Cascade Volcanoes • Entered by Laurie Kerr on July 23, 2020
Chehalis Basin Alliance meeting
July 23, 2020
Participants and Hours
| Pre Planning hours | |
| Post Admin hours | 0.5 |
| Activity Hours | 2 |
| Participants | 1 |
| Total Hours | 2.5 |
Key Issue: Multiple apply
Activity Type: Other Administration (reporting, emails, calls, planning)
Key Partners: Orca Network/American Whitewater/Pacific Rivers/Wild Steelhead Coalition/Conservation Northwest/Trout Unlimited/Northwest Conservancy/Shoreline/Citizens of Clean Harbor/League of Women Voters/Sierra Club/Chehalis Tribe/Quinolt Tribe/Wild Salmon/Friends of Grays Harbor/Twin Harbor Riverkeepers
Short Description of Activity
A number of partners met virtually to discuss the Chehalis Basin Strategy for Community Flood Assistance and Resilience Program. Chrissy Bailey with Dept of Ecology presented the program which does not include a dam. It is a pilot project to provide technical and financial assistance to local communities and to reduce the economic damages to property, businesses, and people from flooding. It is a voluntary program which includes building levees, flood walls, flood vents, elevating structures, retrofitting structures and land acquisition to mitigate flooding. There are measurements in place to monitor the effectiveness of the program. It allows for flooding due to normal years as well as catastrophic flood events due to climate change in the future.
Advocacy Actions: Due to the fact that the Flood Control District Authority has hired a PR firm to advocate for the proposed dam we are considering several advocacy actions. One involves LTEs questioning the legal and ethics of using public money ($.09) tax for a public relation firm to advocate for the dam. Another action involves contacting our federal legislators to inform them of them of the flood control measures which the alliance supports (Chehalis Basin Strategy for Community Flood Assistance and Resilience Program), in conjunction with our partnership with the Dept of Ecology.
Reflection/Evaluation
The goal of the activity was to bring partners together and educate them about the Chehalis Basin Strategy for the Community Flood Assistance and Resilience Progam and get them working together. Next meeting is planned for August 20 at 10am. Next steps include finalizing the advocacy actions we plan to take.