A year into learning of a plan to enclose more than 10,000 feet of Sequim’s original irrigation ditch in pipe through the City of Sequim and many of their backyards, a group of neighbors, stakeholders and local residents continue to push back against the effort.

They’ve lobbied project owners Sequim Prairie-Tri Irrigation Association (SPTIA) and the Clallam Conservation District, the project’s managing agency, to pull back for multiple reasons.

Some are seeking to maintain the ditch’s original, historical appearance, while others insist the piping is not part of the easement, and that the project would dry up their wells, kill trees and negatively impact wildlife.

Under the “Irrigation Efficiencies and Improvement Project,” SPTIA’s directors plan to install 10,200 feet of pipe along the Sequim Prairie’s main ditch for irrigation water south of U.S. Highway 101 and east of the Dungeness River that goes north behind Walmart, through the Jennie’s Meadow development, and then east through dozens of parcels, stopping just before Fifth Avenue.

The ditch was the first to flow through Sequim after the first headgate on the Dungeness River was lifted on May 1, 1895, according to the Sequim Irrigation Festival’s website.

Planning documents state a second portion of the Improvement Project (called Eureka-Independent) plans to pipe 1,300 feet of previously piped ditch on the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s Healing Campus to near behind Domino’s Pizza on Washington Street.

SPTIA’s $2.4 million project looks to improve instream flows in the Dungeness River and save about 1.75 cubic feet per second, or 533 acre-feet of water, according to the Clallam Conservation District.

The Bureau of Reclamation has granted about $1.5 million to SPTIA and the Department of Ecology for the project through the WaterSMART and Irrigation Efficiencies Program.

Gary Smith, a SPTIA board member, said in an interview the project is a continuing response “to endangered species requirements needed to make progress in saving water and leaving more water for fish in the Dungeness River.”

“We’ve been piping for 20-plus years,” he said.

District Manager Kim Williams for the Clallam Conservation District, said via email they’ve considered alternatives but “at this early stage it is unknown if there will be changes.”

She said past piping projects have led to “incredible water savings” of more than 25 cubic feet per second (cfs) in the Dungeness River “helping both the fish and the farmers tremendously with a complex and difficult issue.”

“The main purpose of piping our open irrigation ditches is to decrease any water losses that often happen from water conveyance in an open ditch,” she said.

According to Williams, the Dungeness River’s low flows in the late summer are a critical problem for four endangered fish species — Puget Sound Chinook, Hood Canal Summer Chum, Puget Sound Steelhead and bull trout — and also for a healthy population of species of concern: the Pacific lamprey.

She said the project is a “double win” for fish and farmers “because piping irrigation canals is a solution that saves water in the Dungeness River for fish as well as other in-stream organisms and it helps protect water resources for our farmers and landowners who depend on irrigation water for their livelihood.”

“The time is critical to do all we can to save water in the river especially in light of climate changes such as drought, early snowpack and glacier melt, and low to no rainfall mixed with high late summer temperatures,” she said.

A Conservation District FAQ webpage on irrigation piping, reports that about 90% of irrigation water is used by farm related activities and about 10% for landscaping activities.

Neighbors’ input

Some SPTIA shareholders said they learned of the irrigation project at the shareholders’ annual board meeting on Jan. 30, 2023 without previous public discussion.

Virginia Shogren, a SPTIA shareholder, said via email that “the irrigation piping plan had been adopted without documentation provided and was going forward without shareholder notice, reply and consent.” She requested corporate records last March, which Smith said they supplied.

Shogren said the bylaws of SPTIA, or the Ditch Company, state the “ditch is an open ditch, except for several siphons and culverts” and she feels it’s the company directors’ job to maintain the ditch for the shareholders.

The terms of the easement do not show “a clear intention by the original parties to modify the initial scope based on future demands (and, citing case law), the easement is for maintenance of an irrigation ditch, only, and may not be converted to accommodate future technology or additional demands,” she said.

Some of the many things she and residents oppose are pressurized pipes running through their properties — because they feel they could be blocked and could cause a safety hazard — and heavy machinery entering their properties for construction.

From her public information request, Shogren said SPTIA’s records and minutes state that there were concerns about repair and “blowouts” of existing pipes, maintenance concerns, tree roots infiltrating pipes, and engineering issues with pressurized pipes.

She said allowing SPTIA to “breach” the easement would set a precedent that could lead to more intrusiveness such as an access road to monitor pipes.

Fellow water shareholder Judy Larson said in an interview many of the neighbors are environmentally-minded and she feels there’s been a lot of positive impact from the 66 miles of piping the Clallam Conservation District has led, but she wants to know more about the positive and negative impact on salmonids, wildlife and homeowners.

She said some residents who have had their ditches piped reported they’ve lost trees, shallow wells and saw wildlife go away.

Larson said they’ve received 60-plus petition signatures from residents opposed to the project.

Shogren and neighbors feel SPTIA is also relying on an outdated environmental impact statement (EIS) and doesn’t account for anything above ground, such as trees.

At the Jan. 9 Conservation District meeting, Shogren testified that the project would destroy Jennie’s Meadow’s “Core Protection Zone and Wildlife Corridor” that creates tree canopy and habitat for bald eagles and other wildlife. She said its plat map doesn’t show an easement that would allow piping in the zone, and it would require removal of an extensive amount of trees.

“The (Conservation District) has no authority to destroy a designated wildlife corridor, either directly or indirectly, via the SPTIA,” she said. “The Jennie’s Meadow Plat Map and associated Priest Pastures Bald Eagle Nest Territory Site Management Plan constitute further grounds for finding that the piping project is lacking in lawful authority and must be terminated.”

Clallam resident Rob White said at the same meeting that,“there have been a lot of questions asked, nothing’s been answered” from SPTIA and the district.

He said he felt current projects have been destroying all the remaining green space in Sequim.

“This is a culture thing: wells trees, green spaces … [and] here we are, destroying fish, wildlife. This affects everybody,” he said.

“What are we going to have, an Irrigation Pipeline Festival?” he asked. “I think this just needs to be ended. There are some serious problems here.”

“I know every square inch of this ditch. I’ve walked every square inch of that ditch. I’ve maintained it.”

Shogren said in an email she has “a growing concern that 66 miles of ditches have been piped in without an adequate review of the environmental impact, including immense loss of tree canopy.”

“Given the lack of piping easements on our project, I also question whether sufficient easements and permits are in place for past projects,” she said.

Response

Smith said after they received a cease and desist letter from Shogren, and they hired a lawyer, found the history of local piping projects and wrote back to her that they have the legal right to do the project, and that it’s been proven in court.

“We’re going to do it similarly to how it’s been done the last 20 years: a low pressure pipe that reduces risk,” he said.

As for finding compromise, Smith said they won’t consider piping only a portion of the project because “it’s not consistent with the reasons for piping.”

“We need to do the whole project,” he said.

Smith said he and his wife were raised in the area and he understands the historic point neighbors are making.

“It’s the original ditch,” he said. “I have some sympathy for that, but it doesn’t overpower the need to save water and be more efficient.

“We do have a section of ditch that’s open and will stay open on Hendrickson (Road) and Sequim Avenue by Sequim Middle School.

“There’s still a lot of ditches not piped in the valley. About half are open.”

According to the Conservation District’s FAQs page, “how landowners are informed about piping projects is up to each irrigation district and company.

“Landowners cannot prevent the piping of a ditch, but irrigation districts and companies commonly try to work cooperatively with landowners and accommodate their needs, as long as it does not unduly affect the project.

“In some cases, it might be possible to move the route of the new pipeline. When this is possible and preferred, the route is usually moved close to property lines, resulting in less encumbered property.”

Smith said the project’s purpose is to save water.

“There’s always going to be more demand than water,” he said.

“(2023) was a good example of that. All the irrigators stopped irrigating about a month early.

“Also the pressure from endangered species act. They have the right to shut us down if we’re not in compliance.”

Timeline

According to Williams, a cultural resources compliance survey is completed and they’re waiting for the Bureau of Reclamation to approve and process the report that will also go out to area tribes for review.

Joe Holtrop, former project manager and current district manager for Jefferson County Conservation District, said this is the most populated area of all the ditch piping projects he’s worked on in the last 20-plus years and he’s heard similar concerns through the years.

As for concerns of there being an out-of-date environmental study, Holtrop said the same species remain affected by the project under a study done in 2006, and that a Comprehensive Water Plan factored many kinds of scenarios using information from the Department of Ecology that hypothetically piped all of the Sequim area’s ditches.

“It looked at all the potential impacts, and evaluated if some mitigation should occur or not, and then it concluded the whole project was mitigation,” Holtrop said.

Williams estimates the first portion of the project, the Eureka-Independent’s 1,300 feet of pipeline by the Healing Clinic, will have its design finished soon and go out to bid in February. It’s tentatively set for completion by the end of March.

She anticipates selecting an engineer and for engineering to begin on the Sequim Prairie main’s 10,200 feet of pipe in the early part of this year and going to bid in late summer.

Construction on the Sequim Prairie portion would begin after Sept. 15, she said, with work finished by the end of March 2025.

This month, she said they’ll create a formal agreement with the Department of Fish and Wildlife for diversion improvements, complete diversion design and permitting by the end of June 2025, and complete diversion improvements in late summer/early fall 2025.

The District’s FAQ page addresses some of the neighbors’s concerns.

On whether a well will dry up, it states it is possible that could happen, but that there’s been few incidents since piping projects began in 1999.

Conservation District staff report that numerous groundwater studies of the Dungeness watershed predict some range of groundwater drawdown if irrigation ditches are piped. Whether or not a specific well goes dry is difficult to say and depends on the depth of the well, they said.

“The shallower the well, the greater the risk of going dry,” staff write.

“Some shallow wells have gone dry without any irrigation ditch piping having been done nearby.”

“Shallow wells are also more susceptible to contamination.”

As for the potential loss of trees and where the responsibility lies, district staff write that “woody vegetation growing in the irrigation ditch right of way (typically 10 feet on each side of the ditch) is subject to removal, whether for ditch maintenance or to replace the ditch with a pipeline.”

Those trees are property of the landowner, staff write, but the irrigation company has the right to remove them.

While planning pipe design, staff write an assessment is made to see which trees must be removed, saved, and are vulnerable to die or decline due to construction and/or loss of water from the ditch. Staff write the assessment is usually done in consultation with landowners and that the irrigation company/district will remove trees at the request of the landowner in the easement.

They add that some trees with a lack of ditch water can be irrigated to keep them healthy.

Regarding easements and whether or not pipes violate shareholder agreements, district staff write that “replacing a ditch with a pipeline complies with irrigation ditch easement terms.”

Some easements are recorded with the county, and some are not, and referred to as prescriptive easements, claimed by irrigation companies based on historical use of the land for things such as municipal water lines and buried power lines, staff said.

Easements are recorded after a pipeline is buried, staff said.

Only shareholders will have access to the water once its piped, staff said, and if a homeowner is served by an irrigation district then they are legally entitled to water.

Staff said a company will consult a water user beforehand, and for small residences, it’s typically a single turnout from the pipeline; users must install their own control valves.

Future input

For months, residents have spoken in public comment sessions of the Conservation District managers’ board meetings sharing concerns and asking questions. Williams said they welcome all public comments and limit each person to 3 minutes, but they won’t be interacting or discussing topics brought up during the meeting as its purpose is to finish district business. She encourages having “deeper conversations” via email to info@clallamcd.org.

For more about irrigation efforts in Clallam County, visit clallamcd.org/irrigationwatermngt.

Map courtesy Clallam Conservation District The “Irrigation Efficiencies and Improvement Project” would install 10,200 feet of pipe along the Sequim Prairie’s main ditch for irrigation water south of U.S. Highway 101 east of the Dungeness River by Walmart and through Jennie’s Meadow, and then east through dozens of parcels, stopping just before Fifth Avenue. A second part of the project would pipe 1,300 feet of previously piped ditch (the Eureka-Independent) on the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe’s Healing Campus to near behind Domino’s Pizza on Washington Street.