Mooers: No progress on Steamboat Slough dike

Diking District 4 Commissioner Maurice Mooers and two federal agencies remain as far apart as ever in agreeing on a plan to replace the Steamboat Slough Dike.

The Columbia River is eroding the dike, and geotechnical engineers say a breach is possible at any time. That would flood the Julia Butler Hansen National Wildlife Refuge. No one has funds to repair the eroding dike. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which owns the refuge, and the US Army Corps of Engineers have proposed building a new dike set back from the shoreline, and then breaching the old dike to create a wetland habitat for juvenile salmon. They would use habitat enhancement funding for the project.

They need approval from the diking district, which owns the dike, and Wahkiakum County, which owns the road on the top of the dike, to breach the dike.

Mooers has refused to grant approval unless the agencies make the diking district owner of the new dike. County commissioners have said they would support Mooers's position.

Mooers said Tuesday he had received an email letter from the Corps of Engineers stating that wouldn't be possible, for the Fish and Wildlife Service is the project sponsor. Fish and Wildlife has said it would work with the diking district to create an easement for the diking district, but that would take months to go through agency review.

Mooers continued to insist Tuesday that the diking district have some ownership of the new dike, otherwise, there is no guarantee that anyone will be able to respond to repair the new dike if it is threatened in the future.

He also expressed worry that Fish and Wildlife might abandon its support of other dikes in the diking district, which could impact private land owners.