By Trevor Pyle, Aberdeen Daily World , 7/11/98
Money to look for answers to some of the questions surrounding Grays Harbor's troubling beach erosion may arrive thanks to last month's visit to Washington D.C. by local officials.
The contingent included Westport Mayor Berkley Barker and Grays Harbor County public works director Mike Daniels. Also traveling to capital were Ocean Shores city councilman Fred Winge, Grays Harbor County Commissioner Bob Beerbower, and Lewis County Commissioner Rich Graham. They spent two days talking to federal lawmakers and their staffs and officials at the United States Geological Survey.
Thanks in part to their meetings, said Barker, Chances are good the money from the government will come through.
"the money is in both the House and Senate budgets," he said.
The money Barker refers to is $4 million to continue the funding of a USGS survey of Grays Harbor. The surveyors are in the third year of a five year project that will attempt to determine why beach erosion has been such a problem in recent years - and to what extent it will happen in the future.
The group met with Congressman Norm Dicks, and Sen. Patty Murray, Congresswoman Linda Smith, and with senior staff of Sen. Slade Gorton.
"(The trip) was an outstanding success," Barker sid. "Just that fact that we were able to set up meetings with all those legislators, one after another. .."
Beerbower said meeting with the lawmakers' themselves was important, but so was meeting with their staff.
"We can talk with (the lawmakers) when they're out here, but we don't get to talk to their staff people," he said. "They're probably going to be the ones who do a lot of the work. Not to say the legislators don't work, but they're busy with a lot of issues, and they turn a lot to their staff. If you explain to staff, it's better than giving them notes."
Another day was spent in Reston, Va., meeting with representatives from the USGS.
Erosion wasn't the only subject discussed at the meetings. "When you go to Washington D.C., you address several subjects, you do a lot of things at once," Daniels said. "That's a better use of time and money."
Daniels and other lawmakers also discussed what he calls "the other major project" ways to deal with flooding around the Chehalis River, specifically around I-5.
"We're working with state and federal agencies to resolve the impact of flooding on I-5," Daniels said. He said that Lewis County officials took the lead in those discussions.
But just because the project won't physically happen in Grays Harbor - any changes to the Interstate for the project would be made in Lewis or Thurston counties - doesn't mean Grays Harbor is not affected, Daniels said.
"We're downstream," he said of the Chehalis River. "Because we're downstream, (any flood planning) could help Grays Harbor."
The Department of Transportation plan calls for raising and widening I-5. Daniels said he supports an alternative plan that includes creating additional floodways and increasing the amount of water the Skookumchuck Dam could hold.
Although the only work that would be done in Grays Harbor is surveying and data collection, Daniels said, it is important to stay involved.
"We need to stay at the table," he said.
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