Bud Blake
OLYMPIA — A state grant for about $300,000 to elevate up to four homes in South Thurston County was approved by the Board of Commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting to provide flood protection in conjunction with a damage reduction mitigation pilot program.
The funding would allow county staff to execute an agreement with the state Recreation and Conservation Office for the pilot program, which would fully fund the elevation of around four homes in the Chehalis River Basin.
Thurston County’s Long-Range Planner Cynthia Wilson said they initially requested $1.9 million to elevate houses as well as buy out homeowners who owned property in floodplains.
“We want to give people options for their properties when they’re having damage,” she said.
While flood mitigation tactics like elevating houses or relocating them are good for the homeowners, it also saves the county money in flood recovery costs, Wilson said.
Low-impact projects like the ones proposed in the pilot program also help preserve the natural floodplains instead of undertaking high-impact projects.
Coupled with this is a push to keep new construction out of floodplains, she said.
The pilot projects must be completed by June, but Wilson said if it goes well, it could pave the way for similar, larger-scale projects in the future.
Prior to a Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority meeting in January, members toured Bucoda, looking at houses that had already been elevated. Many houses around the town hall had been lifted and placed on cinder block walls with vents, allowing water to pass through underneath without collapsing structure.
Bucoda Mayor Alan Carr said many residents had seen up to a 50 percent reduction in their flood insurance rates following the installations.
“I think it was very beneficial to citizens,” he said.
The Flood Authority is comprised of representatives from governments in Thurston, Grays Harbor and Lewis counties and is focused on implementing local flood mitigation projects.
A Governor’s Work Group, appointed by Gov. Jay Inslee, has been taking a larger-scale approach to tackling flooding in the basin and will be replaced by a newly created Office of the Chehalis River Basin later this year.
The Work Group produced an environmental impact statement last fall, which outlined four major paths forward for flood mitigation, including building a dam near Pe Ell on the Chehalis River, buying some 21,000 acres of floodplain wetland along the river and moving residents out of it, continuing local flood mitigation projects or levees along Interstate 5.
