EPHRATA — The Yakama Nation believes the Draft Environmental Impact Statement published in February by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the Priest Rapids Hydroelectric Project is "very premature," "significantly incomplete" and "patently defective."

The DEIS, a milestone for Grant County Public Utility District as it seeks a second 50-year license to operate the Priest Rapids Project, documents the views of all parties interested in the new license, including Indian tribes, the public, governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations.

The utility filed for a second long-term license in October 2003.

The original project license expired last year and the utility now operates under an annual license issued by FERC until a final decision is made on the new license. The current annual license extends through October 2006.

During the recent comment period provided by FERC after it published the DEIS, the Yakama Nation, through their attorney Tim Weaver in Yakima, submitted a 15-page letter on May 2 to FERC explaining their view of the DEIS.

In the letter, Weaver said the DEIS was incomplete because it did not include an analysis of a settlement agreement between federal, state and tribal parties to resolve disagreements related to salmon and steelhead which pass or are impacted by Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams.

Weaver addressed several of Yakama Nation's concerns about the DEIS, including protection of cultural resources, but the salmon and steelhead settlement agreement was the primary concern.

The settlement agreement was signed by the utility's board of commissioners in December 2005 and was to become a comprehensive and long-term management program for the protection, mitigation and enhancement of fish species covered by the agreement.

The Yakama Nation did not sign the settlement agreement, but they were invited to do so by the other parties.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, state Department of Fish and Wildlife and Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation negotiated the settlement with the PUD and signed the agreement.

"FERC's failure to wait 'a few days' to include the agreement and an analysis in this DEIS has effectively prevented any effective comments on that agreement by Yakama, whose treaty reserved rights are significantly impacted by that agreement," Weaver wrote.

"FERC's failure to undertake an analysis of the agreement, and its intention to deal with the agreement in the FEIS (Final Environment Impact Statement), where no comment is allowed, renders the DEIS patently defective, as it deprives the Yakamas of the opportunity for comment on a key license condition/article," he continued.

Weaver said because FERC did not analyze the settlement agreement in the DEIS, the federal agency must prepare a supplemental DEIS before a final statement on the Priest Rapids Project license is issued.

Stephen Brown, the utility's director of natural resources, said a supplemental DEIS would delay their goal of receiving a new license.

Brown said that including an analysis of the settlement agreement would likely have taken more than a few days to complete.

"It depends on what stage FERC was at when the settlement agreement came in," he said. "They were probably pretty well through the draft EIS by the time the settlement agreement was submitted."

Producing the DEIS is a major undertaking, he said, and he was satisfied with FERC's performance.

"No matter what you do, there is somebody that's not going to be happy with what you did, no matter how thorough you are," Brown said.

He said it will be FERC's decision whether a supplement DEIS is completed to include an analysis of the settlement agreement. He believes much of the management strategies in the settlement agreement have already been discussed and evaluated.

"The fact of the matter is, the settlement agreement basically has most of everything that is in the license application anyway," Brown said. "The settlement agreement had been discussed and the technical items had been generally agreed to for many months, if not years, through the discussion process."

Depending on FERC's decision on a supplement, Brown said he did not expect the final environmental impact statement to be issued before sometime this fall.

A call made to FERC representative Charles Hall was not returned by press time.