Pro- and Anti-Dam Groups Sharply Divided After Environmental Review

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All but one commenter spoke in opposition to the proposed Chehalis River dam Wednesday at the Army Corps’ final public meeting after the release of a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Although proponents of the project, including County Commissioner Edna Fund, tried this week to encourage supporters to attend, residents, tribal members, and environmental groups in opposition to the project dominated the meeting, painting the project as an environmental nightmare for fish, orcas, and the surrounding land.

The proposed dam, which would only close during floods, would be constructed at an important spawning area for spring-run and fall-run Chinook salmon, according to the EIS.

The virtual comment session Wednesday was part of the EIS process under the National Environmental Policy Act. The state Department of Ecology earlier this year released its own EIS under the State Environmental Policy Act. Completion of the state process has been paused by Gov. Jay Inslee, who has asked stakeholders to continue working on mitigation measures for the potential environmental damage identified in the EIS, while also coming up with a viable non-dam alternative. 

According to the NEPA EIS, for Spring-run Chinook in the project area, a potential population decrease of 78 percent was identified during the five years of construction. In that case, the population of only about 15 fish returning to spawn at that location could be at risk of extinction in the next 100 years. The EIS also predicted significant and permanent detriment to habitat used by coho salmon and steelhead, mainly due to water temperatures increasing by 9 degrees and the clearing of 485 acres worth of trees and vegetation.

The Quinault Indian Nation and Chehalis Tribe have continuously opposed the structure, saying it would impact salmon that the communities rely on for sustenance, religious purposes, and economic prosperity, and could impact sites used for religious purposes.

“The basin has been home to my family for nearly 600 generations, and in that time we have witnessed somewhere around the order of 15,000 floods, and we’ve adapted every time,” one virtual commenter identified as William T. said. 

He discussed sacred sites on the river used for spiritual bathing and prayer, which could be impacted by the project — calling it a violation of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. 

“But most of all, the destruction of religious and spiritual sites that are sacred to the Chehalis, Cowlitz, and Nisqually people is unconscionable,” he said. 

Other speakers echoed the sentiment, taking a broad historical view of development in the flood basin by white settlers, which ultimately put thousands of residents at risk of devastating flood damage.

“When European settlers first came to the Chehalis basin, we ignored the sage advice of the Indigenous peoples that have called this land home for thousands of years,” Orca Conservancy Executive Director Shari Tarantino said. “We were warned not to build in the floodplain, but we did so anyway, leading to our current dire situation.”

John Henricksen, a strong proponent of the dam and citizen representative of the Chehalis River Basin Flood Control Zone District, said the argument is “irrelevant.” 

“They’re exactly right, but we’re here now. I can’t undo that,” he told The Chronicle. “We can’t undo what’s already been done.” 

The issue of flood damage prevention can be an emotional one for Lewis County residents, especially for those who lived through the massive flood of 2007, which caused $938 million of basin-wide damage, according to Scott Boettcher, Staff to the Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority, the body that proposed the dam. 

Last week, at the Army Corps’ first public comment period, a resident whose house was flooded in 2007 expressed support for the project. However, this week, an online commenter identified as Elizabeth and an Independence Valley resident, said the $40,000 she spent raising her home is a much better approach than the dam.



“I believe that getting people out of harm’s way has proven to be the most cost-effective way to reduce flood damage,” she said, noting that she would expect project construction to last more than the expected five years. 

Among the environmental organizations that attended to voice opposition were Trout Unlimited, Defenders of Wildlife, Orca Network, Orca Conservancy, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Conservation NW, and Citizens for a Clean Harbor. 

“Even with mitigation measures, most dammed rivers are a sad echo of what they once were,” Robb Krehbiel, Northwest Representative of Defenders of Wildlife said in public comment. “Washington is one of the most dammed states in the country, and our efforts to dam almost every river and stream has significantly contributed to the collapse of salmon across the region, leading to cascading effects on other wildlife ecosystems, fishing economies, and tribal cultures and ways of life.” 

Several commenters brought up concerns about fish populations, one pointing out that the Chehalis River and tributaries were already closed to fishing this year due to low steelhead returns.

Decreased salmon populations would be felt disproportionately by the tribes, who have also brought up concerns about their treaty fishing rights, as established by the Olympia Treaty of 1865. Krehbiel said the dam’s impact on the fish would likely lead to litigation around a potential violation of the treaty that established a reservation and promised fishing rights “in all usual and accustomed grounds and stations.”

Environmentalist groups also raised concerns that the dam’s impact on salmon could directly impact Southern Resident killer whales, an endangered species that primarily relies on Chinook salmon to survive. The EIS estimated that Southern Resident killer whales would be minimally impacted, as “salmon from the study area are a small percentage of all the salmon in Grays Harbor.”

“This is a serious understatement,” Orca Network education coordinator Cindy Hansen said. “Chehalis River salmon are part of the West Coast Chinook salmon stock that has been identified as a priority stock … the loss of even a small part of their food source could be devastating to this endangered population with only 74 individuals remaining.”

“We are certainly sympathetic toward those in the Chehalis Basin who have been impacted by floods, but this project poses an unacceptable risk toward our Washington state marine mammal.”

A single commenter expressed support for the project. Fund and Henricksen said they expected the opposition. 

“These organizations have their agendas, and they want to save the fish,” Henricksen said. “That’s basically what most of the comments were about.”

Fund still hopes that opponents will change their tune after the flood authority develops strategies to mitigate environmental damage — something that’s required for the permitting process. 

“We didn’t have the opportunity to show what mitigation would be available, so if I were a tribal member and just read that EIS … I would totally agree with them, I would not want that either,” Fund said in an interview. 

Fund has also emphasized that the proposed project is not a permanent dam, and would only be closed during floods. But some have raised concerns that with climate change increasing flood intensity and frequency, the structure would operate more often than predicted, producing more environmental destruction than predicted by the EIS.