Home | Contact Us | About Us | Join CELP | Ralph W. Johnson
Okanogan Water Future
Tunk Valley & Exempt Wells
The annual springtime phone calls to the ranchers, from the wildlife biologist, started in the 1980’s. The call was a request for access to ranch land, to count sharp-tail grouse.
In April of 1992, with an eight-month-old baby strapped to her back, landowner Nancy Soriano, curious to see what all the fuss was about, asked to join the bird count. They started at 5:30 a.m. to search the Tunk Valley shrub steppe. The temperatures were below freezing.
The Tunk Valley, at dawn in the early spring, was a revelation. The Valley was like a giant amphitheater, resonating and alive with birdsong of the many migratory songbirds that arrive in the spring.
The sharp-tail grouse do not sing. They are Dancers.
Now, twenty years later, the baby in the backpack is in college and the sharp-tails are truly vanishing -- from the planet.
Tunk Valley supports what is considered the most important sharp-tail population remaining in the state, outside of the Colville Reservation.
In 1998 the State of WA listed sharp-tail grouse as a Threatened Species. Twice, these grouse have been candidates for listing as Federally Endangered.
Sharp-tail Grouse have already been completely extirpated in other states where they used to be common.
About Grouse.
Many species of grouse inhabit the western United States and Canada, including sage grouse, rock ptarmigan, and others. Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse were once the most abundant game bird in Washington; now it is the rarest of the six subspecies of sharp-tailed grouse in North America.
The survival implications of a bird with a nickname of ‘prairie chicken’ cannot be avoided: most grouse species, including sharp-tail, have been in decline for a hundred years or more. The problem is habitat loss, primarily due to conversion of native grasslands to agriculture, and isolation of the few remaining populations. In Washington there are but 8 small and isolated breeding populations occupying 3 percent of historic range.
Major efforts are underway to re-establish sharp-tailed grouse populations in the eastern Washington’s coulee country.
This is where the cattle come in.
Water is Habitat, Water is Life.
While the Soriano Ranch finds itself capable and willing to share acreage with sharp-tailed grouse, a larger problem looms.
In the spring, streamflow can briefly run as high as 50 cubic feet per second (cfs). By contrast, in July through September, the average streamflow is only .2 to .02 cfs.
Groundwater also supplies the few homes in the valley, as well as the cattle. The Soriano well provides significantly less than it did when it was drilled over twenty years ago. The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) stated in 1974, that there was barely enough water in Tunk Valley to support domestic needs of the approximately 25 homes in the Valley at that time.
Water conservation is absolutely essential to ensure enough for the most basic of uses – drinking, culinary, and livestock needs.
Water at Risk.
Tunk Valley is 73 square miles, and the largest contiguous block of shrub steppe habitat in Okanogan County. But Okanogan County’s zoning map reveals a big surprise: Okanogan County proposes zoning the 53,000 acres into 1 and 5 acre parcels – a potential development nightmare. Sharp-tail grouse could not withstand such fragmentation of their habitat and intensive land use.
Washington state uses the “prior appropriation” system (first in time, first in right) to allocate water, and all users must obtain a water right from the state. But there’s an exception to that requirement for small domestic wells. Thus it is possible that new homes in Tunk Valley would simply drill their water supply wells without any oversight from the state to protect existing water rights and the public interest. That public interest includes protecting sharp-tail grouse winter habitat along Tunk Creek. State Law requires the protection of this State Threatened Species and its habitat.
The County is also required to protect the Tunk Creek and streamflow as it provides habitat for spawning steelhead, which are protected federally as an endangered species.
Fortunately, the Washington Supreme Court issued a common sense ruling in August 2011 regarding the linkages between land use and water supply. Counties must assure that water is available when they approve new subdivisions and building permits. That means that Okanogan County must assess Tunk Valley’s water resources and cannot allow new development if water supply is not adequate.
Counties are a long way from implementing the Court’s new ruling, and there are rumors that developers may seek a new law reversing the court decision. That would be a real shame, because if a stream or aquifer does not have enough water to serve new growth, then that’s a fact that needs to be acknowledged and respected.
So far, sharp-tailed grouse still dart and flutter and strut through Tunk Valley. Water, a key ingredient for their survival, still flows in Tunk Creek. With vigilance, and proper water management, may it ever be so.
Sources:
Connelly, J.W. 2010. Habitat Needs and Protection for the Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse in Washington with Emphasis on Okanogan County. Dept. of Biological Sciences, Idaho State University, Pocatello.
Hays, D.W., M.J. Tirhi and D.J. Stinson. 2008. Washington State Status Report for the Sharp-tailed Grouse. Washington Dept. of Fish & Wildlife, Olympia.
Schroeder, M., et al. 2010. Re-Establishment of Viable Populations of Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse in Washington: 2010 Progress Report. Washington Dept. of Fish & Wildlife, Olympia. 23 pp.
Stinson, D. W., and M. A. Schroeder. 2010. Draft Washington State Recovery Plan for the Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympia. 150+ viii pp.
Sumioka, S.S. and R.S. Dinicola. 2009. Groundwater/Surface-Water Interactions in the Tunk, Bonaparte, Antoine and Tonasket Creek Subbasins, Okanogan River Basin, North-Central Washington, 2008. U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2009–5143, 26 pp.
Tunk Valley Website Contents:
Links:
Contacts:
- CELP: info@celp.org
Okanogan Water Future
-Methow River - MVID