Political Sunday: Snake River Dam Editorials and Sports Radio Goes Political

Snake River Dams Opinion Pieces:

Over the years various newspapers across the Pacific Northwest have put out editorial opinions on the lower four dams on the Snake River and printed guest opinion columns (disclosure - I wrote a guest opinion piece for the Bellingham Herald on the Snake River dams 20 years ago). The Columbian out of Vancouver, Washington published an editorial on the lower four dams (in-our-view-new-approach-is-needed-to-save-iconic-salmon). The editorial suggests breaching the dams "warrants serious consideration". The Columbian included a quote from another newspaper editorial from the Walla Walla Union Bulletin. Part of the quote stated "The water from a free-flowing Snake would flood farms, roadways, homes and even cities." 

Since the initial Walla Walla Union Bulletin editorial, the Union Bulletin corrected the Editorial and has a correction statement at the end stating "The Snake River dams do not provide flood control as previously stated."  

My take-away is that the Columbia Editors do not have a good understanding of the lower Snake River dams, otherwise they would have readily noted that the Walla Walla Union Bulletin statement about flooding made no sense. The Columbian error is somewhat forgivable; the Snake River is far upstream from Vancouver, Washington and one might assume that the nearby by Walla Walla paper would have a better understanding of the lower Snake River. Alas proximity to the dams may be a hinderance to understanding them, and the Union Bulletin editors credibility on this issue should be greatly diminished.    

Fall Back:

Note - I live just a bit south of the 49th parallel and pretty far west in the time zone.  

In my work I drive a fair bit to field sites. I listen to NPR, CBC and sports radio depending on where I am and the time of day or evening. The sports radio folks (KIRO) are generally pretty good at navigating through that political wickets. One of the conversations I heard on sports radio this past week was introduced as a political subject that all red and blue folks could support: a proposed bipartisan bill to allow states to remain on daylight savings sponsored by Washington Senator Patty Murray and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. The radio host was fully supportive of the bill. I support it as well. 

My rationale is that every fall I ease into getting up in the dark as the days grow shorter and sunrise slowly moves later into the morning. By the end of October I am getting up in complete darkness. I am not a fan of getting up in complete darkness, but I got used to it. With falling back an hour I have to restart the process or simply get up earlier (the same time by ignoring the clock all together). All in all getting up in the dark in the winter is not that big of a deal, but the sudden darkness at 5:00 pm is the part of the time switch I find to be very undesirable, and as the winter moves on, the late darkness moves to 4:00. I am on the west side of the time zone - it is even worse for those on the east side. 

Political Sunday: Remembering Malden and Pine City Okanogan Valley

Malden Post Office before the fire

NPR did a brief story on Malden, Washington and the lack of a National Major Disaster Declaration after the wildfires in Washington State in early September (HERE). The wildfires in early September burned nearly all of the town including the town hall, post office, food bank, library and fire station. Pine City, a few miles away also was badly burned and one fire burned across 60 miles of Okanogan County and into Douglas County including burning into the City of Bridgeport. 

The NPR story provided no explanation as to why a National Major Disaster Declaration has not been issued. One theory is politics because Washington State votes Democrat of late and the President does not care for the governor; however, Malden is located within a US Congressional District represented by Cathy McMorris-Rodgers, a Republican. The Okanogan area is represented by another Republican, Dan Newhouse. Malden voted 2 to 1 for Donald Trump for President over Joe Biden. So if the reason is politics, it is doubly unfair. Ms. McMorris-Rodgers stated shortly after the fire "I will be working with and supporting state and local officials and doing everything I can on the federal level to ensure our communities have the resources they need to rebuild." She, did sign along with the entire Washington US congressional delegation a letter to Mr. Trump in support of Declaring a Major Disaster (murray.senate.gov/letter).

So far Malden does not have the resources to rebuild. The town had an early burst of development when the railroad came to this location with a rail stop in 1906. After the railroad pulled out their facilities in the 1920s, the town declined. There is no commercial activity remaining, but with over 80 homes destroyed, Malden will have a hard time bringing their community back without help.

   

     

Political Sunday: Policy and political empathy

"The heart of politics is not about policy. It's about values. I can disagree with you on eight out of 10 issues, but if you're an honorable, honest, empathetic human being, we can do business." - Charlie Sykes quoted in an opinion piece by Frank Bruni.

During my political era, I did concentrate a great deal on policy and I still work on range policy issues. I great deal of good policy work gets down into the details. Those details matter. Good policy requires honest assessments of those details, but it also requires empathy.

Good business requires honest assessments and empathy. Politics and policy are really not that different. A lot of failed policy efforts forget the empathy part or the honest assessment part.

Likewise, good politics require empathy as well. Of late I have been feeling empathy for conservatives. It can not be easy under the circumstances we find ourselves in.   

Political Results Mapping Tool, Benton County

Doing some work in Benton County I noted that the County online mapping site includes an elections web mapping tool (https://bentoncounty.municipalcms.com/pview.aspx?id=6002&catid=45).  

I did a brief stint on the map and pulled up the 2016 general election results for president. Other results are also available for other offices. 

Yes, Benton County voted very much for Donald Trump. One small pocket up by Grandview and a few precincts in Kennewick and one in Richland went for Clinton. You can also use the tool to see the vote spread and see how many voted for other candidates as well as some precinct demographics. Fun stuff for political policy wonks. This sort of data is generally available, but this is the first I have seen it on a county GIS mapping application site.    

Canola in Central Washington

In the slightly wetter dry land farming zones of central and eastern Washington, canola fields have become part of the crop rotation.

Central Washington canola field with North Cascades in the distance

Connolly, McCracken and Painter (2016) describe a cost spread sheet developed for farmers considering planting canola. There has been an uptick in canola in Washington in part due to a canola oil plant built in Warden in 2013. Viterra recently gained full ownership of that plant (Press Release to WSU). Improvements to infrastructure and technical support may lead to expansion of canola in Washington.

The term canola is derived from combining "Canada" with "ola". Canola is a product of breeding out the undesirable part of rapeseed and was developed on the plains of Canada. Viterra is a Canadian Company.

Changes in farming can be global, and a big market for canola oil is China. The US-China trade struggles may impact these brilliant yellow fields. China has its own canola agriculture and has had trade disputes regarding canola imports to China from Canada that recently popped up again likely associated with the Huawei case.

Trade War Notes

The trade wars have begun. Washington State does a great deal of international trade. In part, due to our northern ports facing the Pacific. But the State also produces a lot of products that are shipped overseas. The US Chamber of Commerce put together a state by state highlight of the value of exports that will face tariffs. For Washington State the value of goods facing tariffs is more $6 billion (uschamber.com/tariff_data/one_pagers/wa.pdf).

Mexico has been especially strategic and that nations's retaliation will hit Washington fruit hard as well as potatoes. The Canadian strategy is to avoid supply chain issues for Canada.

I am not convinced about the Trump administration strategy, particularly with regards to Canada, Mexico and the EU. And I suspect that China situation is not well understood and will lead to long term harm.

Krugman knows a bit about trade and suggests that Trump will be well remembered for his statement that "trade wars are good and easy to win": Krugman: how-to-lose-a-trade-war

It appears the European thinkers will be strategic as well voxeu.org/new-cold-trade-war.

For Washington State - exports will remain important. It will be hard to consume all those apples.

Notes on the Culvert Case Being Upheld

The Supreme Court split 4-4 with Kennedy sitting out. Hence, Washington State will need to proceed with fixing fish blocking culverts as previously ordered by the the US District Court.

Not much to read as with a split opinion there is no decision to be written and no dissent.   no https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-269_3eb4.pdf

The knkx.org story here is a good summary of the result.

Various parties had press releases. Bob Ferguson has perplexed some with his position and taking this case to the Supreme Court in direct conflict with the position of the governor and the Washington State Lands Commissioner of Public Lands.  I add a bit of commentary at the end and will do a future post with a bit more. In any event, the lower court ruling standing is a big deal.

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson issued the following statement:

"Today’s ruling brings a resolution to a case that has gone on for nearly 20 years, defended by multiple attorneys general. It is unfortunate that Washington state taxpayers will be shouldering all the responsibility for the federal government’s faulty culvert design. The Legislature has a big responsibility in front of it to ensure the state meets its obligation under the court’s ruling. It’s also time for others to step up in order to make this a positive, meaningful ruling for salmon. Salmon cannot reach many state culverts because they are blocked by culverts owned by others. For example, King County alone owns several thousand more culverts than are contained in the entire state highway system. The federal government owns even more than that in Washington state. These culverts will continue to block salmon from reaching the state’s culverts, regardless of the condition of the state’s culverts, unless those owners begin the work the state started in 1990 to replace barriers to fish. 

I look forward to working with tribal governments to advocate for the funding necessary to comply with this court order, and to ensure other culvert owners do their part to remove barriers to salmon passage."

The cost impacts are relatively modest in the scheme of the entire state transportation budget. At issue was the State's obligation. That is not the same as the Federal government; Mr. Ferguson knows that, but wants to complain about the different treatment. Some have expressed concern that counties and cities may have to follow a similar path; however, that was not before the court and Mr. Ferguson is over simplifying the problem with other blocking culverts - the lower court already determined that issue and the State's position was vague.   

Hilary Franz, commissioner of public lands, issued this statement:

"Today’s decision affirms that it is our collective responsibility to ensure the survival of Pacific salmon. This decision is fair under the letter of the law, but it is also just. Protecting salmon is an issue not just of importance to Washington’s tribes, but to all of us.

The time is now to think boldly about how we move forward on many fronts, including culverts.

My agency, the Department of Natural Resources, stands ready to work with tribes, state agencies, counties, private landowners and federal partners to restore and protect our treasured salmon. 

It is time to stop fighting over who should do what. Instead, let us roll up our sleeves, stand shoulder to shoulder, and get to work saving our Pacific salmon for future generations. It’s time to do the right thing."

Based on previous statements by Ms. Franz, she gets that this issue is bigger than just the tribal fishing rights - expanding fish populations will benefit both tribal and non tribal fishers.

Culvert Case Notes: a Few Highlights

Washington State appealed a 9th Circuit Court ruling on culverts to the US Supreme Court (Washington State v United States 17-269. Oral arguments were earlier this week. The short story is State roads stream crossings in many places have blocked salmon fish passage. This blockage led to a 9th District Court ruling that the State of Washington needed to accelerate culvert replacements on State Road stream crossings due to the violation of Indian treaties.

I can't say I understand the State's position other than it is keeping with a long time Washington State tradition of not being very supportive of "usual and customary" treaty fishing rights for treaty tribes.

The Supreme Court oral argument transcripts are HERE for those that try to decipher where the Supremes might be heading. 


I noted a few highlights:
  
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR (to Noah Purcel arguing for Washington State): In the courts below during the argument in the Ninth Circuit, you said the Stevens Treaty would not prohibit Washington from blocking completely every salmon stream into Puget Sound.

MR. PURCELL: I remember that answer well, Your Honor, and that was a mistake at oral argument about how our theory....


JUSTICE GORSUCH: -- the treaty, which guarantees the right to all usual and customary fishing grounds, really means half of them?

  The point of a treaty I would have thought would have been to -- to freeze in time certain rights and -- and to ensure their existence in perpetuity, regardless of what other social benefits a later municipality might be able to claim.

I don't see anything in the treaty -- maybe you can point it to me, maybe I'm just missing it textually -- anything in the treaty that says: Ah, and your rights to those usual and customary grounds and stations is limited by, and may be completely eliminated, if necessary, to meet other domestic interests that a municipality might have, which is, I think, the position you're taking, I think, before this Court.

 MR. PURCELL: Not exactly, Your Honor.

JUSTICE KAGAN: And like Justice Gorsuch, I'm wondering where that is in the treaty? 

Much of the Washington State argument and back and forth with the Justices at oral revolved around vague standards about that applied prioritization of culverts. Given a recent opinion by Gorsuch on another case, being vague may not be a good idea. I did not fine the 9th Circuit ruling on prioritization vague:

"The court ordered correction of high-priority culverts — those blocking 200 linear meters or more of upstream habitat — within seventeen years. For low-priority culverts — those blocking less than 200 linear meters of upstream habitat — the court ordered correction only at the end of the useful life of the existing culvert, or when an independently undertaken highway project would require replacement of the culvert. Further, recognizing the likelihood that accelerated replacement of some high-priority culverts will not be costeffective, the court allowed the State to defer correction of high-priority culverts accounting for up to ten percent of the total blocked upstream habitat, and to correct those culverts on the more lenient schedule of the low-priority culverts."


Allon Keden arguing for the United States of America against the Washington State appeal had this quote: "The state takes about a half dozen quotations out of context from more than 1,000 pages of record and briefing."

Keden's quote matches how things went during the first appeal to the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The Court of Appeals panel stated "Washington misrepresents the evidence and mischaracterizes the district court’s order.

It should be noted that much of the 9th's ruling was based on Washington State's own studies:

"WDFW and WSDOT, stated, “Fish passage at human made barriers such as road culverts is one of the most recurrent and correctable obstacles to healthy salmonid stocks in Washington.” The report concluded: A total potential spawning and rearing area of 1,619,839 m 2 (249 linear miles) is currently blocked by WSDOT culverts on the 177 surveyed streams requiring barrier resolution; this is enough wetted stream area to produce 200,000 adult salmonid annually. These estimates would all increase when considering the additional 186 barriers that did not have full habitat assessments."

In sum, we disagree with Washington’s contention that the Tribes “presented no evidence,” and that there was a “complete failure of proof,” that state-owned barrier culverts have a substantial adverse effect on salmon. The record contains extensive evidence, much of it from the State itself, that the State’s barrier culverts have such an effect. We also disagree with Washington’s contention that the court ordered correction of “nearly every state-owned barrier culvert” without “any specific showing” that such correction will “meaningfully improve runs.” The State’s own evidence shows that hundreds of thousands of adult salmon will be produced by opening up the salmon habitat that is currently blocked by the State’s barrier culverts. Finally, we disagree with Washington’s contention that the court’s injunction indiscriminately orders correction of “nearly every state owned barrier culvert” in the Case Area. The court’s order carefully distinguishes between high- and low-priority culverts based on the amount of upstream habitat culvert correction will open up. The order then allows for a further distinction, to be drawn by WSDOT in consultation with the United States and the Tribes, between those high-priority culverts that must be corrected within seventeen years and those that may be corrected on the more lenient schedule applicable to the low-priority culverts."

More Political Art - The Fourth Estate

I came across this partially completed painting in Milano, Stream of Humanity by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo. I had seen this image before on a blog post by economist Brad DeLong that I riffed off of for a post We Are the 100%.

Stream of Humanity Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo

The painting I saw in Milano was an incomplete version of a better known final painting that Pellizza da Volpedo called The Fourth Estate, a painting of striking workers marching in the street.

The Fourth Estate Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo

The City of Milano purchased The Fourth Estate in the 1920s and it subsequently has become a bit of an iconoclastic image used for showing the potential power of the working class. Hence, Brad DeLong used it with the term we are the 100%. If only more of the political class would follow this motto, we would all be a bit better off. But that requires the same of the voters. And perhaps it also requires empathy for the 100% as well.

A Very Few Post Election Notes

Notes on Tuesday election results:

The issue I cared about was the Whatcom County sales tax for building a new jail. That tax failed with the "no" vote prevailing with over 57% opposed. This was a very satisfying win (my perspective). The amazing part is that nearly every elected official in Whatcom County was supporting the jail tax. But three of the the seven County Council members, Barry Buchanan, Ken Mann and Todd Donovan, voted against putting this ballot measure forward.

The real test of leadership will now commence. Can the County Sheriff, Executive and Prosecutor recognize that voters want to go in another direction with the County justice system than the one they advocated for. They are still the leaders on this issue. Those opposed to the jail can only express their views via voting. It is time for county leaders to take actions that reflect the direction of the voters.

Barry Buchanan likely won re election to the County Council. Not bad given that $100,000 was poured into this race by the Washington State Real Estate Association for his opponent.

In Vancouver, the Port race went to an anti oil terminal candidate despite industry money backing the pro terminal candidate.

Election Forum - Whatcom County Jail Tax

Jails are very much a part of the Washington landscape (had to get that in). Every county in the state has one as do many of the cities. The county jail is the leading edge of the United States criminal justice system. The jail is a big part of every County budget. Criminal justice and criminal justice spending is complex.

So for Whatcom-centric folks that are trying to decide how to vote the jail tax you can get a couple of perspectives here, but this conversation is at some level very much part of every community (Jail Woes). I am the Vote No Jail Tax person in this video. For a short cut version I have a few major points below.



Cost of the jail will be $250,000 per bed compared to Skagit County at $120,000 per bed. This puts the proposed Whatcom jail as one if not the most expensive jail per bed in the United States.

Tax proponents have stated that some of the tax money will be directed to incarceration reduction programs. There is no guarantee that will take place and the amount suggested is initially $500,000 per year. The amount will go to the jail construction will be $6,759,208 per year assuming the bonds to pay this amount over 30 years can be had at 4.5% and the jail come in on budget.

The existing jails were evaluated by a engineering firm and were found to be "structurally sound and in fair to good condition". They estimated that both jails could be upgraded and maintained at a cost of $32.4 million over a period of 20 years. The cost of the proposed jail will be $202 million over 30 years, and the $202 million assumes no future expansion.

The same engineering firm that reviewed the jail conditions asked the county if a portion of the existing low security jail be improved and hardened for medium security. The 'County officials' stated that the would have to have new public outreach and this was a nonstarter. The fact is the county never evaluated this option in a public manner nor any other options.

When the County did an EIS on the jail they only evaluated options 1) build the proposed jail or 2) don't build a new jail. Given that this project is by far the largest capitol project in the county with broad community impacts that will last generations and evaluating only 2 options is a poor way to make such a large decision. I testified to that during the EIS process.       

Jail Tax Forum Prep and the Jail Work Crew

Whatcom County Jail Work Crew at Lake Bridge Project

Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest 

I am doing some crash research related to a forum I am speaking at tomorrow. The forum is on a proposed sales tax in Whatcom County for building a new jail. I am speaking against the jail tax.

This is a complicated subject. I do have some background on the subject having had to make lots of budget decisions during my 8-year stint as a county council member. How I got to NO on the jail tax is not the same as how others have and that complicates things further. The end of my planned opening statement tries to reflect that: "I cannot articulate everyone's nuanced views and concerns about this jail tax, but ask that you please join me and vote NO on the new jail tax. I will try to the best of my ability to answer your questions today."

In digging through the Incarceration Prevention and Reduction Task Force files I came across the above picture. The Whatcom County Sheriff Office has been running this program since the Federal Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (https://www.fs.usda.gov/pts/) passed in the early 2000s. They have been doing work on National Forests trails ever since. Good to see some positive stuff in an otherwise downer subject. 

Wolf Hole, Ed Abbey and an Early Snow

I am sorting pictures from recent ventures away from Washington relative to subject matter that needs written up. Unrelated to my pending project, we drove through Wolf Hole, Arizona.

Approaching Wolf  Hole and Wolf Hole Mountain

Avid Edward Abbey fans may recognize Wolf Hole as one of Abbey's favorite byline locations. Wolf Hole once did have a post office, but I suspect that was just a place for local ranchers and loggers to pick up mail as there is an old ranch near the road. The post office was discontinued in 1927, well before Abbey spent any time near this place. The Wolf Hole byline I think played to Abbey's sense of fun or perhaps to a sense of self protection. He also enjoyed a little outrage. The idea of some crazed enemy or fan going out to Wolf Hole (or Oracle - another byline) to find Abbey is a bit amusing.

I had intended to do some recreational adventures during my return trip to Washington, but the weather in central Nevada altered my plans and schemes.

Approaching snow

Deciding that hike into the Toquina Range will have to wait

Lots of road time and a bit of news overload from my drive. I suspect Edward Abbey would have had some outrageous thing to write and to irritate during these days if he was still with us.

"I will salute the man, maybe, if I think he's worthy of it, but I don't salute uniforms anymore". 

My Lahar/Policy Talk to the Whatcom County Council

A couple of weeks ago I gave a short talk on lahar hazard issues to the Whatcom County Council. The talk was a bit of a follow up on a presentation that had been made to the County Council in February by geologists from the USGS Cascade Volcano Observatory and geologists who work for Whactom County.  The USGS gave a presentation on Mount Baker Hazards and answered questions from the council. 

Council Member Barbara Brenner had asked Don Easterbrook to speak at the Council meeting. Dr. Easterbrook had written to the council (whatcom.wa.us/DocumentCenter/View/27435) that had some contrary opinions to lahar hazard mapping that has been done by the USGS. I was asked by Council if I would be willing to speak on the issue as well. This is in part because of information that I had forwarded to the Council that was contrary to Dr. Easterbrook's views as well as my technical review of the County geology hazardous areas regulations. 

What follows are the slides I used in my presentation which was primarily on process and how public policy regarding geologic hazard and risk can be approached. Some elaboration as fitting is provided below each slide.

  

This slide was simply to go over the recommended geology hazard regulation changes. First I was a volunteer on Critical Areas Ordinance Technical Advisory Committee. (CAO TAC). I noted that most of the changes to geology hazard regulations were pretty minor and indeed none of the changes to the geology hazard code caused any consternation in later public reviews. I did suggest that the tsunami regulations be separated from seiche hazards as the two pose different levels of hazard. Whatcom County has no known seiche hazards but it can not be ruled out. The tsunami hazard is better understood and keeping the two separate made better sense to me. One area of erosion hazard was removed as it is my view that surface water run off erosion is better handled and is handled with other regulations. Lastly I noted that I did nothing with the code in regards to lahars and big landslide hazards due to the lack of policy guidance - it was and is my view that policy should come before code changes.

Just an image of what a lahar deposit looks like with a note that getting hit by this would be pretty destructive and rather difficult to mitigate.

 Front bit for getting to policy guidance.

Language in the Whatcom County plan about Mount Baker. I underlined unpredictable as this was an aspect that I would discuss later.

Goal 10 E lays out the overall goal of the county geohazards approach. Underlined loss of life and expenditure of public funds because both individuals and society should be considered. Volcanic impact areas was underlined because that is why we were having this little talk. The last underlined part is also the area associated with regulations, but I did note that other means can be used to achieve the goal besides regulations alone.

This policy has been in the regulations and is a fairly common approach for infrequent but large geology hazards such as tsunamis and lahars fit in this as well. Generally you want hospitals or emergency response facilities located out of hazard areas.

This policy repeats an aspect of the goal can be achieved using multiple approaches, but again we are here to talk about the regulatory side, but in that regard other approaches that may be used should be considered.

This policy gets into why no action was taken regarding changing lahar hazard at the technical committee review point. Without public process and input making substantive changes would not be appropriate. If the process leads to a level of public risk that is acceptable, then the regulations can be written to meet that acceptable risk level.

This is really the same thing, but perhaps emphasizes approaching each hazard a bit differently.

Suggested approach in a very abbreviated manner. I noted that a new paper which will provide a very good overiew of Mount Baker geology and hazards is in review and will greatly aid in understanding the science.

This is a blank chart that has been used for laying out acceptable risk levels for frequency and fatalities associated with geology hazards. It has been used in Hong Kong and in British Columbia.

The approach has some appeal in that it splits the tasks of plotting the risk between two groups. The geologists figure out what the annual frequency of an event taking place and then planners and policy makers assess the fatalities of the event. More on this chart later.

I lifted the sentence from an article on a completely different science subject, but feel it is applicable. Alas, I lost the reference so apologies to whoever really deserves it. The picture was lifted as well from a volcano hazard presentation from an Oregon County.

The emphasis was to link it to the fact that determining the potential for a hazard event taking place means that there will be scientific uncertainty, and scientists should be comfortable explaining the uncertainty to policy makers. I felt the the USGS folks had done a reasonable job at this during their presentation, but there things are worth repeating.

There is going to be uncertainty and pubic officials have to know that.

For Mount Baker, the history of lahars is a bit short due to the ice age. With one exception all the large lahars that may have come off the mountain have been erased due to the ice age glaciers covering the entire region. The USGS folks did a pretty job of covering this and I was repeating their points.

I put this map up to note that there had been lava flows including the youngest on the mountain that headed north (thanks David Tucker for the help with this). I felt putting this map up was important to counter a map that Don Easterbrook presented that had the exact same reference but left off the youngest lava flows on the north side of the mountain.

 Just repeating myself.

People are not going to be banned from volcanic hazard areas. But it is useful to think about the types of populations and visitors that could be at risk depending on the policy approach and regulations.

With all the words and technical talk that can consume geology hazards, the point can get lost that geology hazards kill people. I will say that I got some push back post the talk about this slide. that push back came from people that are opposed to lahar hazard regulations and they were upset that the slide was playing on emotions. They are right, but I also think that it is too easy when trying to figure out potential hazards and run out distances from lahars or debris avalanches and getting excited about the science and policy impacts to property owners it is worth being starkly reminded about why we are even considering the regulations. The picture is from the Armero tragedy of 1985 when over 23,000 people were killed by a lahar associated with a small volcanic eruption.
 

I got this idea of risk principles and have modified it a bit or a lot.

I noted that existing development was identified at risk elsewhere in Whatcom County and the risk was viewed as high enough that additional actions to protect people was taken. Purchases of very high risk sites and other actions.

 Back to the blank graph.

I do not think the council nor was I ready to plot out any specific scenarios on the chart. But discussed some extreme end points. A 1:100 year event that could kill 10,000 people is not likely a very acceptable outcome.

 What a distal muddy lahar looks like for people escaping.

Besides lahars, large mountainside landslides are a similar problem in the mountain valleys. The LiDAR image above is the town of Glacier. Glacier would be impacted with very little warning time if a lahar or debris avalanche descended down Glacier Creek from Mount Baker. But another hazard is evident at Glacier - the valley floor is covered by a large landslide deposit - the lumpy ground evident in the LiDAR imagery.

Just up the North Fork Nooksack River from Mapple Falls is another area of lumpy ground from a large landslide that covered the valley floor.

This large landslide is east of Kendall. The scarps at the top of the slide appear recent in the LiDAR and I observed fairly fresh fractures on the headwall area of this slide when I last visited the slide.

This slide has been called Devil's Slide and covers the north end of the South Fork Nooksack valley near the confluence with the main stem of the Nooksack River.

Geologists like this, but I also think it is the geologist's job to give notice to civilization and thus change the phrase. To some extent Durant may have been inspired by the destruction of historic sites such as what took place at Vesuvius.

Some credit where it is due. The Scott and others paper is most helpful on the lahar hazard issue. And David Tucker provided some good guidance as well. 

Swift Creek Landslide and Creek Update

The Swift Creek landslide  continues to present challenges to Whatcom County Public Works (Click on the tag at the bottom of this post to get all the previous posts). The bridge at Oat Coles Road has been removed. The bridge was removed to prevent it from being damaged and to minimize the flooding that would be caused by the bridge causing a blockage of the sediment filled creek. The County is planning to put a one lane bridge with a control light to allow access for local traffic.

Flood waters can cause problems, but at Swift Creek the problem is even worse because the sediment carried by the creek contains asbestos form minerals. Hence, the effort to minimize the flood potential. The bridge is located nearly 2 miles from the landslide.

Swift Creek with landslide area outlined in red

Dredge spoils on both sides of the creek viewed from the north

It is hard to capture the scale of this problem. And it is a problem that will not be going away. The slide shows little sign of stopping. Linneman (2016) estimates that the main body of the slide is moving at 2 to 4 meters/year.

The Washington State Senate has included $5.5 in its current budget for Swift Creek. Two years ago the money was in that State Budget proposal but got pulled at the last minute by the local State Senator Doug Ericksen in favor of directing money elsewhere. The budget process is not over for the state, but for Whatcom County the news is so far good.