Land Trust proposes dike Mill Road project

Columbia Land Trust has proposed rebuilding Mill Road south of Rosburg to turn it into a dike.

The land trust has purchased many parcels of land in the Grays River Valley, including a piece on the northeast side of Mill Road that has an old earthen dike.

The dike has failed the past few winters, land trust spokesperson Ian Sinks said, and allowed flooding on private property on the southeast side of the road.

The land trust parcel separates the road from the river, and the land trust would like to turn the road into a dike with road on top and open the old dike to allow their parcel to become year-round wetland, a major goal of the group.

Sinks on Tuesday asked Wahkiakum County Commissioners Blair Brady and Dan Cothren to give either approval or acknowledgment of the proposal for a funding application.

Delvin Fredrickson of the Grays River Habitat Enhancement District said that district’s board of directors had voted to approve the project.

Public Works Director Pete Ringen and Prosecuting Attorney Dan Bigelow recommended the board withhold approval and just acknowledge the project. There are too many details yet to be engineered, Ringen said, for him to be comfortable in approving the project.

Instead, Brady and Cothren voted to acknowledge the project, and Sinks said he would continue with the application process and have the design engineers check with Ringen to make sure county concerns were addressed.

Raven Webb, who owns land across the Grays from the site, said the land trust’s projects on adjacent property had caused terrible flooding in her area and were destroying the community’s quality of life. She said she felt that the land trust’s ultimate goal was to force land owners such as herself to sell their properties. She suggested the county require a large bond from the land trust and its contractors.