Mr. Kramer. As you’re aware, Wild Game Fish Conservation International (WGFCI) is the only non-governmental organization to actively participate in the ongoing efforts of the Chehalis River Basin Flood Authority. As such, we’ve expressed several concerns and clarifications during flood authority meetings, flood authority-sponsored public meetings, meeting with our elected representatives, and via local press. In 2010, WGFCI submitted two resolutions to the Flood Authority: 1. Immediate and permanent moratorium of steep slope, clear cut logging and an immediate and permanent moratorium on floodplain development 2. Flood Authority-sponsored studies to be peer-reviewed by University of Washington/Washington State University After considerable participation with the Flood Authority and review of countless Flood Authority-sponsored studies and reports, it is our opinion that the proposed multi-purpose dam (water retention and hydropower) to be sited in the headwaters of the Chehalis River near Pe Ell would not provide basin-wide flood damage reduction, nor would it keep interstate 5 passable. This multi-purpose dam would be extremely expensive, would require decades to construct given the need for additional studies, lengthy permitting processes, expected litigation, would irresponsibly place residents and businesses in harm’s way and would devastate many Chehalis River basin fish and wildlife populations and their habitats. Our concerns regarding the proposed multi-purpose dam in the headwaters of the Chehalis River are reinforced in the recently completed “Chehalis Basin Flood Mitigation Alternatives Report”: “Major flood events can be isolated on a single tributary or set of tributaries, and not affect the whole Basin” - Throughout the Flood Authority meetings and processes it’s been documented that the proposed multipurpose dam would capture approximately five percent of the basin’s stormwater thus leaving ninety five percent in a 2007 type storm to impact downstream residents and businesses. “A dam on the Chehalis Mainstem provides the most flood mitigation throughout the mainstem Chehalis; it also presents the most uncertainty and potential risk to natural resources particularly salmon and steelhead and has the highest cost of those projects that have been estimated.” – Residents and businesses in the Chehalis River basin deserve and expect flood damage protection via one or more effective projects that also protect the region’s highly-prized natural resources not a project that is the least likely to protect them while risking natural resources. “A very different approach than reliance on major construction projects such as in the three project combinations described above would be to leverage local projects to remove key obstructions in the floodplain and use programmatic changes to address the flood damage. Such an approach could include widening of culverts, bridges, and dikes and levees that cause localized flooding, prohibiting any new development in the flood plain, raising or buying out structures already in the flood plain, improving other land use management practices, and improving forest practices to incentivize longer logging rotations, completing smaller construction projects in localized areas such as the Bucoda levee, and the Centralia‐Chehalis airport levee, protecting livestock and farm investment with farm/critter pads, and ensuring effective detour routes around Interstate 5 to accommodate periodic closures during flooding.” Sincerely, Bruce Treichler James Wilcox
Wild Game Fish Conservation International