U.S. Rep. Brian Baird saw two different views of ongoing studies into potential water retention projects in the Chehalis River Basin Friday.

    The Vancouver Democrat, who represents Washington’s 3rd District, witnessed the political and regulatory climate on the ground during a morning meeting that included Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority members and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Seattle Office Col. Anthony Wright.

    Later in the day, he took to the skies to get an aerial look at the sites, one west of Pe Ell and another above the Boistfort Valley on the south fork of the Chehalis River.

    The two dams were initially proposed by the Lewis County Public Utilities District on the advice of its commissioners following the December 2007 floods. Estimates by the PUD put the price tag at more than $300 million. The flood authority agreed to fund the second phase of the study after splitting it into two parts, each costing about $250,000.

    Initial reports released by consultants last month suggested that the sites would be adequate for the construction of dams.

    Friday’s meeting was aimed at discussing where water retention and dams fit into the broader picture of flood control in the Chehalis River Basin.

    Not In The Levee Project

    Local officials, including flood authority chairman Ron Averill, have expressed interest in folding the water retention element into ongoing U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects currently underway in the basin. Both the Twin Cities Project, which calls for 11 miles of levees in and around Centralia and Chehalis, and the Basinwide General Investigation have received federal approval meaning they are eligible for congressional appropriations.

    The Twin Cities Project is nearing 35 percent design and has an estimated construction start date of October, 2013. The basinwide study is still in its infancy, and will take up to six years to complete.

    Baird penned a letter to Wright on behalf of flood authority members in June asking how water retention could be combined with the ongoing projects. Wright responded, writing that it was too late to add the dams to the Twin Cities Project but that any data garnered from the study could be used.

    On Friday, Wright’s answer hadn’t changed.

    Once a project has gained congressional approval, it is against law and policy to add a project feature without going back for federal approval, he said.

    Wright said “we would lose what we have gained” if local officials insisted on adding dams to the plan for levees. The project received its first federal approval in 2003, but Lewis County failed to act on the project and shelved it until just before the 2007 floods.

    The Army Corps is currently inputting  data from that flood, which will eventually determine the size and locations of the levees.

    Wright said the Chehalis River Basin is one of the most complex in his district, and he cautioned that it would be best to take advantage of the momentum of the project and “do something now.”

    “I’d like there to be a fifth down in football too, but I don’t get that,” Wright quipped in response to continued criticism over the fact that water retention could not be included in the Twin Cities Project.

    Wright and other Army Corps personnel have said that water retention would be looked at as part of the basinwide study, and he reiterated that point Friday morning. He said the Army Corps would be  willing to discuss data from the water retention studies with the Lewis County Public Utilities District and its consultants.

    When Chehalis City Councilman Chad Taylor, one of eleven representatives on the authority, pressed Wright on the question, he responded that “I don’t have the flexibility even in policy.”

    Congressional Influence Eyed

    Flood Authority Chairman Averill said that congressional guidance might be the only way to hasten the process of studying water retention and finding funding.

    “We believe it shouldn’t take five years,” Averill said. “We’d like to look at how we can speed up the process.”

    Baird at times moderated the discussion Friday, and afterward said that there are measures he and other congressional members can take to change policy and guidelines when it comes to the specific wording in federally approved projects.

    He said there isn’t enough data on water retention to determine exactly what could be done, and the realities of changing federal regulations would be difficult.

    “Will we have a bill come up in time? Can you get into a bill? Sometimes when you make what you think is a local change people say, ‘hey if you make what seems like a small change, it has big national implications,’” Baird said.

    The agreement between the Army Corps and the consultants hired by Lewis County PUD to compare cost benefit data is a positive development, Baird said.

    “What I want to do is get as much information as we can about the potential cost and benefit of water retention so that it can inform further steps of the Twin Cities project without delaying that,” he said.

    From The Air

    Baird joined Averill, Lewis County PUD Manager Dave Muller and a consultant working on the project on an aerial tour of the two potential dam sites Friday afternoon.

    “You just get a better perspective, I find, when you’re airborne,” Baird said after stepping off the plan on the Chehalis-Centralia Airport runway.

    The Congressman said he could see the potential for water storage above the Pe Ell site, mainly due to the visible amount of drainage that spills into what becomes the headwaters of the Chehalis River.

    With potential, though, come problems.

    Baird said that the escalating federal deficit will mean cutbacks in the future, and what that will mean for flood control projects remains to be seen. The levee project had a price tag of just over $120 million in 2003, an amount that has likely climbed higher with inflation. Muller and other advocates of dams have said that the hydroelectric aspect of water retention could contribute to the more than $300 million it would take to construct the dams, but only about 10 percent.

    “I think people have to look very soberly about the reality of available resources, both state, local and federal, when they evaluate what they’re going to do.”