Friday, February 4, 2022
CapitalPress.com 11
Flood: ‘We have to capitalize on what’s
happening because the flood really made our point’
Continued from Page 1
In the flood’s aftermath,
Whatcom Family Farmers,
an organization that supports
the region’s agriculture,
has tried to rally interest in
building a dam — managing
the Nooksack River Basin’s
water by storing it in the
winter, when plentiful rain
falls, and releasing it during
the dry summer.
In the summer, the river
falls below fish-protec-
tion standards set by the
state Department of Ecol-
ogy. The department plans
to adjudicate water rights to
determine how much water
must be left in the river for
salmon during the region’s
short irrigation season.
Potentially, every agri-
cultural water right could be
subject to curtailment. This
is foremost on the minds of
Whatcom County farmers,
who argue the basin doesn’t
have a water supply prob-
lem, it has a water manage-
ment problem.
“We have to capitalize on
what’s happening because
the flood really made our
point,” said Whatcom Fam-
ily Famers President Rich
Appel, a dairy farmer.
Shoring
up
levees,
improving fish habitat and
removing some river gravel
would help, too, according
to Whatcom Family Farm-
ers. No gravel has been
removed from the Nooksack
River since 1997.
The group’s executive
director, Fred Likkel, said
now is the time for the farm-
ers to present their case.
“There are a lot of people
right now craving informa-
tion,” he said. “We clearly
need to look at a multi-prong
approach.”
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Whatcom County, Wash., dairyman Rich Appel is among many in the region who want to prevent more flooding of the Nooksack River.
sack River, to protect farm-
land. Removing gravel was
dependent on also improving
fish habitat. Gov. Jay Inslee
vetoed the projects.
The Army Corps of Engi-
neers in 1973 studied a water
storage project on the South
Fork of the Nooksack River
to prevent floods. The district
engineer ultimately recom-
mended against the project.
The Corps is not cur-
rently studying water storage
in the basin, Seattle District
spokesman Andrew Munoz
said. For a project that big,
Congress would probably
would have to authorize a
study, he said.
Storage is key
The key, though, is water
storage. A reservoir would
prevent winter flooding,
protect fish habitat and pre-
serve farming.
“Water storage addresses
everybody’s
problem,”
Appel said.
But building a dam or
removing gravel are polit-
ically difficult because of
their potential threat to
endangered salmon. The
basin has three salmon spe-
cies that are federally pro-
tected under the Endangered
Species Act.
“What happens to fish —
that is the big issue,” Likkel
said.
Nooksack Indian Tribe
Chairman Ross Cline Sr.
agrees, but adds, “My point
of view won’t be popu-
lar with farmers and people
who live in the floodplain.”
He said he opposes
storing water in a reser-
voir. Rather than gravel, he
blames manmade dikes that
“force the water to stay in
one tiny channel,” he said.
“I think mother nature did a
better job by not putting up
dikes.”
The tribe can’t live with-
out salmon, and whatever
is done to the river should
be done for salmon, he
said. “Salmon first, people
second.”
Growing danger
Dairyman Jeff DeJong
slogged through ice and
slush to the edge of the
Nooksack
River
and
Problems will worsen
Dillon Honcoop/Save Family Farming
Whatcom County, Wash., farmland floods Nov. 15. The flooding closed a grain supplier and rail service, causing a
feed shortage at dairies that persisted a week later.
Fred
Likkel
Elaine Thompson/Associated Press
People stand atop a flood wall holding back the Skagit
River in downtown Mount Vernon, Wash. An atmospher-
ic river—a huge plume of moisture extending over
the Pacific and into Washington and Oregon—caused
heavy rainfall, bringing major flooding to the area.
pointed to a mound of sand
and gravel rising from the
channel.
The North Cascade
Range and Mount Baker
supply the sediment, which
washes down steep tribu-
taries and settles as the riv-
er’s main stem flattens and
winds through farmland.
“It’s an easy thing to
see,” DeJong said. “We’ve
got gravel bars growing
larger and larger.”
Record rains in Novem-
ber were too much for the
river. In two days, Belling-
ham received a month’s
worth of rain. The flood
damaged about 1,900 build-
ings in Whatcom County,
according to the state’s
application for federal disas-
ter funds.
With some people still
displaced, state and county
officials recently held a meet-
ing at a local high school. A
distraught woman said she
had 7 feet of water in her
house. Officials expressed
condolences and talked
about the prospects for emer-
gency relief.
Applause was loudest,
however, for the woman
who shouted, “Why don’t we
dredge the river?”
It’s a question farmers
have been asking for a long
time, DeJong said. “There’s
always somebody to say
‘No,’ or say ‘Yes, possibly,’
if you do this study or that
Rich
Appel
study. And by the time the
study is done, the rules have
changed.”
The Nooksack Basin
yields more sediment per
square mile than any other
major river in the Puget
Sound region. For decades,
gravel companies used the
gravel deposits for construc-
tion projects, but a series of
regulatory actions made get-
ting a gravel permit too hard.
Rising riverbed
The riverbed rose 1 to 2
feet in some places between
2005 and 2015, according to
the U.S. Geological Survey,
which concluded the river-
bed will continue to rise.
“The underlying issue
is the bottom of the river is
moving up,” Lynden Mayor
Scott Korthuis said.
It’s an international affair.
When the Nooksack over-
flows in the U.S., the water
spills northward into British
Columbia. Tens of thousands
of cows in the Fraser Valley
there were
drowned
during the
floods.
“ We ’ r e
sending too
much water
Ross
to Canada,”
Cline Sr.
Korthuis
said.
Korthuis said he and other
mayors of the small towns
flooded in November meet
regularly about the problem.
“I think this event has galva-
nized all,” he said. “Doing
nothing is not an option
anymore.”
Whatcom County Public
Works Director Jon Hutchins
said that over the years sed-
iment management has been
talked about in “fits or starts.”
It hasn’t happened, how-
ever, and it’s unclear who
could make it happen.
“There’s no river czar or
oligarchy. This is a shared
responsibility,”
Hutchins
said. “Things are changing
in people’s awareness, per-
ception and, honestly, their
anxiety.”
The state’s sensitivity to
gravel removal was high-
lighted in 2019, when law-
makers put three “demon-
stration projects” in an orca
recovery bill. The projects
were to be done in three riv-
ers, including the Nook-
Climate change projec-
tions suggest the Nooksack
Basin’s twin problems — too
much water in the winter and
too little in the summer —
will get worse. Summers will
be hotter, while more winter
precipitation will fall as rain
instead of snow.
Inslee emphasized cli-
mate change after touring the
flooded area last November.
“We are in a permanent
state of attack in our state by
the forces of climate change,”
he said. “This is one flood of
unfortunately many that we
will be experiencing.”
Climate change activ-
ists are focused on reducing
greenhouse gases to zero by
2050 to keep global aver-
age temperatures from rising
after mid-century.
Near-term solutions?
DeJong, however, said
he’s looking for government
to do something in the near
term. He said he knows that
removing sediment won’t
end floods, but it might
make them less frequent and
less severe.
“I believe in environmen-
tal protection, but we’ve
gone so far as to say that as
humans we can’t affect any-
thing. We can’t continue to
exist that way,” he said.
He said he also knows
that dams are as politically
sensitive as sediment man-
agement. But it’s time to be
blunt, he said. “I’ve been
saying ‘dam’ for a long
time.”
Grazing: Grazing preferences Irrigation: ‘The plaintiffs
also have financial ramifications have no right to water seepage’
Continued from Page 1
Continued from Page 1
Grazing preferences also have financial ram-
ifications, as having access to federal allotments
substantial increases a ranch’s real estate value.
The Hanleys and Corrigans took their case to
federal court, claiming their due process rights
were denied because the BLM has separate reg-
ulatory processes for canceling grazing priori-
ties and grazing permits.
Under the BLM’s theory, landowners could
lose grazing preferences if they lease property to
ranchers who lose their grazing permits, thereby
getting punished for another party’s actions.
However, the 9th Circuit upheld an ear-
lier ruling last year that sided with the BLM’s
position.
“After a permit expires, a former permittee
Similarly, the ease-
ment’s terms would pre-
vent the irrigation dis-
trict from abandoning
the canal and filling it in,
he said.
The irrigation district
argued that it would have
the right to stop using the
easement for any reason,
such as a lack of water.
“The plaintiffs have
no right to water seep-
age,” Reinecke said.
It’s common for irri-
gation districts to con-
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press File
From left to right, Mike Hanley and his wife,
Linda, with daughter Martha Corrigan and
her husband, John, at the family’s ranch near
Jordan Valley, Ore.
does not retain any preference to stand first in
line for a future permit,” the 9th Circuit said.
The Hanleys and Corrigans petitioned the
U.S. Supreme Court to review the case but that
request was denied on Jan. 24.
vey water through under-
ground pipelines, but
they can also go above
ground to cross rivers
and other obstacles, he
said.
“Irrigation districts
have been going above
and below for 100
years,” Reinecke said.
An abuse of the ease-
ment would occur only
if the irrigation dis-
trict intended to entirely
change its purpose, such
as permitting a power
line to cross the property,
he said.
Replacing
one
method of water deliv-
ery with another doesn’t
place an unreasonable
burden on the landown-
ers, Reinecke said. “The
irrigation district is only
doing what it’s legally
entitled to do.”
Excavating silt from
canals already happens
during routine mainte-
nance, as does the elim-
ination of unwanted
vegetation, he said.
“Removal of trees and
bushes occurs all the
time. Every summer.”