Guest Document Issues Page

Date	Title	Summary
Guest Documents
12/02/1891	The Skagit River Valley: Its Great Agricultural and Mineral Richness	A gushing report in the December 2, 1891 New York Times proclaiming the Skagit Valley "is the most productive freight valley of its size in the world1"
12/9/1909	Skagit County Courier: Skagit River Breaks Loose, courtesy of Deanna Ammons, Clear Lake Historical Society	Article description of flooding in Burlington conflicts with Burlington newspaper “The Journal” (See 12/3/09, 12/3/09). Interesting description of how Skagit almost cut across Sterling Bend.
1/1922	The Clear Lake News: Flood Submerges Clear Lake and the Surrounding Country, courtesy of Deanna Ammons, Clear Lake Historical Society	This was a “company” newspaper. Description of 1921 flood shows that they were using a different datum for gages back then they do now. 46 feet two days before the flood crested is 4 feet above where river crested in 2003. The description of flooding in Clear Lake is exactly what happened in 1990.
10/19/1927	The Influence Of A Power Dam In Modifying Conditions Affecting The Migration Of The Salmon, by Dr. Henry B. Ward, University of Illinois	This document was retrieved from the University of Illinois. Dr. Henry B. Ward first came to Skagit County in 1925. "Dr. Henry B. Ward, professor of zoology at the University of Illinois and who is known as the leading authority in the United States on the sockeye salmon is spending several weeks in this city and at Baker lake is trying to study out some feasible means of getting the salmon past the power dam of the Stone & Webster company on the Baker river to the spawning grounds at Baker lake, and of getting the small salmon fry from the government hatchery at the lake down the Baker on their way to salt water." (See 7/29/25 C.H.) This is one of the first salmon studies ever performed in Skagit County.
3/14/1929	Flood Predictions From Storm Paths, Preflood River Stages, Precipitation Data, And Peak River Stages by James E. Stewart and E.T. Schuleen, West Virginia Power and Transmission Company, Pittsburg, PA., courtesy of the American Metrological Society, http://ams.allenpress.com/	The only other paper that has been located that Mr. Stewart ever authored. This one deals with a "working method of making flood predictions from storm paths, preflood river stages, precipitation data, and peak river stages on the Cheat River in West Virginia."
1954	An Investigation of the Effect of Baker Dam on Downstream-Migrant Salmon	The conclusions reached in this report show that “95% of the migrants leaving the reservoir used the surface spillway as their exit route and that less than 5% left through the turbine intake.” Further the report concludes that “64% of the native Sockeye and 54% of the native Coho were killed in passing down the spillway.”
1972	Rebuilding the Once Great Salmon Runs of Swinomish Channel	This document was provided to me by the Washington Bulb Company and describes the reasons that the former Washington State Department of Fisheries director felt were the reasons for the demise of the salmon runs in Swinomish Slough.
1976	Selected Transcripts from 1976 Public Hearings in WWU Booklet: "Of man, time, and a river : the Skagit river, how should it be used?"	Selection of seven transcripts put together by Western Washington University of 1976 public hearing snippets regarding the Skagit River's relationship to the Skagit Valley. These essays include the Corps of Engineers involvement with the river, early flood control efforts, farming in the Skagit Valley and also hydropower.
11/13/1995	Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce: Hatchery fish hurt wild salmon stocks	“Hatcheries unintentionally have contributed to the over-harvesting of wild stocks, ecological changes in the salmon environment and reduction of overall genetic diversity,” said the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences. “The long-term survival of salmon depends crucially on a diverse and rich store of genetic variation ... We have already lost a substantial portion of the genetic diversity that existed in these salmon species 150 years ago.”
1997	The Price of Taming a River: The Decline of Puget Sound’s Duwamish/Green Waterway Chapter Two: The Flood of November 1906	“The major recommended levees or dikes as the cheapest and most effective way of keeping the river in the valley where it should be.” Read the chapter to see what happened...
2/29/2004	Draft Assessment of Potential Habitat Restoration Pathways for Fir Island, WA	“Through a partnership with Seattle City Light, the Skagit System Cooperative, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the SWC commissioned this study to evaluate the feasibility and potential of alternative pathways for salmon habitat restoration that focus on the Fir Island portion of the Skagit Delta.”
5/17/2004	City of Anacortes Water Treatment Plant Brochure: Flood on the Skagit	Pamphlet explaining recent Skagit River flood history plus how the Anacortes Water Treatment Plant prepares for floods.
3/10/2006	Memo to LaConner Town Council from Dan O’Donnell	Gave three choices to town: 1) Do nothing; 2) Build a berm to protect LaConner; and 3) Work with Corps and build certified levee.
9/11/2006	Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce: "Revised flood maps will put a damper on development"	Revision of flood elevation maps by FEMA in Green River and Skagit River valleys raises concerns of citizens as well as the ire of citizens affected.
10/4/2006	Flood Insurance Primer	Dan O'Donnell writes a great column about the flood insurance situation in LaConner and mentions this website in the 4 October 2006 Channel Town Press.
11/12/2006	New York Times: After More Than a Century of Soaking, Washington Town Mulls Move to Higher Ground	Article profiles the Town of Hamilton's flood problem and evacuation efforts. Please check out the website referenced in this news article.
2/18/2007	Seattle Times: Awash In Trouble	In depth article by Bill Dietrich depicting flooding problems on the Skagit River.
2/18/2007	Skagit Valley Herald: Milt Priggee Editorial Cartoon	Milt Priggee draws an illustrative cartoon of the lack of cooperation between the Corps of Engineers and the SRIP.
10/24/2007	Dan O’Donnell Memo for La Conner City Government, Re: FEMA flood maps	Comments of Dan O'Donnell re his observations at the Oct 23 meeting re the FEMA appeal.
Jan-Feb 2008	Weatherwise "California Washed Away: The Great Flood of 1862" by Jan Null and Joelle Hulbert	"California's 30 days of rain in December 1861 and January 1862 was the equivalent of at least a 30.000-year [flood] event."
1/15/2008	Draft Recommendations for a National Levee Safety Program from the National Committee on Levee Safety	“The current levee safety reality for the United States is stark— uncertainty in location, performance and condition of levees and a lack of oversight, technical standards, and effective communication of risks. A look to the future offers two distinct possibilities: one where we continue the status quo and await the certainty of more catastrophes or one where we take reasonable actions and investments in a National Levee Safety Program that turns the tide on risk growth. We strongly recommend the latter.”
02/2008	Michael Baker Corporation Presentation: NO ADVERSE IMPACT: Preserving Our Watersheds; Protecting Our Property Rights	176-slide presentation on legal and ethical issues of floodplain development.
2/23/2008	The Courier of Findlay, Ohio: Educator: No simple solution for flooding	"Robert McCall, an Ohio State University Extension educator who focuses on watershed management" explains why, in pithy generalities, the flood risk is increasing and what can be done to reduce the risk.
2/29/2008	Flooding in the Chehalis River Basin: Synthesis	WSDOT eleven page summary of the continual problems with the Chehalis River basin.
3/6/2008	Daryl Hamburg Essay: Food For Thought, Skagit River System	Dike District 17 Commissioner essay begins with, "We can no longer look at flood control as a protection device. Levies do not protect communities. They REDUCE RISK. Thus we are not capable of protecting our public from the forces of the mighty Skagit River."
04/01/08	Washington University in St. Louis: Geologist decries floodplain development	This article should be must reading for all residents of Skagit and Lewis County. "When people build commercial or residential real estate in flood plains, when they build on sink holes, when they build on fault lines, when they build on the hillsides in L.A. that are going to burn and burn, over and over again, they're ignoring geologic reality," Criss says. "They're asking for chronic problems." "Everyone screams for more levees, which only encourage more development," he says. "These structures are not infallible, and when the levees fail — and they will, carefully though they are built — we just have more infrastructure in harm's way. It's not a very thoughtful approach.
4/30/2008	Ayn Rand Institute: How Government Makes Disasters More Disastrous	“The Katrina tragedy should have called into question the so-called safety net composed of government policies that actually encourage people to embrace risks they would otherwise shun--to build in defiance of historically obvious dangers, secure in the knowledge that innocent others will be forced to share the costs when the worst happens. ”
5/28/2008	Wenatchee World Editorial: Good work for salmon at sea	“We have talked, argued, studied and invested billions in the last 30 years to help more salmon migrate from their birthplace to the Pacific. Much less has been said about how to get more mature salmon back from the sea, to perform the essential function of reproducing.” Not eating them would help.
6/17/2008	FEMA: The elephant in the middle of the room	An excellent discussion of flood insurance versus flood control from Melissa L. Gaffney, a reporter for The Courier: Voice of the Bayshore of Middletown, New Jersey and the blogger behind SableMinded.
7/11/2008	Rep. Rick Larsen Letter to Steve Barger, President of Associated General Contractors of Washington	“Knowing of the Associated General Contractors of Washington's interest in Skagit River flood control efforts, I wanted to update you as to my efforts in Congress in regards to the Skagit River General Investigation study, flood control projects and FEMA's current flood mapping of Skagit County.”
12/03/2008	American Council Of Engineering Companies Position Paper on Levee Certification and Design	“Rising sea levels which increase flood severity, changing demographics, lack of hazard management considerations in controlling land use in flood hazard zones, and similar factors are escalating flood losses. For economic reasons the design standard is often set at a level that eventually will be exceeded. Catastrophic loss is near certain over time. Property owners in those areas protected by well-constructed levees capable of being certified are not required to (and often do not) purchase flood insurance.”
2009	What Homeowners Need to Know About National Flood Insurance!	“You may not think you live near enough to water to be at risk, but dams and levees do break, drainage systems can become overloaded and back up, and hurricanes can veer off path. Protecting your home and belongings with flood insurance is far less costly than cleaning up after the fact. Nor can you depend upon Presidential Disaster Declaration aid. Even if such a declaration is made for your area, it can be a long time before the money arrives.”
2/2009	Fisher Slough Fact Sheet	“Fisher Slough historically supported dynamic tidal and non-tidal wetlands. To claim land for agricultural purposes, tide gates and levees were installed decades ago. Today, the slough and its lower tributaries are confined and filled with invasive non-native plants; the historic alluvial fan has been eliminated; and natural flooding and tidal events are almost non-existent. The net results are a reduction in extent and diversity of wetlands, reduced accessibility for fish, degraded water quality and a reduction in flood storage capacity.”
2/2009	Fisher Slough Project Maps	Two pages of maps showing how the Nature Conservancy and other partners work to restore Fisher Slough on the South Fork Skagit River to its natural habitat and floodplain management capacities.
4/4/2009	NASA Earth Observatory 10th Anniversary: The Red River Flood Plain	“The repetition of flooding in the Red River basin is mostly due to its topographic setting and geologic history.”
4/7/2009	Fargo, Moorhead grapple with how best to protect region against future flooding	“Before a flood, developers and people looking for dream homes with woodsy river views may put irresistible pressure on local governments to go easy on restrictions. After a flood, areas targeted for clearing may defend their neighborhoods as economically vital, aesthetically valuable or historically important, and officials may fear chasing them away.”
5/29/2009	GAO-09-369 Highlights - FEMA Has Made Progress, but Needs to Complete and Integrate Planning, Exercise, and Assessment Efforts	“The lack of clarity in response roles and responsibilities among the diverse set of responders contributed to the disjointed response to Hurricane Katrina and highlighted the need for clear, integrated disaster preparedness and response policies and plans.”
6/3/2009	jacksonfreepress.com story: Drowning Jackson	“For most of the past century, the answer to flooding was to straighten rivers or strategically dam them up. There was no problem human ingenuity couldn’t dredge or concrete its way out of. It was only after we developed a deeper understanding of our environment and began to see the long-term destruction imposed by such projects that we began to reverse our strategy.”
6/4/2009	Mud fight on the Skagit	“Washington state law directs local governments to preserve wetlands and farmlands. These twin directives have run splat up against each other in a soggy little creek drainage east of Mt. Vernon, in the Skagit Valley.”
6/26/2009	Center for Environmental Law & Policy Comments on WA Dept. of Ecology Skagit River Water Supply Plan	“Water is a state-owned and managed resource, and people outside the Skagit watershed and not connected to the Flow Management and/or Water Resources Advisory committees have interests in Skagit water management and its impacts on growth, salmon habitat and other related issues.”
7/4/2009	A Flood Insurance Primer - Why Are So Few Homeowners Insured?	“Flood insurance was a hot topic in the wake of Gulf Coast hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The lesson taken away from those disasters from a flood insurance perspective was generally the right one - The Congressionally-mandated flood insurance program does not work. Not nearly enough people buy flood insurance - ironically, far fewer buy mandatory flood insurance than would if the market were allowed to educate the public and convince them to buy it.” (Matt Barr is the former Communications Director with http://www.alamode.com a la mode, inc. a mortgage technology company based in Oklahoma City. )
10/3/2009	New York Times: Scarcity of King Salmon Hurt Alaskan Fishermen	Report on how the loss of Pacific salmon is not restricted to Washington State, but spreading to southwest Alaska.
10/6/2009	American Society of Civil Engineers: So You Live Behind A Levee!	“All rivers, streams, and lakes will flood eventually. There are no exceptions. Given enough time, any levee will eventually be overtopped or damaged by a flood that exceeds the levee’s capacity.”
11/4/2009	Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Paper: The National Flood Insurance Program: Factors Affecting Actuarial Soundness	“Despite those factors, FEMA’s full-risk rates may be too low overall because the agency uses some outdated or incomplete information in its rate-setting—specifically, in its maps of areas at risk of flooding and its models of flood frequency and severity. Many flood maps are too old to reflect recent erosion of coastlines, decreases in permeable ground area because of wetland loss and economic development, or increases in sea level. FEMA’s policy of grandfathering properties in a previous zone or elevation class can also be seen as a case of basing rates on information that is out of date. Moreover, FEMA’s models of flood frequency and severity may understate actual risks because they do not reflect the effects of global climate change.”
11/13/2009	National Mortgage Professional: FEMA seeks feedback on National Flood Insurance Program	“The NFIP is currently running a deficit of more than $19 billion. “Clearly this deficit is not sustainable,” said Mary Colvin, Acting Division Director for Mitigation, FEMA, Region II, which covers New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. “We are looking for ways to revitalize the program, and want input from policy holders, local officials and flood plain managers, everyone.”
11/23/2009	High Country News: After the Floods	“About 15,000 years ago near the end of the last ice age, a lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which covered much of Alaska and western Canada, stretched south to what is now Sandpoint, Idaho, blocking the Clark Fork River with an ice dam over 2,000 feet tall and 2,200 feet thick.”
3/3/2010	Water Resources Development Act of 2007 Public Law 110-114: A Report on Implementation in the Third Year	“Section 2034 of WRDA 2007 established independent review requirements for certain project studies Reviews are required if the project cost is expected to exceed $45 million, if the governor of an affected state requests a review, and if the Chief of Engineers determines that a project is controversial. A project may also be subject to independent review if the head of a federal or state resource agency determines that the project is likely to have a significant adverse impact on environmental, cultural, or other resources under the agency's jurisdiction.”
3/11/2010	The Hawk Eye: Corps, levee district butt heads (again)	Unlike in Skagit County, Washington, P.L. 84-99 is being enforced in Henderson County, Illinois.
4/2010	Institute for Policy Integrity: The Distributional Consequences of the NFIP	“The program encourages building in floodplains by providing insurance policies that private insurers find too risky to write. The less expensive it is to insure a property in the floodplain against loss, the stronger the incentive to build in that floodplain and the more risk becomes concentrated in areas covered by the NFIP. The geographic concentration of risk helped to create the debt crisis the program faces today: a single flood event can affect a great number of covered properties, none of which have paid insurance premiums at a market rate.”
4/2010	University of Washington Climate Impacts Group Draft Report	“Under a warmer future climate, more winter precipitation falling as rain, rather than snow, will intensify winter flood risk for warmer transient basins.”
5/16/2010	Everett Herald: Glacier Peak Hazard Zones	A must-see graphic on the Everett Herald website on the “very high threat” that Glacier Peak is. See also: Everett Herald: Our volcano: Glacier Peak is the hidden threat in our back yard
5/16/2010	Everett Herald: Our volcano: Glacier Peak is the hidden threat in our back yard	“Glacier Peak is one of 18 volcanoes in the U.S. listed as a “very high threat.” It made the list because its historical record shows it erupts frequently and on a large scale. It last erupted about 240 years ago, just before the Revolutionary War, and its last major eruption was about 1,800 years ago.” See also: Everett Herald: Glacier Peak Hazard Zones
5/19/2010	US Senator David Vitter Press Release: Vitter Secures Corps Reform Commitments, Pushes for Further Accountability	“From the beginning, this disagreement was about holding the Corps' feet to the fire and demanding that a broken and irresponsible bureaucracy be held accountable.” ... In addition to the Corps’ promises to meet its deadlines, Vitter is working to further reform the Corps by attempting to secure language in the next the Water Resources Development Act that would request that the Corps be penalized $100,000 per week from its salaries and expenses accounts for each week a statutory deadline is missed or ignored.”
5/26/2010	The Columbia Daily Tribune - Taming the River	“Enter the Army Corps of Engineers, the hapless agency years ago given the impossible task of satisfying irreconcilable differences so many generations in the making. Finally the corps came up with a plan for water management, but after a few years complaining persists and Congress has commissioned a $25 million study. Nobody, including the group conducting the study, thinks it is likely to bring mutual happiness. Apparently Congress had to do something, so we shall have another study.” Sound like Skagit County?
6/7/2010	Letter from Western Washington State Congressional Delegation to Assistant Secretary for Civil Works, Army	“Additionally, as you know, several populations of salmon in Washington State are listed species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). As a result of this listing, levee operators in the impacted Washington river basins must comply with the ESA, which in most cases means vegetation that provides shade to cool the water temperature must be planted on a levee. Levees required to be in compliance with the ESA could simultaneously be in conflict with proposed Corps vegetation standards if no variance is kept in place. This could also result in levees being decertified or not being accredited if the FEMA standards are not met.”
6/9/2010	Recent GAO Work on Disaster Recovery: FEMA’s Long-term Assistance Was Helpful to State and Local Governments but Had Some Limitations	GAO Presentation to the 13th Annual FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Conference. One of GAO's recommendations was, “Establish a long-term recovery structure that more effectively aligns the timing and level of federal involvement with the capacity and needs of of state and local governments” in the wake of contradictory guidance.
7/7/2010	Snoqualmie Valley Preservation Alliance: Citizen group takes legal action against Army Corps of Engineers over flooding	“Calling legal action “the only means to dig out the truth about increased flooding,” the Snoqualmie Valley Preservation Alliance (SVPA), a nonprofit group of farmers and residents in the Snoqualmie Valley, today filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the U.S, Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). At issue is the Corps' approval of a new Snoqualmie Falls river widening project by Puget Sound Energy (PSE) and the Corps' complete failure to consider whether the project will cause flooding in the lower valley.”
7/20/2010	US Senator Patty Murray: Senator Murray Secures Funding for Critical Washington State Water Priorities	Senator Murray gets $1.137 Million for Skagit GI Study thru part of Congressional appropriation process. Says, “This funding would allow the Army Corps of Engineers to analyze possible flood control projects to protect citizens and infrastructure that would be impacted by a flood event on the Skagit River.”