For many in Washington state, the disastrous 2007 flood that hit the Chehalis River Basin was a headline. For the youngest generation in Lewis County, it’s a story. For those who lived and worked in the county in 2007, the flood was a nightmare come true, one locals worry may come again.

“Even though I am on my family farm that has been there for 126 years, I don’t believe I’m up to reliving that again,” Sue Rosbach, a survivor of the 2007 flood, said during a Wednesday public meeting. “I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”

Lewis County residents, elected officials, farmers and members of the unincorporated community of Boistfort packed the Baw Faw Grange Wednesday evening so full it nearly burst.

Most of them lived through the natural disaster often simply called the 2007 flood. They came to attend the final public meeting on a revised draft environmental impact statement (EIS) published by the Washington state Department of Ecology late last year. The study analyzes a proposed flood-mitigating, flow-through dam that, if approved, would be built on the Chehalis River near Pe Ell.

The meeting, like each of the previous ones on the same issue, featured a short, roughly 30-minute presentation on the project’s potential impacts to the environment followed by public comment from the audience.

Unlike the last in-person meeting on the draft EIS held on the Centralia College campus, public comment this time went on for well over an hour.

The public comment sessions are part of a 75-day public comment period intended to gather constructive criticism and feedback on the draft version of the EIS. Officials are generally looking for things they may have missed while drafting their report and will respond to or incorporate each official comment. The meetings have inspired some constructive feedback. More often, they inspire endorsements or condemnations of the project at hand.

Each of the previous meetings have featured relatively balanced comments. If anything, testimony has skewed toward those against the construction of a dam. But feedback during this week’s meeting, which was held in an area some would refer to as ground zero of the 2007 flood, was overwhelmingly in favor of construction of the facility.

Feedback was passionate as many shared stories of living through disastrous floods, and many were critical of the EIS airing frustration that the analysis relayed the damage a dam would do without mentioning the damage that has been done to the area by unrestricted floods.

In total, 30 people gave public comments. More than 20 advocated for the dam’s construction, with roughly five airing concerns. Those at the meeting also included a long list of local elected officials representing Lewis County; the Lewis County Public Utility District; and the cities of Chehalis, Centralia, Napavine and Pe Ell.

Among the many who spoke, one 85-year-old man and flood victim expressed how many severe floods he has lived through in a clever way, making many in the crowd chuckle.

“After the flood of ‘07, a lot of dignitaries were on our farm to look at the damage,” Pete Dykstra said. “They asked me my age. I told them I’ve lived through two 100-year floods and a 500-year flood, so I must be 765. Well today, I’m 785.”

In his three minutes of time, Dykstra shared his story from the 2007 flood. He, his wife and their family dog were evacuated by boat from the second floor of their home in the Boistfort area during the disaster. They were forced to leave behind their dairy farm that day, along with more than 100 cows who drowned in the high water. According to the dairy farmer, water filled his home with seven feet of water and the barns with nine feet of water. His story led him to his final point.

“It is time to quit studying and start doing,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”

Katherine Humphrey shared her family’s experience in recovering from the 2007 flood just in time to see much of that work swept down the river once more in the flooding two years later. According to Humphrey, after removing lumber and debris from her family’s land and making repairs to their home after the first flood, the river once more washed away the soil in 2009 leaving behind dunes of sand in its place.

“After the previous flood it was quite unimaginable, but what was really distressing was the fact that it wasn’t a big one, because the big one had been the year before and not much attention was paid to it,” she said.

J. Vander Stoep steered clear of his own stories and focused on constructive feedback for the Ecology staff present at the event. Vander Stoep has been intimately involved with the development of the flow-through dam proposal as an advisory member of the Chehalis Basin Flood Control Zone District — the sponsor of the proposed facility. He’s also familiar with many other flood prevention and fish restoration projects as a voting member of the Chehalis Basin Board and active member of the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority.

He aired mild frustration with the wording and structure of the document in the way it describes the impacts of building the flow-through dam and emphasized that it would not be built if the impacts could not be addressed. The document refers to a long list of impacts to habitat, wildlife, a small town water system, tribal artifacts and more as severe and “unavoidable.”

“Either they can be addressed as the flood zone district has proposed. They can be addressed and mitigated so they won’t happen,” Vander Stoep said. “Or it won’t get built. That I don’t believe comes clearly enough in the document.”

He also asked that Ecology take a closer look at how the flow-through dam would impact vulnerable fish like salmon, compared to how a catastrophic flood would impact those same fish.

A select few aired concerns about the dam or even opposition. Brinn Marri, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, spoke about the potential impacts the flow-through dam could have on tribal artifacts and cultural resources and asked that the final study do more to explain how the structure could damage tribal culture.

Twin Harbors Water Keeper Lee First questioned if the Department of Ecology had done enough to publicize the public comment period for the draft EIS on the proposed dam. She called for all residents of the state to weigh in on impacts to vulnerable salmon species in the Chehalis River.

“We would like to request that statewide hearings be provided to all residents of the state so they have the opportunity to comment on the proposed extinction of spring Chinook salmon and the near extinction of coho salmon on the Chehalis River,” First said.

Dick Ireland asked Ecology staff and the project’s supporters to consider changes to timber practices as a way to mitigate flooding without constructing the flow-through dam.

And finally, after more than two hours of discussion, presentation and public comment, the Ecology staff running the meeting called it to a close thanking community members for packing the house.

The meeting was the third and final of the in-person public hearings meant to receive public comment on the draft EIS.

The Department of Ecology released the draft EIS of the flow-through dam back in November, kicking off the current public comment period that ends just before midnight more than a week from now on Wednesday, Feb. 4.

Those who still wish to weigh in on the draft EIS before the public comment period closes can do so online or by mailing their comments to the Department of Ecology. For the online public comment form, visit https://tinyurl.com/p3scxy96. For information on how to submit comments in writing by mail, visit https://tinyurl.com/5xxkwy8r.