January 26, 2018
T he C olumbia P ress
Eighth Street Dam maintenance
leads to letters seeking board recall
options.
“I have heard verbal com-
The Columbia Press
ments from directors of the
A Warrenton resident who Skipanon Water Control
contends the Skipanon Water District who claim that they
Control District can’t legally have the right to do anything
abandon its flood-control du- they decide for this river re-
ties has sent a letter to prop- gardless of what their charter
erty owners within the dis- or Oregon State Law (says),”
trict asking whether they’re Widdicombe told commis-
interested in recalling board sioners. “It appears to me
members.
that the district board
Scott Widdicombe
is making decisions
said he reacted to
that do not follow their
what he sees as mis-
own charter.”
conduct by board
He gave city com-
members at the ex-
missioners copies of
pense of Warrenton’s
ORS 553, the state’s
residents.
law on creation of wa-
It all boils down
ter control districts,
to the Eighth Street Widdicombe which states “water
Dam and its 60-year
control districts may
history, which has
be created … for the
gotten
particularly
purpose of acquiring,
messy since the water
purchasing, construct-
control district chose
ing, improving, oper-
to keep the tide gates
ating and maintaining
open in 2012 and re-
drainage,
irrigation
move them perma-
and flood and surface
nently in 2015.
water control works in
“Ultimately, there’s
order to prevent dam-
going to be a reso-
Scheller
age and destruction of
lution on the Eighth
life and property by
Street Dam and it doesn’t floods.”
have to take years to happen,”
It also states that water con-
Widdicombe said.
trol districts can have a sec-
ondary purpose of improving
t he letters
Earlier this month, he sent fish life and water quality,
letters to 297 property own- but that can’t be their prima-
ers within the district. Each ry purpose.
Property owners within the
property owner pays an op-
Skipanon
Water Control Dis-
eration and maintenance fee
trict’s
boundaries,
when they
of $30 per parcel, which pro-
petitioned
the
court
to form
vides the district with about
in
1960,
said
they
sought
to
$11,500 a year in revenue.
“undertake
the
construction
The money is no longer be-
ing spent on flood control and or purchase of drainage,
is, instead, going to promote flood or surface water con-
fish passage, Widdicombe trol” to benefit their proper-
ties, according to court re-
contends.
Widdicombe told the City cords.
Today, city leaders seek a
Commission Tuesday night
grant
to fund a study of flood
that he has heard back from
potential
since the gates
many residents in the dis-
have
been
removed. Mayor
trict and will be organizing a
Henry
Balensifer
brought
meeting with them to discuss
B y C indy y ingst
up the study during a medi-
ation meeting last year with
members of the water control
district, who emphatically re-
jected participating in it.
“To the best of my knowl-
edge, Mr. Widdicombe is
not a constituent or resident
of our district,” said Tessa
Scheller, who has served on
the board continuously since
1993, having been elected six
times.
Board members maintain
seven miles of river and three
structures on a daily basis,
she said, removing large and
small woody debris blocking
dams and culverts, monitor-
ing water levels, taking pho-
tos.
The Eighth Street Dam has
been examined numerous
times by engineers and feder-
al employees who have deter-
mined it to be ineffective for
flood control and an imped-
iment to downstream flows,
Scheller said.
But some of those studies
have been called into ques-
tion because they were done
to determine fish flows in-
stead of flooding, an argu-
ment Scheller rejects. “The
dam was dangerous and
obsolete. It degraded water
quality and destroyed a his-
toric salmon run.”
She called Widdicombe’s
claims “alarmist and inaccu-
rate” and said she and other
board members planned to
attend Wednesday night’s
County Commission meeting
to assure them they have no
intention of removing other
flood structures.
“His biggest lie … is that
we’re going to drain Culla-
by Lake,” a Clatsop County
asset, Scheller said. “We’ve
spent thousands of dollars
repairing the dam at Cullaby
Lake. There are 140 homes
there.”
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