Fighting for the Right to Paddle the Cispus

The oldest exposed rocks in the Cispus River valley are estimated to be 45 million years old, which provides some sense as to how long the river has been settling into its course. On the contrary, the Cowlitz Falls Dam took no more than four years to rise from bedrock once the go-ahead was given to plug the natural flow in favor of hydroelectric power.

When it comes to complying with mitigation requirements that were laid out in the original planning and negotiation process for the dam, it seems the powers that be would rather mimic the glacial pace of mother nature than the jackhammer speed of mankind.

When a proposal to build a dam in the footprint of Cowlitz Falls was first introduced, the plan was met with stiff opposition from conservationists and out of doors enthusiasts alike. One of the groups who led the fight against the dam was a close knit community of kayakers and rafters who revered the Cispus River for its land before time landscape as well as the world class whitewater rapids that coursed from the headwaters down to Cowlitz Falls itself just below the confluence of the Cowlitz and Cispus rivers.

Cowlitz Falls was a class five rapid, as big as they get while still being navigable, but when the bedrock was blasted away and the concrete dried in its place in 1994 a slackwater reservoir known as Lake Scanewa was formed by the pent-up flow. The project was one of the final large-scale hydroelectric dam projects undertaken in Washington. While the namesake waterfall is long gone, the enticing rapids above the reservoir are still largely intact — and that’s where the rub is.

“To put it bluntly, (Lewis County PUD) have a pretty nice park on the north side of the reservoir but they view this requirement as sort of a second tier annoyance that they have to deal with,” noted Thomas O’Keefe, Pacific Northwest Stewardship Director for American Whitewater, while helping to paddle a river raft down the Cispus River last week. “The history is that its existing uses, and the access, was impacted by the dam. FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) said you need to account for that. You need to provide access but the utility never really took that seriously.” 

According to the mitigation agreement signed by Lewis County PUD and the Bonneville Power Administration, the power companies are required to provide kayakers and other recreators with permanent access to waters that have historically been utilized by the public. However, over the last 25 years the difference between on-paper agreements and realities on the ground have diverged like waters around a boulder in the river.

Complicating matters is the fact that while Lewis County PUD owns the land adjacent to Cowlitz Falls Dam, the land and roads required to reach boat launch and pull out spots upriver are owned by Port Blakely Tree Farms. The timber company is not bound by contract or even a verbal agreement to allow access to their property and, accordingly, oftentimes they don’t. The situation came to a head about four years ago when Port Blakely locked the gates that provide access to the pullout spot just upriver from the dam for all but a handful of days each year. Even now, the gates can be unpredictably locked during periods of high fire danger, active logging, or road washouts. Unfortunately for anyone trying to reach the river, there is not a dependable means for finding out if the gates are open or closed without making the drive. That means boaters regularly make the long and bumpy trek out to East Lewis County only to find access shuttered.

Outraged by their loss of access, a group of boaters — primarily kayakers with a love for whitewater — have taken up the cause. They have been hounding PUD officials and other entities to find a permanent solution that matches the original agreement. Last week members of the group attended a regular meeting with the PUD in order to continue searching for solutions to the long-running issue. 

O’Keefe left that meeting feeling optimistic that a quarter century after the dam was erected there are legitimate advances being made to ensure the access that was promised from the outset. Still, he has a hard time imagining a scenario without some turbulence for at least another couple decades.

“I think a best case outcome would be, kind of looking out over 20-30 years, where maybe Port Blakely decides that they do want to divest in these lands and maybe as a part of that we’ll be able to get an easement that’s secured to be able to use that road,” said O’Keefe.

O’Keefe noted that FERC has the power to initiate eminent domain proceedings that could force Port Blakely to sell the land adjacent to the river. However, O’Keefe says the timber company has taken a hardline stance against that option by stating that their intention to completely log out the area in one fell swoop if forced to sell.

A couple weeks ago, the 9 mile stretch upriver of Lake Scanewa on the Cispus River alternates between class one and class three rapids. Cedar trees tower over the river and birds flutter in the underbrush while whitewater crashes over the sides of kayaks and rafts that venture down the channel. Because of its natural features, the destination is under consideration for a Wild and Scenic designation and it remains one of the top whitewater spots in Washington in spite of the ongoing access issues.

Rebecca Post, a river raft captain with 20 years of experience, said she’d like to see the Cispus become an even bigger draw in the near future.

“There’s a lot of boaters that have been so turned off by the whole gate issue from four years ago that the Cispus is just off their list. And it’s unfortunate because it’s not that way anymore It’s pretty much open,” explained Post. 

Still, even with ongoing talks between boaters and the PUD and signs of incremental progress for assured access, Post is far from pleased with the pace and tone of the discourse.

“The thing is that the entire friggin’ run on the Cispus was available to anyone from anywhere before they put that ... dam in. And by putting that dam in they took away a beautiful class five rapid. Cowlitz Falls was a beautiful run and people ran it. Then they took that out and they took away the access. So sure we’re bitter because it just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do,” said Post as she navigated the backcountry. “We know for sure that Port Blakely doesn’t like us here. They don’t want people driving up and down their private road which is why they gated it. And the PUD doesn’t really want us here because we’re just a thorn in their side. It’s just something that they have to do rather than something they want to do.” 

Post added that the hard feelings have become personal over the years because of a perception that the powers that be have portrayed boaters as outsiders who are selfishly trying to take advantage of the mitigation agreement. Specifically, she noted a particularly offensive phrase that kept popping up in a flood of correspondence that was obtained by Michael Deckert, one of the leaders in the movement to assure access.

“Michael has done a lot of public disclosure requests and in their internal email correspondence between people at the PUD and people at the BPA label us as ‘Whiny Seattle self-centered kayakers.’ Something super derogatory. And none of us are from King County,” said Post with a furrowed brow. “That’s the thing that’s so amazing to us. Like, really, that’s the way you feel about us? All we’re really trying to do is just fight for the right of what they have in their permit that FERC issued when they built this thing, which is uninterrupted access to the public for recreational whitewater running.”

Representatives from the Lewis County PUD and Port Blakely did not respond to requests for comment prior to deadline for this story.

With so much uncertainty in the current, O’Keefe was careful to take a more measured approach in his assessment of the efforts by the Lewis County PUD and the BPA. He believes that a few simple measures, such as an up to date website with access information posted, would help to bridge the gap between today’s uncertainty and an all encompassing solution sometime in the future. 

“I think we will see a little bit of increased interest once everything is clarified. That was part of our discussion at the (Lewis County PUD) meeting today was, ‘Hey, you have to have this stuff on the website. Make sure it’s really clear and updated,’ ” O’Keefe said. “I feel like the conversation has really shifted so now they’re in a position where, ‘Okay, this is a legitimate recreation site. There’s a community who cares about it. It’s in the license and we have to commit to making it work.’ That’s not how this was treated five or six years ago.”

O’Keefe added that he understands why boaters are fed up with getting the runaround but also postulated that there’s been a culture shift at the PUD in recent years that should help to breach the bitter impasse at some point.

“Sometime the conversations get a little tense because folks are like, ‘Gosh, I’ve been at this for 20 years. I just want public access,’” admitted O’Keefe. “There’s been some staff turnover and my assessment is that the current staff is making an honest commitment to making it right.”