By Joel Connelly

May 29, 2013

The staid Forterra awards breakfast at Seattle Convention Center took on the momentary feel of a rock concert on Wednesday morning.  iPhones were thrust into the air at the command of ex-state Ecology Director Jay Manning, who dictated a message to be sent that moment to legislators in Olympia:

Save the Teanaway River.

The group Forterra (formerly Cascade Land Conservancy) has preserved such places as an old growth forest in Lynnwood, a 10-acre wild land in industrial Tukwila, and cedar snags at the mouth of the Olympic Peninsula’s Copalis River, killed by the last “Big One” quake and tsunami in 1701.  Its latest triumph, announced Wednesday, was acquiring 535 acres of forest and a 1.5 mile Port Gamble Bay shoreline on the Kitsap Peninsula.

But Forterra has bigger fish to fry.  It’s trying to persuade the state Legislature to acquire 50,000 acres of private land in the Teanaway River valley, just north of Cle Elum and gateway to the Wenatchee Mountains.

If successful — the total price tag to purchase the land outright is $97 million — the Teanaway would mark the state’s largest public land acquisition in 45 years.

“It would be an enormously important conservation achievement,” said Charlie Raines of the Sierra Club, who has spent 30 years working on acquisition of “checkerboard” private land interspersed with U.S. Forest Service holdings in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and the Interstate 90 corridor.

The Teanaway is a legendary place.  The north fork road gives trail access to a spectacular corner of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area with such destinations as Ingalls Lake, Longs Pass, Sophie’s Tarn and Esmeralda Basin.  The wild west fork is home to one of the wolf packs repopulating the Cascades. Wolverines have also been spotted in the upper Teanaway, said Forterra Executive Director Gene Duvernoy.

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Editorial Board

March 7, 2013

A long journey consists of many single steps, each of which takes an entity in the desired direction. Similarly, what may appear to be a tiny step in Kittitas County could point the way for a stronger future throughout the Yakima River Basin.

More than a decade in the making, a $7 million project on Manastash Creek, west of Ellensburg, will ensure irrigation water for farmers and conserve water for fish — a win-win for all the parties involved.

…

On a fisheries scale, the project stands to offer tiny yet tangible benefits for fish in the Yakima and Columbia rivers. On a political scale, this effort can serve as a model for arriving at agreement on a $5 billion Yakima River Basin plan that, like the Manastash project, entails ensuring irrigation rights and fish conservation. An additional component of the basin plan, of course, is expanded water storage — a much more complex issue.

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By Mike Johnston

February 27, 2013

A $45 million funding request to the state Legislature would make more water available to the Yakima River basin and improve fish runs, wildlife habitat, the environment and recreation at the same time, according to supporters who spoke in favor of the funding proposal in Olympia last week.

The bill would kick off work on a list of important projects that are part of the estimated $5 billion, 20-year Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Program’s Integrated Water Resource Management Plan.