Chelan County Emergency Management Holding Meeting About Eightmile Lake Dam

Chelan County Emergency Management is hosting a public meeting to address the current situation at Eightmile Lake Dam.  The meeting will be held  at 7:00 p.m. Monday, May 14th at Fire District #3 located at 228 Chumstick Road in Leavenworth.

The dam is located in the Alpine Lake Wilderness and operated by the Icicle-Peshastin Irrigation District. It is nearly 100 years old and in a deteriorating condition. Because the area was significantly burned in the Jack Creek wildfire in 2017, Eightmile Lake is more vulnerable to erosion and flash flooding, which could overwhelm the dam. A breach of the dam could cause a significant wave of water to flow down Eightmile Creek into Icicle Creek near Eightmile Campground and quickly raise the level of Icicle Creek.

There is an increasing level of concern about the dam and we want to share information for impacted residents, landowners, and visitors. Currently, there are no actual evacuation notifications in place for Icicle River residents, but we ask residents within the affected area to be prepared to evacuate as conditions change.

CCEM is asking residents, landowners, and visitors along the Icicle Creek to sign up for the AlertSense notification system

Icicle River residents or property owners without cell phones or cell phone service in that area are asked to contact CCEM at (509)667-6863 to share their contact information.

Monitoring equipment that could warn of a flash flood will be installed at the site on Friday.  The devices include a lake level monitor, streamflow monitoring equipment below the dam, and a rain guage.

Chelan County Emergency Management is working with the Icicle-Peshastin Irrigation District and the Department of Ecology Dam Safety Office to monitor conditions at the dam while developing a plan to reduce the risk of a dam failure. We are also working with the U.S. Forest Service, which owns the land at the dam site.

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