U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has requested a total of $2 million for two ongoing flood control projects in the Chehalis River Basin.

    The requests were included in the Energy and Water Fiscal Year 2010 spending bill, along with 13 other U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects currently on the books. It’s too early to tell how much, if any, of the money will eventually be allocated.

    The bill passed the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee today, and now goes before the Appropriations Subcommittee before being brought to the full Senate for a vote.

    Murray requested $1 million for the ongoing Twin Cities Project, which the Corps is continuing to update with data from the 2007 and 2009 Chehalis River floods. That plan calls for an 11-mile system of levees in and around Centralia and Chehalis. She also asked for $1 million to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to continue a basin-wide study.

    Also included in Murray’s requests is $1.5 million for the Army Corps to study the impacts of sediment resulting from the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Sediment and debris runoff from the Mount St. Helens eruption continues to flow downstream which causes potential flooding concerns and navigation problems for the economically important recreational watercraft that utilize the Cowlitz and Toutle rivers.