Andrea McNamara Doyle, director of the Office of the Chehalis Basin, listens to a board member speak during an OCB meeting in Chehalis in June, 2018.
Leaders from across the Chehalis River Basin have been trekking the halls of the state capitol to push for more money for flooding and conservation projects, following a budget proposal from Gov. Jay Inslee that would limit such funding to its status-quo amount.
“That’s really nice that we’re all marching together,” said Lewis County commissioner Edna Fund, a member of the Chehalis Basin Board. “We like when we’re all working off the same agenda. That feels really good.”
The board provides leadership for the Office of the Chehalis Basin, a group created within Inslee’s Department of Ecology in 2016 to direct flood control and aquatic restoration work within the basin. OCB has asked for $73 million in funding over the next biennium, but but Inslee’s draft budget sets aside $50 million for the group — its current level of funding.
Fund and others have been pushing the Legislature to provide OCB with the full requested amount, and she said the lobbying has been a unified front. She credited the work of the Quinault Indian Nation, which holds another spot on the board, for advocating for the group’s work in the lower basin.
“As a board, they kind of put us together as different jurisdictions and governments to be advocates for the (Chehalis Basin) Strategy as a whole,” said Tyson Johnston, the Quinault vice president. “We definitely wanted to advocate for the higher amount. … Because of the task we've been given by the communities and the Legislature to develop the Strategy, we need the full amount to move forward.”
The tandem advocacy is notable, given the perception of split priorities of the various players in the basin. Fund, like many Lewis County leaders, has focused on flooding, particularly on solutions including a proposed dam near Pe Ell designed to help protect the Twin Cities and nearby areas from high waters that have proved devastating in the past. The Quinault Tribe has expressed skepticism about the project, and brings a perspective of wanting to protect and improve its all-important fishing grounds in the lower basin.
But with OCB’s funding goals on the line, all parties emphasize that the group’s two goals — flood and fish — are inextricably linked, and each perspective is important to their double-whammy advocacy efforts.
“The Quinault Nation is fully committed to both sides of the strategy,” Johnston said. “We felt it was necessary to use any platform or voice we had to support the strategy.”
Johnston said he’s met with more than a dozen legislators to discuss OCB and its funding goals, as well as meeting with Inslee’s legislative liaisons. Fund has been making plenty of visits herself, along with fellow board members Vickie Raines and Jay Gordon. She’s focused on the flood-control aspect of the OCB’s work, and she’s found that many legislators are particularly interested in work to prevent Interstate 5 from flooding.
“We’ve been up there seeing a lot of them,” she said. “There’s 28 new legislators, and some of them don’t have pictures on the wall yet. But they remember when I-5 was closed.”
Johnston noted the the Quinault Tribe is interested in flooding as well as habitat projects, but found it important to speak to the areas where it has the most expertise.
“It's important to emphasize different things, and that's what we did,” he said. “These two topics weren't getting a lot of traction until we started working together. We're committed to the full process and the full strategy.”
Both Johnston and Fund noted that OCB may have more leverage given the keen interest statewide in saving the endangered southern resident killer whales. Inslee has proposed more than $1 billion toward saving the animals based largely on recommendations provided by the Orca Task Force. One of the key challenges for the Orcas is the loss of food supply, as salmon runs have declined sharply. Basin leaders presented their work on fish habitat as a possible boost to that effort.
“It definitely came up,” Johnston said. “Legislators are really interested in the findings of the Orca Task Force. The Chehalis Basin is one of the few systems that's still producing wild Chinook salmon. ... We really emphasized that where possible, that we're also contributing to that strategy for the southern resident orca whale.”
Andrea McNamara Doyle, director of the Office of the Chehalis Basin, has also been involved in many of the meetings with legislators, though not as an advocate. As an Inslee appointee, her role is not to push for funding, but she has served as a facilitator for several of the Board members’ meetings. She’s also provided information on the Office’s role, as well as outlining distinctions between the requested and budgeted amounts.
“There are a lot of new legislators, so one of the big things Andrea's doing is making the new legislators understand what the Chehalis Basin Strategy is and making sure they're familiar with the program,” said Chrissy Bailey, project manager for the Chehalis Basin Strategy.
According to Bailey, OCB staff provided the board with various funding level scenarios, ranging from the status quo to the $73 million it ultimately asked for. The projects funded by additional request are largely habitat restoration work.
“We basically gave them a couple of options and then they had conversations and discussions and decided to go with the more aggressive requests,” Bailey said. “That's the biggest difference, is more restoration occurring on the ground.”
Inslee’s budget does not specifically say that specific projects will be cut, leaving the board the freedom to spend the $50 million he’s proposed how it sees fit. Bailey said board members agreed to not adjust their plans to meet the lower amount until it’s certain the Legislature won’t provide more funding.
“They basically declined to take up the conversation at this point as a practical matter,” she said. “If the board were to receive less than the $73 million they asked for, we would have to go through a prioritization exercise. … We're sort of in limbo until the Legislature's budget comes out.”
