As a journalist, I remember wading through water to reach The Daily Chronicle newsroom in 1986 — the same year floodwaters swept through American Crossarm and Conduit and contaminated 200 homes in a Chehalis neighborhood — writing about the drowning deaths of Lloyd “Tuffy” Anderson of Centralia and Orville Decker of Winlock in January 1990, and reporting on devastation left in the wake of floods in 1996.
I’ve written a weekly column for The Chronicle since May 2007, months before the devastating December flood on the Chehalis River that killed 1,800 head of cattle, destroyed three bridges and damaged hundreds of homes west of Chehalis with damage totaling more than $900 million. After the flood, I interviewed people helping with the cleanup — Mennonites from Whatcom County, volunteers from the Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief, and teenagers from Pe Ell referred to as Mud Puppies.
Early the following year, I dove into researching the history of local flooding, from Native American legends through the 19th and 20th centuries, up to the devastating 2007 flood for a story in The Chronicle’s book, “The Flood of 2007: Disaster and Survival on the Chehalis River.”
What struck me while doing that research was the plethora of ongoing studies by state and federal government officials looking at ways to prevent flooding on the Chehalis and Cowlitz Rivers — studies that resulted in expenditure of millions in tax dollars to little avail, which I recapped in a column published on March 8, 2008. Nothing ever happened. Until another flood prompted yet another study but little action.
I loved E.A. Linscott’s cheeky letter to the editor, published April 6, 1933, where he chastised Chehalis for letting floodwaters into the city that serves as the county seat and urged officials to “shed the old coat of moss from their backs and take care of the problem.”
“People don’t want to come in rowboats to pay their taxes,” he wrote.
Eight major floods have hit Lewis County since a bad one in January 1972 — in March 1977, December 1977, January 1990, February 1990, November 1990, April 1991, February 1996 and December 2007 (with additional flooding in 2009).
After attending yet another flood meeting in April 2010, I’d grown fed up with studies and wrote a column to that effect: “Enough flood studies; it’s time for action.” At the time, I suggested dredging the river to deepen the channel, raising the levees to prevent overflowing of creeks and rivers, stopping construction in the floodplain, bolstering existing dams and building a new retention dam upstream on the Chehalis to regulate the flow of water during rainstorms. I should have mentioned stricter adherence to logging regulations to prevent debris clogging the river.
Seriously, what’s prevented changes? Money, for one. It costs money to construct dams, dredge rivers, create floodways, build levees and implement recommendations in the studies.
And objections — from the Native American tribes, Fish and Wildlife officials, anglers, environmentalists.
Through the years, local farmers, business owners and government officials have talked about trying to curtail flooding on the Upper Chehalis River and its tributaries to resolve flooding in the Chehalis River Valley.
Sure, they rebuilt dikes and levees and installed pumps. They raised houses. They installed flood gauges and an alert system. They constructed farm pads to protect livestock and equipment. They put in weirs on China Creek. They revamped the treatment plant in Pe Ell to improve water quality.
But as far as preventing the floods? Might as well try to harness Mother Nature.
And that’s exactly what the Lewis County Public Utility District suggested in 2009 as it brainstormed flood prevention ideas and explored the idea of constructing two earthen retention dams upstream on the Chehalis River in West Lewis County. The idea of the dams, one on the upper Chehalis and another on the South Fork, would be to provide flood control, enhance water quality and fish environment in the dry season, and provide a bit of hydroelectric power, then PUD Manager Dave Mueller said.
The Chehalis River Basin Flood Control Zone District has proposed constructing a flood control dam in Willapa Hills. A draft environmental impact statement (EIS) in 2020 drew comments from opponents who raised concerns about damage to fish runs, tribal cultural resources, wildlife, soil stability and water degradation.
Since then, the flood district shifted the location, design and construction details of the estimated $1.4 billion dam to address concerns expressed with the earlier proposal, and the Washington Department of Ecology issued a revised EIS and opened it for public comments. The final public meeting on the revised EIS on Wednesday, Jan. 21, drew about a hundred people (including me) to the Baw Faw Grange in Boistfort, where many of the victims of the 2007 flood shared their comments about the need for flood control to prevent another devastating flood. Public comments will be accepted on the EIS until 11:59 p.m. Feb. 4. They can be submitted online here.
Despite allowing the river to flow freely most of the time, only blocking its flow during flood events, the DOE determined it would adversely affect salmon and steelhead populations, already decimated because of climate change. They also determined the project would adversely affect tribal cultural and natural resources, wildlife species and their habitats, and change the river channel while creating landslide risks around the temporary reservoir. They also determined it would degrade the water quality by raising stream temperatures.
“It would not protect all Chehalis Basin communities from all flooding,” the EIS states in its summary, “and it is not designed to stop regular annual flooding from the Chehalis River or smaller floods.”
The flood district has mitigation plans to address the environmental concerns in the EIS, but those won’t be examined until the permitting process.
The EIS states that local governments can reduce flood damage through land-use management actions, buying out at-risk properties and increasing water storage, but it notes that “The No Action Alternative represents the most likely future, including the effects of climate change, if the proposed project is not constructed.”
So, if nothing happens, we will have spent a lot more taxpayer money on another worthless study while waiting for the next devastating flood to wipe out homes, livestock and the lives of loved ones.
Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
