Seal Slough situation keeps getting worse

To The Eagle:

With the low tides the last few days, I have taken time to do my routine survey of my section of dike. Today I also went and paddled upstream in the canoe at low tide. I encountered continual degradation of the dikes, in particular on the outside curves of the slough.

Our section of the outside curve is particularly easy to see, as we have the dock to make close visual inspection at low tide. From the dock it is very easy to see the continuing and worsening scour and sloughing. Very noticeable, from just a month ago. The dike is deteriorating faster than previously thought, thus making the situation more and more time sensitive and urgent.

As this scour from the daily ebb and flow, filling and emptying the Kandoll Farm through the huge culverts continues to degrade the dike, it totally debunks the theory by Ducks Unlimited engineer John Axford and Columbia Land Trust’s Scott McEwen’s theory that perhaps all the scour occurred by our flood event three years ago. We have not had a flood event since. Yet it is still deteriorating. Hence the destruction of private property is occurring by the same aforementioned ebb and flow.

If this flow is not stopped or curtailed, it will make the dike totally fail. Dike failure will mean the destruction of over three quarters of our property. It will also have two feet of water in our driveway. It will also have water standing on SR 4 at higher tides.

Meeting after meeting has left me and others frustrated with talk and no action.

Can anyone tell us what to do next? We are not rich to afford attorneys. I can also not sit by and watch my life’s labor drown, by someone else’s grand scheme.

Poul K. Toftemark

Rosburg