Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. In Lewis County and vicinity, where the Chehalis and Cowlitz Rivers sweep over their banks every year, everybody talks about the weather. No one does anything about it, however.
That statement rings true today, but its actually the first paragraph of an end-of-the-year story written by then-city editor John Martin in The Daily Chronicle Dec. 31, 1975.
Lewis County has seen flooding for centuries, a recounting of floods that youll find in The Chronicles new book on the Flood of 2007.
For years, after nearly every flood, people have talked about fixing the problems, preventing future flooding, keeping the community dry. But when it came down to paying for the solutions, people balked and plans fell through.
As the flood of 1975 loomed in December, Lewis County extension agent Ed Minnick predicted people would once again talk about fixing the problem.
Over the past 25 years, there has been study after study by federal and state agencies to come up with some plan to correct the situation, Minnick wrote in the Dec. 8, 1975, Daily Chronicle. But some plans didnt meet cost-benefit standards, he said, while the public protested vehemently against others.
Lewis County Commissioner Ron Averill, who has made many trips to the Legislature this year to push for flood control measures, said the Chehalis Basin has been studied to death, to the tune of $12 million.
We always know how to study, he said. We dont know how to do. This time, lets do something, but lets not do something dumb.
He said he doesnt want people driving by the Twin Cities in 2016 looking at the communities drowning on either side of the freeway.
People have been seeking an end to sogginess in the Twin Cities for far longer than half a century.
Months before one of the worst floods of the 20th century 75 years ago, E.A. Linscott wrote a cheeky letter to the editor of the Centralia Daily Chronicle. In his April 6, 1933 letter, he chastised Chehalis for being 50 years behind the times by letting floodwaters into the city.
The river in this locality is as crooked as a snake, Linscott wrote. Several places it makes square turns. All that is required is to straighten the river and dike the low places, then the flood water would be a thing of the past.
He admonished city officials to shed the old coat of moss from their backs and take care of the problem. If we sit like dummies and go down stream in the flood water, then we had ought to go down, he wrote.
Pointing out that Chehalis is the county seat, he described letting the floodwater come within a few blocks of the courthouse as a disgrace.
People dont want to come in rowboats to pay their taxes, he said.
The improvement, prosperity, progress and beauty of a city depends on the energy of its citizens. President Roosevelt is not coming out here with a pick and shovel and do this work unless we tell him about it. Floods were all right for the wild Indians because they all had canoes.
Four years later, Dec. 30, 1937, The Centralia Daily Chronicle editorialized, noting that the flooding of lowlands occurs every year and will only get worse as trees are cut down that should hold the snows.
It is strange with so many years experience that so little has been done to control the situation, the editor wrote. City officials built a dike near the Pearl Street bridge along the south bank of the Skookumchuck, which held water back from flooding hundreds of homes. The newspaper recommended studying the situation west of the Pearl Street bridge and advocated building levees where possible.
The newspaper also noted, The Chehalis River is a menace and will be until the river is dredged to a considerable depth.
In January 1939, a flood control survey of the Chehalis River was under way. It was estimated $10,000 would be needed to finish the survey. By mid-September it was 85 percent completed.
That year, the communities talked about something theyre revisiting this year after the December 2007 flood a headwaters-to-ocean flood control district.
The July 11, 1939, issue of The Centralia Daily Chronicle stated that the Elma Community Chamber decided to take the lead in organizing a flood control district in Grays Harbor, Lewis and other counties plagued by flooding along the Chehalis River.
The chamber director said the federal government would probably build two or three huge storage reservoirs and do revetment work on the Chehalis, and property owners in the area would take care of maintaining those structures. He said creating a flood district is the only way to solve the problem.
A month later, on Aug. 24, 1939, the newspaper lamented the unsolved flood problem, noting that nothing has been done to relieve flooding west of the Pearl Street bridge and on Fords and Waunch prairies. Residents outside the diked area complained that the structure only increased flooding on their property.
The editorial stated that the Pacific Highway at Harrison Street Bridge should have been located several hundred feet north of where it enters the city, and a deep cut could have turned the water into a new channel. Then, instead of backing up across the land, the water would have a straight channel. The newspaper recommended a conference with city officials, the highway department, a committee from the two prairies, and the county commissioners. The paper also recommended a few sticks of dynamite along the channel to make easy work for the diggers.
A retrospective piece in the Sept. 19, 1975, issue of The Daily Chronicle recalled flooding that occurred Sept. 19, 1940, in the Chehalis basin.
The article discussed efforts by prominent farmers, businessmen, city officials and county commissioners to resolve flooding problems. They wanted to develop a plan that the Army Corps of Engineers would accept to control flooding on the Upper Chehalis River and its tributaries. The group noted that the Army Corps wanted facts and figures on damages before taking steps to control flooding. A survey of the watershed was being conducted at that time.
In July 1954, a headline on The Daily Chronicles front page stated, Flood Control Work on Cowlitz Is Urgent. A delegation from Randle informed county commissioners that a dam built by the Army Corps of Engineers 20 years earlier was leaking a large stream of water, and could carve a new channel. Congress approved a project for the upper Cowlitz flood control, called the Randle project, in 1950, but county commissioners suggested Randle residents campaign for re-establishment of a levy to raise money for flood control.
Five years later, discussion continued in December 1959 on the best ways to prevent future flooding in the Twin Cities and the Chehalis River Basin.
After a flood in January 1965, 16 residents of Lum Road in northwest Centralia complained to county commissioners about the flooding, demanding assistance to curb continual flooding on Fords Prairie by Coffee Creek. They also worried about the health hazard of septic tanks flooded by river water. The county prosecutor, Jerry Moore, told the group to either find a person who is responsible for the flooding or form a drainage district.
After another devastating flood in January 1972, The Daily Chronicle on Feb. 18, 1972, mentioned that a flood damage survey began in Lewis County to provide a more complete picture of flood losses and lead to the Corps of Engineers to reassess a federally funded flood project in western Lewis County.
A few days later, The Daily Chronicle once again editorialized about the flooding.
Every year there is high water somewhere in this area and most longtime residents are very familiar with flood behavior, according to the Feb. 19, 1972, editorial.
Yet this years flood was one of the highest, and most damaging in history. The question we must ask in light of the January flood is: why did we let this happen to us?
On Feb. 23, 1972, The Daily Chronicle quoted county officials advocating that Lewis County residents write a groundswell of letters seeking implementation of flood control measures. They noted that flooding could occur back-to-back if conditions are right, rather than once every 100 years. Diking and straightening river channels might help in some areas, but Centralia city engineer Alan Schwiesow suggested storage in the upper valleys was the best answer to flood problems in the Chehalis River basin.
The 1972 flood caused more than $819,000 damage to public property in the Twin Cities and the county, with $475,000 of that attributed to damage at the fairgrounds, according to an April 4, 1972, Daily Chronicle article.
In July 12, 1972, the Daily Chronicle editorialized that the Army Corps of Engineers flood control options on the Chehalis River are too costly. The options ranged from doing nothing, which is what weve been doing for too long a time, to the zoning of floodplain land, flood insurance, evacuation and warning systems, construction of a levee system along portions of the Chehalis and Skookumchuck rivers, and raising and strengthening the airport levee. Removing the humps in the Chehalis River between Grand Mound and the Mellen Street bridge would cost an estimated $16 million. Also suggested was construction of a $275,000 mile-long levee to protect Oakville, reducing the probability of flooding from once every one to two years to once every 200 years.
Another option suggested constructing dams along the Chehalis River or its tributaries.
No one has disproved the idea of trimming the humps off the bottom of the Chehalis River, the newspaper stated. And we have a hunch that it could be done for a lot less than $16 million.
While were studying the various proposals, we should keep in mind, too, the fact that productive land lost when dams are built is lost forever.
After high water returned in December, 1,000 county residents signed petitions asking that flood control action be taken. Ed Johnson, chairman of the Citizens Committee for Better Environment, gathered petitions that were sent to congressional representatives and the Army Corps of Engineers recommending that the hump be removed from the Chehalis River near Fort Borst Park.
Flood control planning continued after the 1972 flood.
In July 1974, residents voiced opposition to a combined Corps of Engineers-Soil Conservation Service flood control hazard study focusing on Salzer and Coal creeks, according to a July 16, 1974, Daily Chronicle article. The study was in limbo for a while because unusually high water in recent years changed the Corps idea of what the elevation should be for the 100-year floodplain or high water mark, which is the level to which floodwaters can be expected to rise on the average once every 100 years.
The study proposed a 30-foot-high dam on Salzer Creek about four miles up the valley from the creeks confluence with the Chehalis River, which would form a reservoir. Flood control projects on the two creeks were expected to cost $7 million to $8 million. Residents insisted the flooding was man-made, and they didnt see why that much should be spent to protect 300 to 400 acres in the lower valley, especially commercial property. They also worried that an earthen dam would not be stable.
On April 15, 1976, The Daily Chronicle reported that the Army Corps of Engineers determined a system of dikes is the best method of controlling flooding in the Twin Cities. The Corps recommended one of ten alternatives studied levees for more detailed study. A Corps representative said only the levee alternative showed benefits that outweighed the costs of installing and maintaining a system of dikes.
Other alternatives included floodplain management to flood-proof every affected home and industry, upstream storage dams, small headwater dams, watershed management, channel clearing, channel excavation, channel excavation with levees, and levees with river channelization. The cost of the levee system and management work would cost about $7 million, while the cost of river channelization straightening the river between Centralia and Chehalis would be about $55 million, which the Corps deemed the least desirable alternative. Dikes would generally be 10 to 12 feet high, but would vary. Some residents worried that a levee system would just mean the excess water would go elsewhere, flooding others.
In the summer 1976, the county signed a four-county interlocal agreement to study the Chehalis River Basin.
In March 1977, The Daily Chronicle reported that flood protection money appropriated by Congress failed to reach the eroded banks of the Cowlitz River at High Valley. The county received $200,000, but the High Valley project didnt rank high enough to receive funding. The issue stemmed from Lewis Countys reluctance to assume responsibility for maintaining and operating projects not built on county property, the newspaper reported March 16, 1977. The county later learned it could transfer responsibility for the maintenance to private property owners, but that realization came too late. Securing easements for the project also posed problems. Some residents flatly refused.
Later that year, Eastern Lewis County residents were told that the Cowlitz Falls gorge 13 miles downstream from Randle was probably not responsible for periodic flooding in the Randle area, according to a Nov. 18, 1977, Daily Chronicle article. The Lewis County PUD, which proposed building a power-generating dam at Cowlitz Falls, noted that flood control was not its job but it might help stabilize the flow of water through the area.
A December 28, 1977, article posed a question: Is Packwood safe from high floods? A federal flood study upset some Packwood residents because it stated that in a 100-year flood, Packwood could be covered by eight to 10 feet of water. That study could make building a home in the area difficult, since it would have to be raised nine to 11 feet.
Flood control efforts continued in subsequent decades, coming to a head after each inundation.
After the Cowlitz River washed out the Kirkendoll dike in November 1995, Toledo area residents complained about the flooding. At a meeting in January 1996, county officials told them they should form a diking district, which is a junior taxing district, to help pay for flood control.
After the February 1996 flood, business and civic leaders created the Flood Action Council to explore ways of preventing future flooding.
But in 1997, residents in the west end of the county told county commissioners they want to be excluded from any flood control district in the Chehalis River Basin, according to a Feb. 8, 1997, article in The Daily Chronicle. Opponents formed a group called the Preservation of the Upper Chehalis River to defeat the proposed flood district. They succeeded.
But planning continued.
After three years and $4 million in studies, the Army Corps of Engineers developed a $70 million plan calling for an extensive series of levees and improvements to the Skookumchuck Dam to control flooding to reduce flood damage and protect Interstate 5 from flooding.
The Corps explained the plan to local elected officials at a meeting in February 2002, according to a Feb. 14, 2002, Chronicle article. Local officials worried that the plan would not protect the downtown areas and Chehalis tribal members worried that water not flooding the Twin Cities would end up on the reservation.
The Corps levee system would create floodwalls:
From Salzer Valley Road south around the fairgrounds to the I-5 bridge over Salzer Creek, then up just west of the freeway to Mellen Street;
From Harrison Avenue south and west around Fords Prairie and north to Galvin Road;
Around Sunbird and Yardbirds;
On the east side of I-5 from Chamber of Commerce Way up to Salzer Creek, then southwest, building on the existing airport dike, which would be raised or widened. Riverside Golf Club and nearby development would still be outside the dike;
And on the west side of I-5 south of exit 77 and northwest of exit 76.
Another possible project would create a floodway under State Route 6 west of Chehalis, allowing the water to bypass the Chehalis area by filling large fields west of the river. A more expensive plan would be to open the bottleneck at the Mellen Street bridge, creating a new flood channel northwest and building a new bridge to prevent backing up water in a flood.
Since at least the 1930s, government agencies have collected facts and figures, drawing and redrawing proposals for dams, dikes and dredging. But a lack of consensus on which measures should be implemented has delayed solutions.
Meanwhile, the flooding continues.
Since 1972, the Skookumchuck River has created at least nuisance flooding 22 times, according to the Thurston County Flood Hazard Management Plan developed in 1999, which is available online at http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/…/flood-management-plan/
Moderate flooding has occurred 16 times, and major flooding happened seven times since 1972 — in March 1977, December 1977, January 1990, February 1990, November 1990, April 1991, and February 1996, which was a record.
Since 1972, the Chehalis River has created nuisance flooding more than 48 times, according to the plan. Moderate flooding has occurred six times, or about once every four years. Major flooding had occurred six times since 1972 — in January 1972, December 1975, November 1986, January 1990, November 1996, and February 1996, with the record in 1996.
That is, until December 2007.
And, once again, the planning continues.
