Sunday, October 30, 2016

Fall issue of The Wild Cascades


The new Fall 2016 issue of The Wild Cascades is now on our website!


  • President’s report 
  • Monte Cristo road challenge
  • NCCC speaker featured at Burke Museum
  • Stehekin Update
  • Notes from the Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs annual conference
  • NPS Centennial: Member creates NPS history website
  • Blanca Lake culvert blown
  • NCCC work day enhances Diablo Overlook
  • Bikes in Wilderness areas?
  • Corvid’s eye
  • In Memoriam: Laura Zalesky
  • Gymnasium-sized water treatment plant latest phase of Holden Mine remediation
  • North Cascades Glacier Climate Project
  • North Cascades National Park bill: Last Chance, July 1968
  • The south side of Koma Kulshan
Want your issue as soon as it's published? JOIN US!

Monday, October 10, 2016

Comments due by this Wednesday on proposed quarry expansion threatening ancient forest west of Mt. Baker

COMMENT NOW: Tell the Forest Service DO NOT expand olivine mine!!
 

United Western Supply has proposed expanding an existing olivine rock quarry onto national forest lands including the Mt. Baker West inventoried roadless area in Whatcom County. Located north of the Twin Sisters, the proposal would expand into intact old-growth forests that serve as part of the municipal watershed for the City of Bellingham. The removal of the surface forest, vegetation and soils raises potential water quality concerns for residents and local businesses.

What YOU Can Do!

The Forest Service is asking for public comment on issues that need to be considered in the environmental analysis for the proposed Plan of Operations to expand the SwenLarson Quarry, but only until Wednesday, October 12, 2016. We need your help!

STEP 1: Write an email comment to the Forest Service in your own words asking them to truly consider all the environmental impacts of the quarry expansion. Feel free to reference the talking points provided below.
STEP 2: Send your comment via email no later than THIS Wednesday October 12:
                EMAIL: toddgriffin@fs.fed.us
                SUBJECT: Regarding: Comment on Swen Larsen Quarry Expansion
STEP 3: SHARE this with your conservation-minded friends!

Talking Points
  • Appropriate Environmental Analysis. The level of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis is not indicated in the scoping notice. The Forest Service should perform an Environmental Assessment or an Environmental Impact Statement level of NEPA analysis. 
  • Impacts to Clean and Safe Drinking Water. There are significant concerns about impacts to the quality of water within the Middle Fork Nooksack River, which serves as a source of the safe and clean drinking water supply for more than 85,000 residents of the City of Bellingham. The environmental analysis should look closely at the impacts of sedimentation and releasing of minerals and elements that could be harmful or costly to the drinking water supply for the City of Bellingham.
  • Impacts to Eligible Wild & Scenic Rivers. The area of the proposed expansion includes intact forests including streams that drain clean, cold water into the Middle Fork Nooksack River. The Forest Service is obligated to protect the outstandingly remarkable values of the Middle Fork Nooksack River, found eligible for Wild & Scenic River designation in the 1990 Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest Plan.
  • Impacts to Fish and Fish Habitat. The Nooksack River system supports significant fisheries habitat including coastal cutthroat trout, steelhead, rainbow trout, Dolly Varden, bull trout, and Chinook, coho, chum, pink and sockeye salmon. Impacts from the quarry expansion include sedimentation, water temperature variations and increase in minerals or released toxins that could be a concern for fishery health and habitat in the Middle Fork Nooksack River.
  • Impacts to Old-Growth Forest and Roadless Areas.The proposed quarry expansion would include nearly 10 acres of the Mt. Baker West Inventoried Roadless Area. This area of intact old-growth forest is protected by the 2001 National Forest Roadless Area Rule from new road construction. Roaded access and hauling involved in a quarry expansion would violate the Roadless Rule.
Background
For more information on this project read the scoping letter from the Forest Service.

Thanks to our partners at Washington Wild for their help!

Monday, October 3, 2016

A good perspective on mountain bikes in Wilderness Areas

This articles sums it up nicely:

In Both Practice And Spirit, Mountain Bikes Do Not Belong In Wilderness

Work party and visit to the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center

The NCCC board and some members pitched in Saturday to help plant some native vegetation at the Diablo Lake overlook, and we got lucky with the weather!
Then the board members spent the night at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake shore and had a board meeting there the following morning. Many thanks to our partners at North Cascades Institute for the hospitality!

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Save the date! Nov. 17th at The Burke Museum: Glaciers of the North Cascades with Tom Hammond of NCCC

Glaciers of the North Cascades with Tom Hammond
Nov 17, 7pm Burke Room, free

Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
Univ of Washington 
Seattle, WA     98195-3010
Tel: 206 616-6473
www.burkemuseum.org

The North Cascades are home to the longest running, most comprehensive study of glaciers on the planet—the North Cascades Glacier Climate Project. For over 15 seasons of this 34-year study, Tom Hammond has trekked to ten glaciers in the ecosystem to measure the mass and exact location of these vast plains of moving ice. The project is referenced by glaciologists the world over. Tom is a passionate observer of the mountains, an exemplar of citizen science and a photographer with a keen eye. Join him for his unique view of the Wild Nearby.   

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Join the NCCC work party October 1

Join the board in volunteering at North Cascades National Park on Saturday, October 1. 
We will meet at Diablo Overlook along Highway 20 at 11 am if the weather is nice to remove invasive plants, and plant natives. 
If the weather is wet, we’ll meet at Marblemount Ranger Station-Miller Greenhouse.
Please RSVP to ncccinfo@northcascades.org by August 31 if you plan to attend. Thanks!

Friday, June 17, 2016

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Huge win: JBLM suspends proposal to send helicopters to North Cascades

JBLM suspends proposal to send helicopters to North Cascades

Outdoors advocacy groups challenged Army proposal for high-altitude training
Army looking for more training sites for helicopter units it added during Iraq War
Initial proposal asked for landing zones in Wenatchee, Mount Baker forests


Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article70724827.html#storylink=cpy

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Say No to Dam Building and New Water Rights in the Alpine Lakes - March 30th at the Phinney Center in Seattle

Come show your support for Wilderness values!

PLEASE ATTEND an environmental scoping meeting for water projects affecting the
Alpine Lakes Wilderness.
WHEN: Wednesday, March 30 at 7:00 PM
WHERE: Phinney Center, 6532 Phinney Avenue N, Seattle 98103 (just west of Green Lake)

Two government agencies (State Department of Ecology and Chelan County) are now evaluating 
whether to build dams, manipulate water levels, and issue water rights for several lakes in the Alpine  Lakes Wilderness. Their goal is to extract more water for “new home construction” (a.k.a. suburban 
development) in the City of Leavenworth and elsewhere in the Wenatchee Valley.

The Alpine Lakes Wilderness needs YOU!  This is serious business:  the proposed plan would cost an estimated $65 million, and the state Legislature has allocated $3 million for preliminary analysis.
The Alpine Lakes Wilderness is a wild area many people use and care about.  But the project proponents appear oblivious to the presence of wilderness issues, and they would rename the Alpine Lakes as “reservoirs”.  

The Alpine Lakes Wilderness is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, which must also prepare an 
environmental analysis to ensure protection of wilderness values.  Although this federal process has not started, the Forest Service will closely monitor public input at the Ecology/Chelan County meetings.  

There are three opportunities to tell the agencies that the Alpine Lakes Wilderness is a shared natural 
resource that must be respected and protected.  
 The Seattle public meeting on March 30, 7 PM, at Phinney Center (see info above).
 A Leavenworth public meeting on April 20, 2016, 4-8 PM, at Leavenworth Fire Hall.
 A public comment deadline of May 11, 2016.  Comments go to mike.kaputa@co.chelan.wa.us  
More information, including environmental documents, can be found on the agency websites: 
http://www.co.chelan.wa.us/natural-resources/pages/icicle-work-group
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/cwp/icicle.html
For critical analysis, see the NAIADS blog:  https://naiads.wordpress.com/

Get involved in protecting your Wilderness!  Contact Alpine Lakes Protection Society (ALPS) at:

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

S. Fork Stillaguamish River valley to be subjected to "landscape scale thinning" unless you write!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the forest ....

A 65,000 acre “Project Area,” of which 6,750 acres are to be thinned in the S. Fk. Stilly drainage!  This is the popular west side of the Mountain Loop Scenic Byway, just east of Granite Falls, an hour's drive from Seattle, and a very popular recreational area.

We urge you to send your comments to MBS opposing this project immediately. You might note that “Vegetation Management”  = logging.

The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest (MBS) is beginning the environmental analysis for the South Fork Stillaguamish Vegetation Project. This project proposes a landscape scale thinning of second-growth stands within the S.F. of the Stillaguamish River drainage, including Canyon Creek. You are invited to review the proposed project and provide comment on what issues the analysis should address.
This vegetation management project is located on the Darrington Ranger District, east of Granite Falls in Snohomish County, Washington.  The project would thin second-growth timber stands within the S.F. Stillaguamish River drainage to promote forest stand structure that would serve as habitat for old-growth associated species and maintain and enhance Riparian Reserve conditions.
Additional information on the proposed project is posted on the Forest web site S.F. Stillaguamish Vegetation Management Project: http://www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=48837In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) 36 CFR 220.4(e)(1), USFS is initiating scoping for the project, and is soliciting your input on the proposal and the identification of potential environmental issues associated with the proposed action.   Scoping comments will be considered in the environmental analysis, and may be used to modify the proposed action, develop alternatives, identify mitigation measures or analyze environmental consequences. Currently, the project analysis is proposed to be documented in an Environmental Assessment (EA) to be released following the scoping process.
Your scoping comments will be most useful if received by April 4, 2016. Emailed comments are encouraged to be sent to: comments-pacificnorthwest-mtbaker-snoqualmie-darrington@fs.fed.usComments may also be submitted at the Darrington Ranger Station, mailed to:
     Attn: S.F. Stillaguamish Vegetation Project     
     Darrington Ranger District
     1405 Emens Ave. N.
     Darrington, WA 98241
 Darrington Ranger District office hours for submitting oral, telephone, or hand-delivered comments are 8:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Comments may also be faxed to (360) 436-1309. For further information, please contact Phyllis Reed at (360) 436-2332.
Comments received in response to this invitation, including names and addresses of those who comment, will be part of the Project Record and available for public review. We appreciate your continued interest in the management of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

Friday, February 26, 2016

The Winter 2016 issue of The Wild Cascades is coming soon!


Members will see their copies arrive in a week or so. Not a member? JOIN US!

Military “incursions” threaten all northwest
Yakima Plan update
Revising the Northwest Forest Plan
NCCC responds to “Darrington Collaborative” proposals
Remembering Wolf Bauer
In Memoriam: Margaret Miller
UnSustainable roads
Corvid’s eye
Cascade Rambles: RIP Queen of the Middle Fork
Murray receives Alpine Lakes recognition
Varying views on grizzlies: responses to McGuire


Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Cascade Rambles: Into the North Fork Canyon where a hydro project is planned

By Rick McGuire
This article first appeared in the Fall 2015 issue of The Wild Cascades

    Regular readers of The Wild Cascades may recall reports in previous issues about the threat posed to the lower North Fork Snoqualmie river by Black Canyon Hydro, an entity proposing to divert the waters of the North Fork out of their natural course through a canyon at the northwestern base of Mount Si and into a pipe and powerhouse to produce a small amount of hydroelectricity.
Low-power hydro projects such as the Black Canyon proposal are a threat to many streams in the Cascades. A number have been built already, with many more proposed. They produce very little in the way of energy but can do a lot of harm. Rivers and creeks above barriers to salmon migration, such as the North Fork Snoqualmie above Snoqualmie Falls, are especially at risk.
    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is the licensing body for such projects. FERC had recently approved the construction of two of these projects on tributaries of the North Fork, Calligan and Hancock creeks. Another existing project is on Rachor Creek, just above the North Fork canyon where this new project is proposed. If the Black Canyon project is approved, it will mean four such projects very close to one another in the North Fork watershed, with no analysis of the cumulative effects of diverting so much water into pipes.
    Proponents always argue that these projects are small and not very significant. But just about every place in the Cascades where water flows downhill is potentially at risk from these schemes. One here, one there, may not make much difference. But added up across the whole landscape, they make a very big difference.
    One need only to look at Switzerland to see the end result of building hydro projects everywhere they can be built. Water flowing downhill in a creek or river bed is a seldom seen sight there. Just about every stream is diverted into a pipe. A few waterfalls are partially turned on to please tourists in a few beauty spots on summer afternoons. But other than that, falling water is not part of the Swiss landscape. The sound of rushing water is not heard.
    The Black Canyon project on the North Fork Snoqualmie is a particularly bad proposal that would fly in the face of several protective designations. Part of the North Fork that would be dewatered is within the Mt. Si Natural Resource Conservation Area (NRCA), Washington state’s near-equivalent of Wilderness for state managed lands. NRCAs are established to protect natural values, and it is hard to see how dewatering a river is consistent with those goals.
    The stretch of the North Fork in question has also been designated as an area protected from hydroelectric development by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, an entity established by Congress to plan and direct power development and conservation across the Northwest. 
New hydropower development is allowed in protected river reaches only if it can provide some sort of extraordinary environmental benefit. It is hard to see how this project could do so. 
NWPCC’s designations do not carry force of law, but FERC has so far never approved a project on any river reach protected by them. 
     The North Fork Snoqualmie canyon is not easy to get to. Houses crowd up to its downstream end, walling off public access to the Mt. Si NRCA beyond. The Department of Natural Resources has an administrative (not public) access easement over some nearby private lands. I had previously explored much of the forest along the rim of the canyon, but never gone down into it. DNR’s new Natural Areas manager was interested in seeing the canyon, so we set off late one hot afternoon in early August to get an idea of what is at stake.
    The way in across the easement is a circuitous one, requiring first a hike uphill on an old logging road, then a drop down through the woods to the North Fork canyon. We took off up the old road through the early August heat, checking out the status of some holly removal we had done earlier in the year (satisfactory, but more work needed away from the road.)
It wasn’t long before we had to leave the old road and go downhill. Most of this part of Mt. Si is comprised of talus fans below big rock walls above. The talus slopes are mostly forested with attractive, mature second growth, probably 80 or so years old. There is even a patch of that rarest of the rare, old-growth Douglas fir, that escaped the early logging, with trees more than 500 years old, though our route down into the canyon did not take us that way. Other nearby slopes have groves of picturesque, wide spreading bigleaf maples, similar to those that John Muir wrote about when he visited the Snoqualmie valley sometime around 1889.
    Although the talus slopes look like woods, not talus, from afar, they feel like talus when you walk on them. A dense undergrowth of sword fern makes it difficult to see where your feet are going. You have to literally feel your way along, and hope that you don’t end up in a hole. It doesn’t make for easy walking. We came across a dry, rocky streambed, and decided to follow it down for a ways since it offered a way to see where we were stepping. The map said we needed to lose about 700 feet of elevation into the canyon. The streambed took us part way, and where it veered off and got too steep we left it in order to follow the lowest gradient route down.
    The bottom part of the route took us down through some very impressive second growth on a sort of ramp that seemed to offer the one way into the canyon that wasn’t very steep. The river and canyon make a series of twists and turns, and we followed a route down into the inside of a “U” bend where we thought we could reach the river without too much trouble. We went out almost to the end of the bend, turned left, dropped down a final slope through some brush and found ourselves standing on the North Fork riverbed.
    Here we were, finally, along the North Fork in the canyon that would be dewatered should the Black Canyon hydro project be built. We decided to walk upstream and see what we could see. River gage reports were that the North Fork was flowing at about 38 cfs, near an all-time minimum. That didn’t sound like much before we left, but now that we were really there it looked like a lot more water than I thought it would. The riverbed got rockier and rockier, and the pools deeper. Before we left, we had imagined that with the hot weather we might possibly wade or even swim across pools if we had to. But down in the real canyon, the river soon curved away into deep shade. There was a distinctly cool, even chilly current of air coming down the canyon for what had seemed earlier like a really hot day. Getting wet did not seem like a good idea, so we went as far as we could before deep pools blocked the way.
    As befits a rainforest canyon, everything was draped in green. Big second-growth trees lined both sides, even the northwest, non-DNR, non-NRCA side where it looked like forest practice regulations had kept former owner Weyerhaeuser from logging right down to the river, though the cutting came close to it. 
On that other side of the river we saw where water from Canyon Springs, located somewhere up the slope, came pouring down in surprising volume. Somewhere up above us was a pipeline taking water from the springs to supply part of the City of Snoqualmie’s needs.

    With our upstream progress stopped, we turned around and followed the river back down below where we had first reached it, to where we were again halted by deep pools. We could see ahead where the river dropped away. We briefly considered whether it would be wise to forge on and follow the river down, taking our chances on coming out in someone’s back yard, since there was no other practical way up and out other than the way we had come down. But the lateness of the hour, after 5 p.m., the cool current of air, and the uncertainty of what and who we would find led us to go back up the way we came.
    So, somewhat reluctantly, we turned around. “Normal” hikes go uphill on the way “in” and downhill on the way “out.” Here we had to go back up on the way out and regain the 700 feet of elevation we had lost coming down off the old road, battling up through the sword fern and wondering where our feet might stop. We again found the dry streambed and followed it up partway to where it started looking too steep and scary, then went back into the talus/woods. I have to admit that the old road was a welcome sight, marking as it did the end of an arduous if not very long climb.
From there on it was all downhill, an easy stroll compared to the sword fern climb. We hadn’t been able to explore as much of the canyon as we had wanted to, but we had managed to make it there and back. DNR’s defense of its Natural Resource Conservation Area here could be critical, and at least now their Natural Areas manager could speak with the authority of having actually been there, always a worthwhile thing.
    Not just NCCC but a number of other conservation groups will be watching this proposal closely. To the north, at Sunset Falls on the South Fork Skykomish river, Snohomish P.U.D. is trying to build a low-power hydro project. It too is in a NWPCC-protected reach. The “extraordinary benefit” in that case appears to be an offer to pay for continued operation of a trap and haul facility, where anadromous fish are captured below Sunset Falls and trucked and released upstream for spawning in river reaches above the falls where they never occurred naturally. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says it can no longer afford to operate the trap and haul.
    Not everyone thinks that the trap and haul is really an environmental benefit. The introduced anadromous fish displaced resident fish populations. Eagles once nested along the South Fork Sky and fed on resident trout. They no longer do so, but they do scavenge salmon carcasses in winter. Gains were offset by losses.
    At least a case is being made for “benefits” on the South Fork Sky, even if it is a poor one. 
It is hard to see what possible benefits can be claimed for taking water out of the North Fork Snoqualmie. Yet the proponents forge ahead, acting as if the NRCA and NWPCC designations mean nothing.
    Do they know something that the rest of us don’t? Hard to say, but it seems very strange. If they can build this project despite it being within a state Natural Resource Conservation Area, and a NW Power and Conservation Council protected river reach, then truly no place is safe, and we could see proposals even within National Parks and Wilderness areas. The Black Canyon Hydro proposal is a test case if ever there was one. If they can build one here, they can, and will, build them everywhere water runs downhill, and we could see the end of cascades in The Cascades.