Grays River Valley residents reject enhancement plans

Grays River Valley residents gave a cold shoulder Tuesday evening to a proposal for a variety of salmon habitat enhancement projects in the Grays River.

In a community meeting sponsored by the Grays River Grange, the Grays River Work Group, a subgroup of the Lower Columbia Fish Enhancement Board, told Westend residents they had identified 65 projects that could be used to enhance salmon habitat and also address erosion and flood threats.

Valley residents responded they didn’t want salmon enhancement projects; instead, they wanted projects that would take care of erosion threats and address flood threats.

Delvin Fredrickson, chair of the Grays River Habitat Enhancement District, presented a petition signed by over 180 people telling the work group to abandon any plans for projects.

After 90 minutes of discussion, work group engineer Jeff Breckle said the group would consider the message and decide whether or not to proceed with its planning process.

“Are there any projects you’d like to see,” he asked the audience.

Several people responded that they felt the work group should find a way to dredge the mouth of Grays River and its channel across Grays Bay to the main channel of the Columbia River. That would allow freshets to drain easier and ease flood threats, they said.

Breckle responded the group would look into that.

The work group formed a couple of years ago as a consortium of agencies, entities and individuals including the enhancement district to identify, coordinate and find funding for projects to improve the Grays River.

Most of the project funding comes from Bonneville Power Administration funds for salmon habitat enhancement.

Breckle said the group hired a consultant team that reviewed the many studies of habitat issues in the Grays River basin, and the team came up with the 65 projects. They had planned to use input from the Tuesday meeting to refine the list and identify priorities, with a final prioritized list to be presented next February.

The group has worked with the enhancement district on a couple of projects, Breckle said, including stabilizing an eroding bank at the Western Wahkiakum Water System well site, and it is working with the Gorley Family and the Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce on a project to improve channels that formed several years ago on the Gorley Farm when the river jumped its banks.

The group has no legal authority, Breckle added. Property owners must be willing to work with the group, which can channel funds to project sponsors.

Sediment coming off logged slopes in the upper basin is a problem and will continue to be a problem for years, Breckle said. While the enhancement district personnel were still active in the work group, the work group approached the forest land owner about possible projects to control sediment, but the land owner denied access to the land.

Fredrickson told the work group representatives, “We want river restoration; we do not need fish restoration.”

He said he and other Valley residents, including the enhancement group board of commissioners, had withdrawn from the work group because they disagreed with the emphasis on salmon habitat instead of flood protection.

Others commented that people from outside the Valley don’t have the long history and knowledge of how the river behaves and can’t design adequate projects.

And others commented that the work group hadn’t involved the community in its initial planning stage; instead it was presenting a list of projects for rubber stamp approval.

Alton George, an enhancement district commissioner, criticized a project that occurred this summer off Satterlund Road; its use of woody debris will likely fail and cause trouble for people down river in this winter’s freshets, he said. In another project last winter, a landowner trespassed to collect logs and woody debris for another project.

Breckle responded that work group had opposed the Satterlund Road project from the start.

“In your second example, that was that landowner and he had no connection with us,” Breckle said.

There were a couple of calls for a moderate response.

“We have a lot of frustration,” said Esther Gregg. “There will be a flood this winter. How bad will it be? How long will we be trapped in our homes?”

She suggested the community and work group try to identify some projects and see if they can’t make some small steps of progress.

Amy Ammer, a Deep River resident and the CREST employee coordinating the Gorley Project, suggested Westend residents think twice about rejecting the projects and work group out right.

“Think about how this will impact the small community we live in,” she said. “This might be a way to get this to be a vibrant community.”