Chelan County, state and federal agencies working together to complete storm repairs
- Nic Scott
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
A roundtable debriefing was held Monday on a recent meeting between staff from Chelan County, the Governor’s Office and northwest Congressional delegation on a fix to the natural impacts that occurred last month in Holden Village and Stehekin.
The National Park Service sewer plant, the re-directed Stehekin River, and bank stabilization along Company Creek are part of a phased remedial action plan. The county plans to send a staff member to Stehekin later in the week to assess the road, damaged by December flood waters..
Then there’s impacts caused by the re-directed Stehekin River.
"Its migrated river-right," described Chelan County Natural Resources Director Mike Kaputa when showing the county commissioners a hand drawn map of the damage. "They're ferrying kids across the river, basically, where the road is or was to get to school. It's a bad situation."
"What likely needs to happen is that road, there needs to be a new levy," added Kaputa. "And that would require some pretty substantial river restoration on river-left, because you'd want to move the river over."
Chelan County Commissioners want to get moving on remedial work.
"Get going with getting the corp (U.S. Army Corp of Engineers) up there and getting permission for someone to do the work," commissioner Brad Hawkins stated. "I'm concerned about the exposure to the county if we don't have clear permission."
"If it was the good 'ole days and the wild west, we'd already be up there doing the work or the locals would be up there doing the work," commissioner Shon Smith added. "It's always that fear of litigation of doing what needs to be done."
"There's going to have to be some immediate work done before the spring (river) flows to protect the homeowners up there," Kaputa suggested.
Commissioner Smith questioned, "Who has the authorization, who has the money, I mean we can talk about this but how do you take it to the next level to say, get in the river and start the work."
Chelan County Commissioners host a virtual meeting beginning at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday with Congresswoman Kim Schrier expected to be in attendance.
You can join the meeting here.
Chelan County staff asked a representative of Gov. Bob Ferguson for Washington State Department of Transportation priority funding for repairs to Chumstick Highway and Beaver Valley Road which are being used as a major detour while bank stabilization is being completed along highway 2 in Tumwater Canyon.
The U.S. Forest Service is working on damage along a forest service road 8301 leading to Holden Village, a project that may not be completed until later this year or in 2027.
