By Claudia Yaw
The Chronicle
After the release of their draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on a proposed flood retention facility in the Chehalis River, the Army Corps of Engineers solicited public comments in a meeting Thursday.
“A key thing to understand here is that we’re still a pretty long way away from issuing the final EIS, and before we get there we’ll be reviewing all the public comments we receive … to see where we may have missed things in the draft EIS,” Project Manager Brandon Clinton said.
Edna Fund, county commissioner and member of the Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority, which proposed the project, said Monday she was hoping to rally support and encourage community participation at the meeting. However, almost half of the two-hour meeting was filled with silence as moderator Betsy Yanasak waited for individuals to raise their virtual hands.
One concern brought up was the fact that the Corps’ EIS, under the National Environmental Policy Act, did not take into account climate change. One Lewis County resident, who identified himself as Brian Stewart, said the exclusion of climate change could lead to inadequate mitigation efforts. Before the permitting process, the Flood Authority must figure out how to avoid, minimize, and compensate for any negative environmental impacts of the project.
“I can’t even buy into it, because without climate change there, it’s a non-starter,” he said.
The NEPA did not model future climate conditions in its analysis of how the proposed facility — a dam near Pe Ell which would close in the event of a flood, creating a temporary reservoir — would impact the environment. It did, however, acknowledge that the environmental impacts of the facility could be worse given the impacts of climate change.
“If there is more precipitation in the future, it is possible that the proposed flood retention facility would operate more frequently,” the NEPA reads. “Depending on how environmental resources were affected by climate variability over time, it is possible that the operational impacts of the flood retention facility would also differ.”
John Hendrickson, a citizen representative on the Chehalis River Basin Flood Control Zone District and an advocate for the dam, argued that the exclusion of climate change was necessary in order to isolate the impacts of the structure itself.
Other commenters brought up the two “alternatives” to the dam that the Corps analyzed, one of which is an extremely similar structure, with nearly identical environmental impacts, the other a “no action” alternative.
“The major failing of this draft is that there was no non-dam alternative. Why?” Twin Harbors Waterkeeper and clean water advocate Lee First asked. Another commenter agreed, calling the lack of “true alternatives” an inadequacy.
Hendrickson argued that the EIS analyzed 61 alternatives, “59 of which were deemed ineffective.”
However, the 59 alternatives weren’t ruled out by EIS because they would be ineffective in preventing any flood damage. The Corps only considered alternatives that met the applicant’s “identified purpose,” which was defined as reducing flood damage from catastrophic flooding — the type of flooding that occurs, on average, every 100 years. Those 61 alternatives included floodwater bypasses, levees and floodwalls, restorative flood projects, and other local projects that have been ongoing, and weren’t included as an alternative if they didn’t meet specific metrics.
Many commenters spoke in favor of the dam, including Hendrickson and Lewis County resident Frank Corbin, both of whom called in from the same room as Fund.
One commenter who identified himself as a Chehalis Valley resident said his house was flooded in 2007, and that he was “heartened to see the good science that went into the Army Corps of Engineers’ NEPA statement.”
Another meeting for public comment will be held on Oct. 14 and 4 p.m. Members of the public can also submit comments through the mail, virtually, or through voicemail. Details can be found at https://chehalisbasinstrategy.com/eis/nepa-process/.
