By: Alex Craven, Our Wild America Organizer

Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Central Washington is the most visited Wilderness area in the United States, offering permanent protections for 400,000+ acre section of the Cascade Range. Unfortunately, state agencies and county officials are considering water infrastructure proposals that could lead to new, larger dams, tunnel drilling projects, and even flooding existing wilderness.

Last summer, more than 1,600 Sierra Club members submitted comments to the Icicle Work Group (an interagency working group consisting of Chelan County and the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Office of Columbia River), on a Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) that called for adding and reconstructing dams within the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, including sections of The Enchantments. The group sought to address streamflow needs for Icicle Creek with a particular emphasis on adding or reconstructing dams within the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, including sections of The Enchantments.

Our ask: an EIS that did not pit water rights against Wilderness values. Unfortunately, the final programmatic EIS released last month by the Icicle Work Group does just that.

Some of the goals outlined by the IWG are widely shared. There is no doubt that we need to consider climate change and the adverse impacts it will have in the Northwest. We must also ensure that rivers and streams continue to be suitable habitat for fish and our other iconic species.

However, the alternatives identified in the EIS were a significant cause for concern and, in a few instances, showed a brazen disregard for federal laws regarding how a Wilderness Area is managed. While the existing structures were grandfathered in, the proposed alternatives involving drilling a tunnel between the two Klonaqua Lakes to interconnect water supplies, as well as building newer and higher dams to raise several lakes and flood existing Wilderness, are not suitable in a Wilderness area. Moreover, raising dams to levels well beyond historic structure heights in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness would set a national precedent jeopardizing the foundational protections of the Wilderness Act.

Sierra Club opposes the findings and omissions of the final EIS regarding the impacts of damming Alpine Lakes Wilderness. The Alpine Lakes Wilderness is an irreplaceable treasure for outdoor enthusiasts. The value of The Enchantments cannot be simply measured in cubic feet per second of water delivered to the irrigation district.

The impacts of these proposed actions on our wilderness area is clear and Washingtonians deserve better solutions for managing our water resources and protecting our wilderness areas.

For more information or to stay involved in protecting Alpine Lakes Wilderness, please contact alex.craven@sierraclub.org.

Picture credit: Alex Craven