County to start dredging studies

If there's going to be sand placed on eroding Puget Island beaches, Wahkiakum County officials need to get to work.

That's the message Commissioner Dan Cothren gave to Islanders hoping to get dredged sand to protect their property from the Columbia River.

About 16 people gathered in the commissioners meeting room Tuesday to discuss dredging issues with the board of commissioners and Karla Ellis, dredging project manager for the US Army Corps of Engineers, which manages dredging of the shipping channel.

Cothern addressed the audience before Ellis arrived, saying he had had several conferences in the past week with Corps officials and representatives of US Rep. Jamie Herrera Buetler and Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.

In a nutshell, Cothren said, it's up to the county to get the permit application process going. Ellis and her colleagues have said they will advise and assist the permit applications.

It's also not necessary to pressure Ellis to push the applications through the process, Cothren said.

"She's here to help," Cothren said.

He explained that he had spoken with Ellis's boss who complained about the pressure county officials were putting on Ellis.

"He got to vent," Cothren said. "I take the blame. Karla Ellis is the wrong person to pressure."

Cothren said he also got to vent about the slow process, but in the end, it became clear that it's up to county officials to move forward with the project design and permitting.

To that end, Cothren, Public Works Director Chuck Beyer and Ellis had a conference call Tuesday morning with Congressional staff and a consulting marine engineer whose firm has worked with the county on previous dredging projects.

Another issue that came out of Cothren's conferences last week was the suggestion that it would be beneficial for county officials to give way and allow the placement of dredged sand on land inside the East Sunny Sands Dike. A coalition of upriver ports, who operate the dredges, has planned to put sand on leased farmland as part of a channel deepening project.

The coalition needs permission from the county to cross the dike road, and county officials, with the urging of citizens, have said sand should go on eroded beaches before going inside the dike.

"You may have to give on that," Cothren said.

He explained that the Corps has identified a large quantity of sand upriver from Sunny Sands, and they would like to remove that sand from the river so it doesn't move back into the channel and require subsequent dredging. That could help address one concern from the Corps--that sand placed on the East Sunny Sands beach will erode and shift into the county ferry's channel.

However, Cothren added, a representative of the Port of Woodland liked the idea of placing the sand on the Sunny Sands beach first because it would be more cost effective than placing it inside the dike.

"There's going to have to be some give and take," Cothren said. "We have to get this study done. We can't beat up Karla. Let's move ahead and get the sand."

In the short time she was at the meeting, Ellis commented that there's not much the Corps can do until the permitting is started.

She did say that the draft memorandum of understanding between the Corps and county is up for final review by Corps lawyers.

The agreement should lead to a 10-year period in which maintenance dredging could be done with disposal along eroding Island shorelines.