companies don’t have to pull the water from the Dungeness River in late summer, early fall,” Gray said.
Rhiana Barkie, project coordinator for Clallam County, said in an email about a minimum amount of reservoir storage needed “depends on the duration of time the reservoir water storage would be released to meet those needs and the actual irrigation demands that would have been diverted from the river during that time, but will instead be met by the reservoir.”
She said E4’s 1,600 acre-feet would provide enough storage volume to deliver a flow rate of 25 cubic feet per second (cfs) for irrigation over 32 days during the late summer, while E1 (929 acre-feet) would deliver about 15 cfs over 32 days.
“Option E1 may not be able to supply all of the irrigation demand downstream of the reservoir during the last 32 days of the irrigation season and may limit the magnitude and duration of the flow benefit that can be provided to the Dungeness River,” she said.
“Option E4 would provide more than enough water to meet irrigation needs and would allow for more flexibility in the timing and magnitude of reservoir releases to maximize the benefit to the Dungeness River.”
Asked about groundwater and well supply and impact studies at the meeting, Gray said the “water that’s going to fill the reservoir is an existing water right by the Highland Irrigation District, so the water being diverted is really not looking at impacting groundwater wells.”
He said the district has the water right “to divert water from the Dungeness River for the irrigation season, and that’s the water that in part that will be filling the reservoir, in addition to allowances under the Dungeness Water Management Rule.”
Gray said “there are a lot of other efforts that are going on to address our concerns with assuring there’s enough groundwater for current and future development.”
There also was a question about grant funding connected to preventing flooding.
Gray said the city of Sequim applied for a separate grant through FEMA to prevent flooding that would help create a facility for infiltration on the county’s to-be-purchased property.
He said city staff are looking at the project again that could capture some stormwater runoff on the north side of the property west of the Happy Valley and River Road intersection.
Another resident near the proposed reservoir was concerned about the impact of liquefaction following a catastrophic earthquake and asked how to insure for the disaster.
Rice said he couldn’t answer the insurance question, but said the project would be designed to prevent the embankment from failing under the “worst possible conditions,” such as a once-in-a-million-year storm.
He said they’ve calculated for more than 14 inches of precipitation in a 24-hour period, with the most Sequim having on record being 3 inches in a 24-hour span. It’s also being designed to handle seismic conditions and liquefaction.
“The embankment is going to be designed to handle results of potential liquefaction,” Rice said.
Special interests
A few residents mentioned at the meeting special interest groups being the only benefactors from the project.
Ben Smith, board director of the Highland Irrigation District, said his family has farmed in Sequim for generations and they’ve tried to “pay attention in the state and nation to what’s kept farmland viable” and that they’ve known water storage is their next option.
“We’ve done a lot of piping projects to be more efficient moving water from the river to the farms,” he said. “But storage is used many places across the nation, across the state. We’ve known that’s something the (agriculture) community needs to look into and be ready to support if we’re going to be able to maintain farming here long-term.”
He said the project was not the “brainchild” of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, nor his family, but rather from the agricultural community “who has concerns about (the project) too.”
“But it came from the ag community as an option to put in another tool in place to protect farming,” Smith said.
“And to keep a healthy fish population along with it. The tribe has some grave concerns about this entire project. They’re not … sneaking by behind the scenes trying to put this thing through.”
He expressed appreciation for the community’s safety concerns too.
“We see the potential (but) there’s a lot of things that have to be looked at before a decision if this really makes sense and can be done safely in our community to benefit our community,” Smith said.
Hansi Hals, Jamestown’s environmental planning manager, said after the meeting that tribal staff have flagged some concerns about the project but appreciated the county’s presentation.
She said they commented on the seismic studies done and feel community safety is important.
Meeting recordings, documents and question and answers are available at clallamcountywa.gov/188/Dungeness-Off-Channel-Reservoir-Project.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
