Dredging the Grays River?

The Grays River Grange has initiated a process to review the feasibility and community support for dredging the mouth of Grays River.

Various efforts for the approval of dredging have been attempted in our local community over the years and unfortunately have been unsuccessful.

The Grange has been a leader in the western Wahkiakum County for over one hundred years and our organization wants to give dredging a shot. We are starting with an assessment of community interest and investment in the project. We plan to discuss the real and likely outcomes of the project, such as; how much, if any, flood relief would occur, how often would the river need dredged in order to maintain a channel and is a viable sport fishing channel desirable?

For the next two months, the Grays River Grange will be collecting information about community interest in a dredging project. Please post a comment below.

We kindly request that comments feature the authors actual name. Anonymous postings will be deleted regardless of content.  Thank you.

For more information - grange@wwest.net.

 

Comments

[Carol Ervest]

It is my personal feeling that the Grays River Grange should pursue the dredging of the Grays River mouth in hopes of helping with our flooding problem. After receiving my Washington State Grange Legislative Handbook for 2009, this is something that is listed as being supported with salmon recovery. I also noticed a RCW 76.009.280 "Removal of Log and Debris Jams from Streams" listed under Conservation and Ecology and the need to be diligently applied to all creeks and streams throughout the entire State of Washington to remove the threat of future disastrous floods of the nature of the December 2007 Flood in SW Lewis County.
I like the idea of adding comments on line. I just hope enough people will be aware of this mode of having their voice heard. I found out by reading the Mark Linquist/Gorley Springs report---but, how many people take the time to read this?

[Clair Stephan]

Thanks Grays River Grange for providing this forum. We have always advocated dredging of the mouth of Grays River; but it takes an entity like the Grange, with their community minded members, to actually create real progress toward such a goal.

[Erik Ervest]

I think that if you dredge the lower Grays River, and the north side of the Columbia below Rice Island it would help. The government has put so much sand on Rice Island that it has been blown by wind and water onto the north side of the river. They won't say they did it but the people that use the river know. I grew up on the flats on the Grays Bay I should know. If something isn’t done soon we will loose the north side of the Columbia below Rice Island.
If you open up the Grays and the Lower Columbia the flooding will be helped. At present there is nowhere for the extra water to go. If money is spent I say open up the lower river and you will be amazed at the benefit.

[Poul K Toftemark]

Thank you Krist for this site!
I went to Longview to have a meeting with Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Group and Jeff Breckel yesterday (Tuesday, 13-09). The meeting was for the purpose of trying to find out how plans for the Grays River could be acceptable by the people and the GRHED (for the people) in order to move forward. In short, Jeff will come up with some factual proposals rather than the huge scale they had shown at the Grange. The GRHED will then be asked to show this to the landowners and people of the river for their reaction.
My biggest input to them was that the whole river had to be in their plans. That means all the way through Grays Bay to the Columbia. Much resistance and skeptisism was on the subject, but after some insistance that clearing silt, deepening of the river to cool water and encourage fish passage was in the interest of not only fish but also people. It was hard for the group to go along with that thought, hence the only care was for fish, not both.
It was also brought up that many past projects on the river had badly affected neighboring properties and left many residents wary of organizations from "outside" doing work on "our" river.
Today, Wednesday 14th (every 2nd wednesday) at 6pm in the Grays River Grange Hall, we will be having our meeting to discuss all matters of the Grays River. Ian Sinks of CLT will also be there to meet with us.
I highly encourage any and all to come and participate in the discussions and have a cup of coffe and cake or cookies. It is extremely important to hear you!
Sincerely Poul.

[Steve Puddicombe]

Thanks to Amy Ammer for taking the logistics of this work group on, and to Krist for this forum.

I do feel that some solution for the extreme siltation of the mouth of Grays River would be beneficial in many ways, for fishermen and boaters as well as during flooding events, particularly in terms of drainage after a flood. My only concern is that people may think this will be a major "cure" for the river and will lessen the high flooding events.

Dredging the mouth will not reduce flooding height at my place (Satterlund Rd), for instance, although it may help reduce the duration of a flood event. As an example, in the dec. 07 flood I had record heights here but was able to warn folks downstream prior to their flooding--meaning that the water comes out of the watershed in a kind of clot of water that pushes downstream. The water then stacks up against the Columbia--another variable--so that the flooding of the lower valley and tidewater areas are also affected by the tide and wind. The height of the tide is the height of the flood in many cases. No amount of dredging will change this.

If we can join together to tackle the dredging issue, we might consider joining together as well, to tackle the issue of sedimentation in general, and its origin in the watershed. This is where the sediment is coming from in the first place and what clogs the river clear down to the mouth.

We all approach catastrophes differently, but when my bathtub is overflowing I turn the water off first.

Thanks for the chance to comment.