Chehalis Community Development Director Trent Lougheed talks at the Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce forum on Monday.
From economic development to flood mitigation and water rights, the city of Chehalis is looking to tackle each issue to improve the community.
Chehalis Community Development Director Trent Lougheed addressed a small crowd on those topics at Monday’s Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce monthly forum at O'Blarney's Irish Pub in Centralia.
The largest of the projects he talked about was the flood mitigation bank the city plans on setting up along the Chehalis River between state Route 6 and the Chehalis-Centralia Airport in the area near the old wastewater treatment plant.
The city already owns 60 of the 156 acres identified for the bank, Lougheed said.
The first phase of the project is to create a master plan for the bank. It has already been funded through a previous state capital budget, Lougheed said. The city also created a dedicated fund and a mechanism for mitigation credits in October. For projects requiring more than 500 cubic yards of fill in the floodplain, mitigation is required. Instead of having the developer do the mitigating, the city will allow businesses to purchase credits for the approximate value it costs to transport the fill, which is currently around $8.60 per cubic yard. The funds raised by the city will then support further flood storage, mitigation and habitat restoration within the bank.
On the property owned by the city, the plan is to remove the fill from the area that the old wastewater treatment plant is on as well as remove the plant itself, Lougheed said. This will allow for the fill to be added somewhere else for new development.
Currently, the city is waiting for the capital budget for the next 2017-19 biennium to pass the Legislature in order to move forward with the next phase of the project, which includes approaching property owners about purchasing their land and doing more habitat conservation, Lougheed said. The city will also build paths in the area to turn it into a nature park.
“Basically turn it into a community environmental area,” he told The Chronicle.
Lougheed added the lots in the project plan are in the floodway, making it practically impossible to get permits to develop on them.
At the bank’s capacity, around 2.5 million cubic yards of material will be mitigated across 156 acres. It will cost between $25 million and $35 million, Lougheed said.
Also at the forum, Lougheed discussed the city’s water rights availability and how that impacts planning and economic development.
“The city does not have a water shortage or water rights issues,” Lougheed said. “(But) we don’t have a lot of water available for consistent large customers like a large processor.”
The city draws its water from the Newaukum River and has the ability to draw from the Chehalis River if needed, Lougheed said. However, the city currently cannot draw from both at the same time because they have to recalibrate the water treatment plant for the Chehalis.
When the region has long dry spells like this past summer, the Newaukum River level drops and the city cannot draw enough water from it to support a processor and the city at the same time, Lougheed said. This has prevented large commercial processors from locating in the city.
One possible remedy would be to build another water treatment plant to draw from both rivers, he said. Another option the city is currently looking into is using reclaimed water that has been treated at the wastewater treatment plant for irrigation and fire hydrants. Lougheed said the city is discussing this with its 20 largest customers. The plant is a class A treatment plant, meaning the water it produces is clean enough to be used for this purpose, he added. It is similar to the one used by the city of Yelm, which currently uses reclaimed water to irrigate the city parks and school sports fields.
In doing so, the overall draw from the river would be decreased.
