Friday, October 22, 2010

Bumping Lake ancient forest threatened!

Brock Evans writes an article for the upcoming edition of The Wild Cascades, the journal of N3C, exposing plans to flood and destroy a unique remnant of our ancient forest at Bumping Lake, east of Mt. Rainier.
Even as this is written, a “Work Group,” under the aegis of the federal Bureau of Reclamation, and composed of irrigation districts, federal and state agencies, country commissioners, a “dam storage alliance” led by former Congressman Sid Morrison . . . and — rather shockingly to me — only one conservation organization, is meeting to decide whether or not they
will recommend to Congress a very large and expensive “Yakima Basin Enhancement Project,” consisting of several large and very costly dams and related projects. One of the proposals currently in the Work Group discussion draft is the “Bumping Lake Enlargement (BLE ).”
...it’s time to fight back — hard. And this time around, finally enshrine this natural masterpiece where it truly belongs...
It's an outrage. And there's a lot more to it... If you're an N3C member, you can read the full article when your copy arrives in the mail soon. If not, JOIN N3C now so you can get your future copies before they're released to the general public on the web. Then check back at the N3C website and read the full article in a couple of weeks when the current issue is online.

At the end of the article, there's a footnote with some web links. We found errors in them, and wanted to give you the correct links. Those without current memberships (yet) can also read more about this issue here:

Bureau of Reclamation:
http://www.usbr.gov/pn/programs/yrbwep/2010workgroup/index.html

Sierra Club statement:
http://www.washington.sierraclub.org/uppercol/bumping/lake/dam.html

1 comment:

Michael Garrity said...

You can find a response to Brock's article by American Rivers, National Wildlife Federation, The Wilderness Society, Conservation Northwest, and Washington Environmental Council by cutting and pasting this link in your browser:

http://www.americanrivers.org/newsroom/blog/big-opportunity-and-big-misperceptions-in-the-yakima-river-basin-11-23-2010.html

-Michael Garrity, American Rivers