Floodwaters from the Chehalis River inundate Interstate 5 at state Route 6, Dec. 4, 2007, in Chehalis.
For eight years, Gov. Jay Inslee and the state Legislature have provided strong bipartisan support for the Chehalis Basin process for flood damage reduction and aquatic species enhancement. Both of these problems have been getting worse over the last century and, until recently, there was no plan to tackle both problems.
The Legislature created the Office of Chehalis Basin with a board of community and tribal leaders. The job of the board is to “aggressively pursue” both goals, aquatic species enhancement and catastrophic flood damage reduction.
A plan was developed for both goals. The state Department of Ecology conducted a Programmatic EIS looking at the alternative including water retention in the upper basin, the Aberdeen-Hoquiam North Shore levee project in the lower basin, and continued local flood projects coupled with hundreds of miles of habitat restoration throughout the basin. The findings were clear — combining all of these measures produces a win-win for the fishery and protection for families and communities by significantly reducing the risk from catastrophic flooding.
The PEIS found that doing nothing will mean more than $3.5 billion in losses from flooding in the next century and virtual elimination of the Chehalis Basin salmon runs, with climate change making both of these problems much worse.
The Legislature and governor provided more than $100 million in funding for this combined strategy.
This spring DOE released an EIS specific to the proposed water retention facility. The purpose was to outline all negative environmental impacts. The document was written to put the dam in the worst possible light.
It found that significant reductions in salmon populations will result in the next 60 years. What the executive summary did not point out is that 87 percent of the decline in salmon forecast is due to the forecasted climate change and not as a result of the dam. It also omitted the fact that all of the forecasted damage to the fishery is limited to the area above Rainbow Falls, an area that only contributes a fraction of the Basin’s salmon population.
The Quinault Nation and Chehalis Tribe then announced opposition to the dam as proposed and outlined in the EIS.
The Quinault Nation called for evaluation of a “Plan B”, local actions alternative to flood protection. Here is a reminder: consultants to the Quinaults had previously proposed a “Plan B” that was evaluated as part of the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. That plan called for moving thousands of families out of the upper Chehalis Basin and returning to old growth forests. When DOE evaluated that option it found that it would not pass a cost-benefit test and would also not provide flood reduction for communities downstream.
The governor and the Chehalis Basin Board support another evaluation of a non-dam alternative. I will also support this step so that nobody can say “they should have looked at something else.”
The governor also supports moving forward with the research to see how the negative impacts from the dam outlined in the EIS can be mitigated. I do too.
The governor’s letter to the board made clear his view, and he is right, that in the end we must have a “win-win” for all communities in the Chehalis Basin, including the tribes. The final plan must protect communities, families and I-5 from catastrophic flooding, and it must turn around the decline in the salmon populations.
Continued major funding from Olympia and Washington D.C. will only come if there is a major win in flood protection as well as a major win for fish enhancement. Major funding will stop if there is only a real plan to address one of the two problems.
There will have to be sacrifices — give and take — to achieve a net win-win but it is the only way forward. The consequence of this process failing means the end of a once-vibrant fishery, loss of human life and billions of dollars lost to families here as well as the state.
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Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, represents the 20th Legislative District in the state Senate.
