The expansive, $22 million project to restore the floodplain around the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Washougal cleared a major hurdle after an environmental impact analysis was competed this week, and preliminary work on the project is set to start this summer.
The Bonneville Power Administration, the effort’s primary funder, announced this week it completed an environmental impact review of the project and found no expected adverse affects from the project, which will reconnect the refuge’s largely blocked-off, 960-acre floodplain area to the Columbia River.
More permitting with the Army Corps of Engineers needs to be completed before the larger phases of the project can start, but Christopher Lapp, Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge Complex project leader, said the BPA’s approval is still a big step.
“It’s going to be one of the most significant reconnection projects in the lower Columbia River basin,” he said. “In my personal opinion, it is going to bring world-class wildlife viewing opportunities to that refuge.”
The Army Corps of Engineers built the levee system around the area in the mid-1960s to protect against flooding, but development in the area and other problems with water control have led to flooding along Gibbons Creek, along the west edge of the refuge, affecting nearby homes, state Highway 14, Washougal’s wastewater treatment plant and the Port of Camas-Washougal’s industrial park.
“Unfortunately, what’s happened is the upper watershed of Gibbons Creek has become developed in a sense that the flow rates are now higher than the initial structure that provides fish passage,” Lapp said.
The excess water flows into an emergency spillway that heads west, toward the Port of Camas-Washougal. The port has to pump that water away — at a cost of $100,000 per year, port officials have said — and that work traps and kills migrating fish.
Furthermore, he said, the area has grown stagnant in terms of vegetation diversity.
The refuge is home to a large amount of reed canary grass, an invasive species that contributes, ultimately, to reduced wildlife diversity, as well.
“When you look at the way (the floodplain) functions now and how it functions historically, before we put the dams in the Columbia and had the protection of the four levies and whatnot, the system has changed dramatically,” Lapp said.
The project would breach parts of the levees along the Columbia River, connecting the area back the Columbia River, and remove much of the existing stream and fish-related infrastructure. Workers will also build new levees to protect nearby port land and private property, including railroad tracks and a ranch, from flooding. The work will also raise the part of state Highway 14 that passes the refuge, again for flood protection.
“With the system being more dynamic, it’ll bring in the ability to have more diverse wetland vegetation,” Lapp said. Between that and the levees, he added, the refuge will provide better habitat for lamprey, migrating salmon and birds.
“There’ll be unimpeded hydrology,” said Chris Collins with the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership, which organized the project.
Once the levees, culverts and other water diversion structures are gone, heavy rainfall might result in 200 to 300 inundated acres at the refuge, Collins said. During the spring, when the Columbia River is at its highest, 500 to 600 acres might be inundated with water.
The Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership, a Portland-based environmental protection nonprofit coalition of public and private groups, is part of the EPA-run National Estuary Program. Multiple public and private stakeholders have had to work together on it, Collins said, adding to its scope and complexity.
The project will also move the refuge parking lot and reconfigure walking trails.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and BPA are funding the project, with the BPA paying the larger share of the costs, as the work addresses the power agency’s mandates for salmon conservation work. The state Department of Ecology awarded the project with a $4.6 million grant last year.
Lapp said the heavy work is slated to start in 2020 and take two years. The wildlife service plans to start the initial phase of restoration work this summer. Workers will do some invasive species control, and plant native shrubs and leave log material to benefit fish habitat, this summer and fall around Gibbons Creek.
