Officials from the Washington State Department of Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be seeking public input at a meeting in Centralia next week, heading into the the environmental review of a proposed dam on the Chehalis River.

The agencies will be hosting an open house Oct. 17 at Centralia College’s TransAlta Commons, running from 5 to 8 p.m. The meeting is designed to seek feedback for the scoping process that will determine the elements to be conducted in the upcoming environmental review.

The proposed dam would be built on the upper Chehalis River near Pe Ell, a facility that would allow water to flow through normally except during flood event, when gates would be raised to build a temporary reservoir. The goal is to prevent much of the downstream flooding that has caused hundreds of millions in damages and closed I-5 for days. The project itself is expected to cost more than $300 million.

— The Chronicle