Staff and members of the Chehalis River Flood Basin Control Zone District tour the site of the proposed dam on the Chehalis River near Pe Ell in late 2017.
Washington Department of Wildlife employees Matt Hobin, left, and Amy Edwards conduct a survey of the Chehalis River near Pe Ell in August 2013.
An aquatic species restoration plan that aims to protect and restore habitat in the Chehalis River Basin will be ready for policy review at the end of November.
The initial draft plan for the Chehalis Basin Board will include strategies, objectives, expected benefits for aquatic species and the anticipated cost, according to a memo sent by Gordon White, the interim director of the Office of the Chehalis Basin
According to White, state agencies, tribes and the Chehalis Basin Board will provide input by the end of January. After that, the policy work will continue “to provide specific information on priority river reaches to target for restoration, types of projects that should be focused on, refinement of costs, an implementation schedule, and monitoring/adaptive management plan.”
That version of the plan is tentatively expected in the summer of 2018.
Work has continued on a number of different projects in the Chehalis River Basin, including restorative flood protection and an environmental review of a dam under consideration near Pe Ell.
The restorative flood protection action is an option being considered to rebuild some of the natural flood storage capacity of the basin upstream from Chehalis.
The restorative flood protection plan would add large wood structures and plantings to create resistance to the flow of the river, stream channels and the floodplain. It also includes reconnecting river channels to floodplain storage, White said.
“During this two year 2017-2019 state biennium, work on restorative flood protection includes detailed modeling and pre-permit design in the Newaukum sub-basin in order to conduct project level environmental review in the 2019-2021 biennium,” White said. “The goal in the 2017-2019 biennium is to determine if there are willing landowners and to establish proof of concept in a priority area, to understand if the approach is feasible to broader treatment areas.”
The Chehalis Basin Board is still waiting on the approval of a capital budget. The group repurposed carryover funds from the 2015-17 biennium to continue work on projects in the current biennium.
“If the Legislature does not pass a capital budget by November 2017, there will be continued delay of on-the-ground projects and technical work to support decisions by the Chehalis Basin Board to advance parts of the strategy,” White wrote.
The Chehalis Basin Strategy follows a two-prong approach to address flood damage and the loss of aquatic species habitat.
The Chehalis Basin Board will meet today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Borst Park Kitchen No. 1.
The meeting is open to the public.
