News-Times Whidbey
WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2012 | Vol. 113, No. 39 | www.whidbeynewstimes.com | 75¢
Navy’s golf course water right angers nearby residents By JESSIE STENSLAND Staff reporter
Neighbors of the Navy’s Gallery Golf Course on North Whidbey were surprised to discover that up to 39 million gallons of water each year will be drawn from a well to irrigate the greens. The Navy was granted a water right through the state Department of Ecology last June, but residents weren’t aware of the plans until long after the official comment period was over and the decisions had been made. Bruce Saari, who lives across the road from the 18-hole course, found out after the county’s hydrogeologist asked if he would monitor his well to see if the new pumping affects water levels. He immediately started making calls and researching the golf course’s plans. He said he was alarmed by the sheer volume of the water right and the fact that so few people in the community or county government were aware of it. “Everyone is slicing and dicing the water here and the only one missing from the table is the community,” he said. Yet it’s clear that the Navy followed the law and obtained the water right based on a groundwater modeling study conducted by one of the top hydrogeology firms in the state, which was then reviewed by another firm and a state official. “It was justified from the science. It was justified from the statutes,” said Doug Wood, a hydrogeologist for the Water Resources Program of the Department of Ecology. He was the technical manager of the project. The required legal notices about the water
right application ran twice in the Whidbey NewsTimes in 2010, but there was no additional outreach or public notification. The Department of Ecology received no public comment during two opencomment periods. Saari said people who should have been made aware, like County Commissioner Angie Homola and members of a county water conservancy board, didn’t know anything about the application until he alerted them. The county isn’t involved in the process of granting water rights, but he points out that local officials have a wealth of knowledge about groundwater. More than 30 neighbors of the golf course gathered earlier this month for an impromptu meeting about the water right. One of the neighbors, Jan Helwig, said everyone was pretty worried. “I don’t think we need to risk water contamination and depletion because of a golf course,” she said. Saari opined that the pumping could have impacts as far south as Penn Cove. “A 39 million gallon withdrawal would be equivalent to drilling 278 new private wells into the aquifer, each serving a family of four,” he said. “The difference is that the Navy would be withdrawing the 39 million gallons during the dry season only.” Commissioner Homola said she shares the residents’ concerns, but she feels reassured that monitoring of the wells can help prevent any problems. The Navy must monitor the wells that are being drawn from and the county is monitoring a couple of wells in the neighborhood. See Golf, A4
SPORTS: Wildcats win Wesco. A9
‘There is a significant amount of environmental resources at risk’
Justin Burnett / Whidbey News-Times
A fireboat works to put out the flames on the Deep Sea, a 128-foot crab boat that caught fire in Penn Cove late Saturday evening.
Hang the cost, burned, sunken boat to be raised By JUSTIN BURNETT Staff reporter
No matter the cost, the 128-foot crab boat that caught fire and then sank in Penn Cove this weekend will be raised and removed, according to officials with the state Department of Natural Resources. Toni Droscher, spokeswoman for the agency, confirmed that the huge steel fishing vessel is not too big to pluck from the bottom, but it will be expensive and it’s a cost that will initially be borne by taxpayers. “We will get that boat out of there,” Droscher said. “We have to protect the resource.” The Deep Sea, which has been illegally anchored in Penn Cove for months,
caught fire late Saturday evening. The blaze raged unchecked for about two hours before fireboats from Camano Island Fire and Rescue and the U.S. Coast Guard arrived and began hitting the vessel with water. Flames on deck had largely been extinguished by 2:30 a.m. Sunday but fires continued to burn below. Firefighting efforts had to be temporarily suspended due to fear of the boat sinking but resumed again at daylight. At about 6 p.m., about 19 hours after it first caught fire, the vessel finally succumbed and sank in about 60 feet of water just outside Penn Cove Shellfish’s mussel rafts. See Fire, A7
Justin Burnett / Whidbey News-Times
A Camano Island Fire and Rescue boat douses the Deep Sea as it smolders Sunday in Penn Cove. The 128-foot crab boat eventually sank.