Is anything being done to prevent I-5 flooding?
National Guardsmen make their way through the flood waters of the Chehalis River north on Interstate 5, Thursday afternoon, Jan. 8, 2009, in Chehalis, Wash. (AP Photo/The Olympian, Steven M. Herppich) By Thom Jensen and KATU.com Web StaffCHEHALIS, Wash. - Over the past 70 years, there have been a lot of proposals to stop the flooding in an area where Interstate 5 now sits near Chehalis but nothing has been done. So what is the big holdup? That's what folks who live in the area want to know. They are upset that a joint local, state and federal plan to prevent frequent flooding has been derailed several times.
You see, since the 1930s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with state and local agencies, have been talking about doing something to stop the flooding. But since then there have been years of delays caused by disagreements about what should be done. Lost funding has not helped either.
But there is hope on the horizon. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a new plan is now being put into action. The plan is to build new levees that will hold back frequent flooding to the point of a 100-year flood and to rebuild a private dam that will hold 11,000 acre feet of flood water. The project is in the planning and design stage right now and work is not scheduled to begin until 2011. The cost is estimated at $123 million.
Lt. Governor Brad Owen, who toured the flood scene on Thursday, said the state will do what it can to make sure the project does not derail again. "Mother Nature is a powerful entity but we are doing our best to see to it that these people don't have to live with this in the future," he said. Related Documentation |
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