Mine plan renews debate over land use

A bid by Glacier Northwest to expand its sand and gravel mine in this historic village has reopened a decades-long land-use battle involving the Sequalitchew Creek Canyon, a conflict supposedly settled 15 years ago.

Glacier, one of the largest sand and gravel mining operations in the nation, wants to add 177 acres to its 335-acre mine to buy the company another 14 years of business, selling more than 250 sand and gravel products to customers across Puget Sound.

The project features construction of a new tributary to Sequalitchew Creek, feeding the lower reaches of the water-starved stream so it can once again support salmon in a 4,000-foot stretch.

"It's an exciting project that would allow salmon to come back to the stream," Glacier general manager Scott Nicholson said of the DuPont mine.

But the mine expansion also would take water from upper reaches of the creek and require a cut in the creek canyon to connect the man-made tributary to the stream.

Therein lies the problem.

In 1994, the mining company, environmental groups, DuPont, the state Department of Ecology and the Weyerhaeuser Real Estate Co. signed a landmark settlement agreement that allowed the mining company to build a gravel export dock at Tatsolo Point about 1.5 miles north of Sequalitchew Creek.

In return for a dock to load gravel barges, Lonestar Northwest, which later became Glacier Northwest, agreed to honor a buffer zone around the creek and canyon and forgo any activities that would "significantly impact" the flow of the creek.

The agreement laid to rest major land-use conflicts in the creek canyon and at the mouth of the creek where it empties into Puget Sound, a place Weyerhaeuser wanted to build a super port in the 1970s, much to the chagrin of environmentalists and supporters of the neighboring Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, which was created in 1974.

The Glacier project has breathed new life into a dormant, but once influential, environmental group called the Nisqually Delta Association, which helped broker the 1994 settlement.

"Taking water out of the upper reaches of the creek and then punching a hole in the wall of the canyon to dump the rerouted water is a nonstarter," NDA president Tom Skjervold of Olympia said.

He said DuPont city officials and its residents should be working to protect and preserve the Sequalitchew Creek Canyon, a green belt that connects several historical sites that mark the birth of Western Washington settlement, including the 1832 Hudson's Bay Co. Nisqually House at the mouth of the creek.

"Glacier has a gravel mine but DuPont has a gold mine of history here in the canyon," Skjervold said.

Mine company officials insist their project won't harm the historic features of the creek canyon and is true to the intent of the 1994 agreement.

"First, we are enhancing, not harming, the creek," Glacier Northwest Vice President Mark Leatham said. "Second, we wouldn't be mining in the bluff. We're notching the bluff to get water back in the creek."

Perhaps Glacier's most powerful ally on the project is the Nisqually Tribe, which is eager to restore stream flows that haven't supported fish for nearly 20 years.

"Here's a project where you actually get water flowing back in the stream," tribal natural resources director David Troutt said. "Glacier would be building something that would cost us millions and millions of dollars to do."

With the tributary, Glacier permitting coordinator Pete Stolz estimated that the stream flows in the lower reach would jump from 2 cubic feet per second to 10 cfs while the upper section would drop from 1 cfs to 0.5 cfs.

Some city residents familiar with the stream and its history fear the mine expansion would partially drain Edmonds Marsh, a cornerstone wetland in the heart of DuPont. Stolz said studies suggest the damage to the marsh would be negligible.

Former DuPont Mayor Judy Krill said she could support the mine expansion, if all parties worked together to deal in a more comprehensive way to restore flows to Sequalitchew Creek. The creek has its headwaters on Fort Lewis and features a 1950s diversion dam and channel partly responsible for draining the creek. Complicating matters are water wells on the military reservation that reduce potential stream flows.

"But cutting a new stream channel through the canyon bluff? You can't do that." Krill said.

The new creek tributary would be gravity fed while any attempt to send that water back to the stream's headwaters would require pumping and maintenance, Nicholson said.

Many DuPont residents in this south Pierce County town that's tripled in population to 7,390 since 2000 don't know about the creek and canyon corridor, let alone its rich history. City plans call for future public access along an existing trail, but it isn't officially open to the public yet.

"The creek and canyon are something special that needs to be saved," said DuPont resident Don Dresser, who is chairman of the city planning commission. "Walking in the canyon is almost like walking in the Olympic National Park rain forest. Hopefully we can work something out that is beneficial to everybody."

Project supporters and opponents are still talking, but for how much longer is anybody's guess.

The city has hired a consultant to review the project to get a second opinion on whether it is legally defensible under the 1994 agreement and consistent with city zoning laws and comprehensive plans. A city hearing examiner could rule on the case as soon as October, Nicholson said.

Meanwhile, the Nisqually Delta Association, Krill and others are poised to go to court, if the project isn't amended to be consistent with the nearly 15-year-old settlement agreement.

Mining company officials insist their project design is critical to the mine expansion.

"Without the creek tributary, we couldn't expand the mine," Nicholson said.

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Information from: The Olympian, http://www.theolympian.com