A house located on Newaukum Valley Road sits just above the Newaukum River during flooding in December 2015.
A second public meeting concerning increasingly problematic flooding and erosion problems along the Newaukum River again brought a horde of locals out of the woodwork.
On Wednesday, April 27, more than 50 interested parties convened in the Onalaska Elementary cafeteria in order to commence with a face-to-face discussion about the real-life problems facing residents along the river and the hypothetical solutions available to bail them out.
In the Chehalis River Basin where the Newaukum River empties, five of the river’s largest floods in history have occurred in just the past 30 years. Those high-water events are making their way up the Newaukum as well, with increased flow and torrents of sediment amping up the destructive capacity of the gentle, sloping river.
While the Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority takes care of the bulk of the flooding prevention planning and maintenance work below the Newaukum, the Lewis County Conservation District has recently gotten behind the effort to coordinate efforts along the Newaukum River.
“This is what conservation districts do. We get people together in an attempt to get things accomplished on a watershed scale,” said Conservation District Manager Bob Amrine. “We like to get local folks together to correct local problems. The flooding on the Newaukum is continually getting worse.”
Why the flooding is getting worse is still up for some debate. While the area has always had lots of winter rains, in recent years the raindrops seem to be coming down in more voluminous clusters, which creates an increased flow surge. Additionally, vast loads of silty sediment are making a lurching march downriver, which creates an uneven river bottom and causes the river flow to undulate and become increasingly turbid.
Making matters worse, the more flooding that occurs, the more sediment that enters the river through erosion. Those cleaved river banks also make the river run straighter on its way downhill, causing it to pick up speed and inflict more destruction downriver. It is a vicious, reciprocating cycle.
Colin Thorne, a river specialist and professor at Nottingham University, was a special guest speaker at the public flood meeting. According to Thorne, increasing deforestation upriver on the Newaukum is currently one theory to explain the spike in river flow and debris. Thorne noted that simply removing the sediment and debris will not work to cut a perfect path to the ocean however.
“You’ve got to remember that there’s already a gazillion tons of sediment in the system so we likely won’t see the benefits of these actions until our grandchildren. But, if we don’t act now they won’t thank us later,” said Thorne.
Thorne is almost exclusively against the practice of dredging river bottoms, noting that sediment, in natural volume and distribution, is in fact a normal and healthy part of a river system. “Remember, your tractor is powered by diesel and the river is powered by the sun. Who’s going to win that battle?” asked Thorne.
Instead of employing heavy equipment in the riparian zone, Thorne prefers a more holistic approach, like deploying tiny mussels in the river in order to help hold the river bottom and gravel bars together during flood events. “Freshwater mussels will work 24/7 like their life depends on it. Because it does,” said Thorne, who noted that the main idea is to slow the flow of the river to the point that it prevents mass erosion, but not so much that the river backs up and damages properties.
Two typical ideas for shoring up a shoreline include planting trees near the water’s edge and employing their roots to hold the bank together, or on the other end of the severity scale, strapping heavy rock riprap to the shoreline as a buffer against the rising tide. According to Thorne both approaches have their drawbacks. Freshly planted trees take years to establish and are at risk of being wiped away by the next high water mark, while riprap only serves to speed up the river by bouncing the water downstream rather than allowing the channel to naturally absorb the blow with its soft bank.
Thorne noted that heavily fortified techniques will likely withstand the forces of the river, but they may be hard to get permitted. On the other hand, less intrusive techniques may be easily permittable but they are less likely to hold up to the punishment of a raging river. The key, according to Thorne, is to find the site-specific middle ground that will buffer the bank and tame the water.
“Local people are the local experts. Don’t ever forget that,” said Thorne, who insisted that the collaboration of educated engineers and well-entrenched locals is the key to success along the wily river.
One complicating factor on the Newaukum, and the rest of the Chehalis system, is the precarious presence of fish and the stated goal of recovering those historic wild stocks. The artificial manipulation of the river system, especially through unforgiving techniques like using riprap, are almost always a net loss for fish as they lose spawning grounds and natural holding pools that help them to push against the current and navigate the river.
“The entire Chehalis Basin is being studied and monitored. The Newaukum Basin is showing high potential for spring chinook habitat restoration,” explained Amrine in an email. “There are also a lot of erosion concerns in the Newaukum Basin that we would like to see addressed to slow down sediment loads entering the water. The intent is to put wood structures in place that will control erosion while creating high quality fish habitat.”
There is currently a timetable for completing the seemingly unending task of repairing the damaged banks of the Newaukum, and that fact has a tendency to get folks up in arms over the perceived inaction.
Scott Brummer, an area habitat biologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, is typically one of the first government representatives to respond to an afflicted property in order to inspect the damage and brainstorm ideas for mitigation with the landowner. At the meeting Brummer expressed his displeasure with his experience with disgruntled landowners where he “gets thrown under the bus and ends ups with big tire tracks on my back.”
Brummer said that people are typically quick to say that the WDFW “wouldn’t let me,” do something, when in fact, he claims people typically, “don’t have the money required to put whatever they want in the river.” He added that it is the WDFW’s job to balance fish recovery with the needs of locals to perform riverfront upkeep. With that in mind, Brummer finds it laughable when people get angry with him because, “I won’t let you drive your (bull)dozer right down the middle of the river,” which he noted is both impractical and harmful to fish.
Currently there are about 30 private projects underway on the Newaukum that are under the supervision of the Conservation District and the WDFW. Amrine said, “There are multiple things going on at once in the Chehalis Basin. Once the Aquatic Species Restoration Plan is completed, which should be sometime this fall or winter, we will look at areas where we have landowner support and locations to implement projects for optimum habitat restoration. Where these two things overlap is where we will start. I am not sure how many projects we are looking at completing as a whole. Hopefully we will have a good idea by October.” Amrine added that the counties of Grays Harbor and Thurston are also working to complete landowner willingness maps in order to help streamline future projects.
Projecting the project timeline a bit further, Amrine said, “If we get all the information we need the intent is to put together a budget request to convince the governor to include in his budget. Then when the Legislature goes into session in 2017 they will see that we are ready to proceed and we have the governor backing our effort. This is a long process. Once the Legislature gets out of session the funds will not be available until July 1, 2017. At that time we will need to complete designs and permitting in hope to construct projects in the summer of 2018.”
At the meeting, county commissioner Edna Fund also stated the commission's intent is to take an itemized list of wants and needs to the state Legislature during its annual October budget meeting.
Amrine admitted that the long, laborious governmental process has a tendency to chap the hides of nervous landowners whose property is threatened by the river wild.
“There is a lot of positive feedback but landowners get anxious and skeptical because of the long process,” said Amrine. “We try to encourage everyone to be patient which makes it difficult as they continue to lose property to erosion.”
Amrine elaborated on that topic, saying, “It is always nice to have public meetings. The rivers are flowing through their property and ultimately it is their decision on whether to complete a project on their land or not. We do hope to have another meeting or two in order to keep the landowners informed and to keep their interest high.
“It will be a big effort and will take a lot of resources to get everyone up and down the rivers informed of this process. The last thing we want to see are houses or other building(s) fall into the river. We will work with folks that have buildings in harm's way in hopes of saving them from the river. As always, we will run into time and money constraints.”
Amrine added that there are not currently any funds available for private landowner projects along the Newaukum River, although larger public projects may wind up being funded in the future.
In the meantime, if landowners are concerned that their property is in the danger zone, “They need to contact the conservation district to make sure we have them listed as a landowner that is willing to complete a project,” explained Amrine. “Everything is site specific so we like to make site visits to document the needs per location.”
As for the frustrated and threatened locals along the watershed, Thorne offered some sage advice, saying, “Falling out with people and ranting and raving is easy. It’s getting past it that’s the hard part.”
Thorne added that he has studied and consulted on many problematic rivers all over the world and he wholeheartedly believes that the Newaukum River is fixable. “Absolutely, because you’ve got space,” said Thorne.
He added, “People have moved in and encroached on the river,” and that some folks may have to relocate or abandon their besieged homes and farmhouses as the meandering, and sometimes, hard-charging river attempts to reclaim its historical floodplain. “That’s actually the river’s land and the river’s taking it back,” said Thorne.
The next Newaukum flood meeting is not expected to take place until this summer. Amrine, at the conservation district, can be contacted by phone at (360) 748-0083, ext.115, or by email at bob.amrine@wa.usda.gov.
