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The INDEPENDENT, January 3, 2008
The
INDEPENDENT
Published on the first and third Thursdays of each month by
The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St., Vernonia, OR 97064.
Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410.
Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net
Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net
Assoc. Editor Noni Andersen, noni@the-independent.net
Year in Review
From page 1
July 6 – Washington Grade School Principal Aaron
Miller cited for marijuana possession, board
does not dismiss him.
July 7 – Stub Stewart State Park grand opening.
July 12 – 47J new board members, Tim Bamburg and
Greg Kintz, sworn in.
Aug. 6 – City Recorder Kate Conley’s position eliminat-
ed by new job description. Council approves
Kline’s latest budget changes. Mayor Harrison
announces she’s starting process to change
Park Drive to Shirlee’s Way.
Sept. 1 – $11.50 temporary water rate increase goes
into effect.
Sept. 17 – Joann Glass hired to fill new Administrative
& Financial Services Manager/City Recorder
position.
Sept. 19 – West Oregon Electric Cooperative
announces rate increase.
Oct. 1 – Kline says new Chart of Accounts being used
and hopes to have three month expenditure
reports for next meeting.
Oct. 15 – Harrison announces “Kline has decided to
resign.” Kline had problems with the new
financial software so no expenditure reports
ready. Mayor Harrison acuses Clark McGaugh
of telling lies. Council holds illegal executive
session to discuss ‘what to do’ about Clark
McGaugh.
Nov. 8 – 47J board told WGS basement won’t be used
this year and accepts resignation of board
member Angie Rhoades.
Nov. 12 – Storm causes power outage lasting most of
day.
Nov. 13 – Downtown speed limit changed to 20 mph.
Nov. 19 – Kline tells council he will provide financial
information after the auditor’s visit on Dec. 3.
Dec. 3 – Major flooding (Flood of 2007) after more than
10 inches of rain falls in less than 24 hours.
Dec. 6 – Mayor Harrison announces at Flood Town
Hall meeting that City Administrator Kline is
unavailable so City Planner Aldie Howard is
now the Emergency Interim City Administrator.
Dec. 18 – Council agrees, with some misgivings, to
keep Kline on part-time to handle finances,
budget and public works while Aldie Howard
acts as City Planner and Interim City
Administrator.
Ike Says…
By Dale Webb, member
Nehalem Valley Chapter, Izaak Walton League
I hope all is well with
everybody; we have had a
tough end to the 2007
year. Many of us never
thought that we would
ever have another flood
like the one in 1996, al-
though it was always in
the back of our minds that
it could happen again.
Some of us realized it could be worse, too, not a
pleasant thought to say the least. For many peo-
ple in the Vernonia area the flood of 2007 was
the worst ever, but in fact it was not, when con-
sidering the entire Nehalem basin as a whole.
Yes, locally the flood waters were higher, but
down at Foss where a stream gauge has been
recording data for 68 years, it was not. Looking
at the historical data it appears the 2007 flood
will actually rank third in the records. The data
for 2007 is still provisional and could change.
The flood of 1996 had a gauge height of 29.56
feet and a flow of 71,000 cubic feet per second.
The flood of 2007 had an estimated gauge
height of 24.8 feet and recorded flow of around
41,900 cfs. It appears that the flood of January
9th, 1990, beat the last flood ever so slightly with
a gauge height of 25.07 feet and a flow of 42,000
cfs.
Many may ask, how can this be when the wa-
ter in my house was higher than the ’96 event?
Well the answer is not simple; there are many
factors that can influence how a flood affects the
surrounding environment. One of those factors is
how fast the water event unfolds; the 2007 flood
was mainly driven by rain fall, enormous
amounts of rain fall. According to the upper Ne-
halem USGS stream gauge near Clear Creek,
we received around four inches of rain on De-
cember 2, and six inches of rain on December 3.
Throw in another accumulated inch from the 1st
and 4th and some snow in the higher elevations
and you had the flood of 2007. The flood of ’96
was different in that our area had a lot more
snow and the 8 inches of rain was spread out
over four days. The flood of ’96 was also a more
wide-spread event, probably because of snow
melt, that affected the whole of Oregon, not just
the coastal regions. Many have claimed that the
flood of 2007 was more like a flash flood and that
might be a good description, the waters rose at
an incredible rate of close to .4 of a foot per hour
over approximately 35 hours. The Clear Creek
gauge topped out at 18.59 height; I consider 10
feet to be the beginning of low land flooding. The
river normally runs 4.5 - 5 feet during the winter.
So, was the way the weather hit us the only rea-
son Vernonia got hit so hard? Probably not.
There continue to be changes to the forest
lands around us, changes that may have an ef-
fect on the stream flows in the Nehalem River
and Rock Creek. Looking at the last 10 most sig-
nificant flood events in the Nehalem basin, they
have all occurred since 1964, the three worst
Please see page