I’m writing to respond to the letter titled, “Proposed flow-through dam offers real benefits with very little environmental impacts,” published on Jan. 23.
As a mom who lives and works in the Chehalis Basin, we need to be honest with ourselves about the proposed dam.
This letter suggested the environmental impacts are minimal, but that is not true. They must not have read the environmental impact statement from Ecology that the public comment period is currently focused on. It’s very clear, this will have significant adverse impacts for our environment. Spring Chinook and winter steelhead could be driven to extinction; wildlife habitat will suffer reduced food sources, tree cover and connectivity.
Recreation could also end in the area, including hunting, and stream temperatures could go up when we already have the warmest river in Washington state.
Building the dam could de-water the river at times. For fish bypass, they want to build an access pipe that is 300 feet long, but as we’ve already learned with culverts, that will create increased velocity and flow rates that make it hard for fish to survive and create scour. The estimated kill rate listed in the report is 63%. The flow-through design sounds nice in theory, but in practice, fish will have to try to survive the estimated two to five years of construction process, which is a total fantasy.
Flooding in 2007 was terrifying, and I don’t want to see my neighbors go through that again, but flooding in our basin is complex, and can’t be fixed by one thing even if it’s really big. The dam will only limit flooding coming from Willapa Hills, but floodwaters also come from the Cascades, filling the Newaukum and creating a flooding nuisance.
There are cost-effective, proven strategies we can pursue, like raising levees, neighbors’ homes and I-5 since these are at the heart of what we hope to protect. WSDOT’s study on raising I-5 was seen as too expensive, but early estimates for dam construction and installation are more expensive at a cost estimate of up to $2 billion.
I am grateful we have robust data, scientists and citizens working to make our basin safer. Let’s be honest with ourselves — the dam comes with a huge cost both financially and environmentally.
Vanessa LaValle
Olympia
