Centralia Alpha Culvert Work Is Proactive Approach to Infrastructure, Salmon Restoration
Dec. 12—The role of a public servant, according to Lewis County Public Works Senior Engineer Geoff Soderquist, is to "do as much as we can for as little as we can" charge to taxpayers.
While it would be idealistic to assume all government employees have this mindset, Soderquist and Public Works Environmental Planner Ann Weckback are walking the walk.
About two weeks ago, their department wrapped up a culvert project at Centralia Alpha Road milepost 15.7, where it crosses the Middle Fork Newaukum River. Thanks to a proactive approach seeking grant funds for salmon habitat restoration, the project renovated a highly-used stretch of roadway for less than $100,000 of county funds. Soderquist said without the restoration grants, or if the department waited until it was necessary for maintenance, the project would cost just shy of $1 million for Lewis County.
"I know it doesn't fix a big stretch of roadway, but it has a big impact because of what it would cost us (to repair)," Soderquist said.
The work meant a detour around the site for a few weeks from late summer to early October. Tree planting, which was subject to seasonal windows, and the addition of large woody debris in the water over recent weeks marked the culvert's completion. The project is one of 13 county-led culvert replacements in the last 10 years that, in total, have opened over 11 miles of coho salmon habitat and 9 miles of habitat for steelhead, Weckback said.
As both a road engineer and someone who enjoys resource-rich recreation in Southwest Washington, including fishing and hunting, Soderquist said these projects are rewarding. He's seen culverts under roadways hanging 10 feet above streams where he thought restoring fish passage was an aluminum pipe dream (that was the material used for culverts in previous decades).
"Then, all of the sudden, spawning season hits and you're seeing these full, adult salmon come running up in here. I never would have bet in a million years that was going to happen," he said.
Weckback works in grant writing and project planning, which includes work that focuses solely on fish passage and others such as Centralia Alpha, that improve structures for people at the same time. Some of her regular helpers are the Chehalis Basin Lead Entity, Coastal Salmon Partnership and Foundation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Lewis County Conservation District, which helps to get private landowners on board with efforts.
Her focus on the Newaukum Basin came around 2011. Those entities designate it as a priority sub-basin of the Chehalis River Basin due to its salmon and steelhead populations, Weckback said. From design to successful fish passage, each culvert replacement can take years to execute. Planning on the Centralia Alpha culvert, she said, began around 2018.
This one includes a method Soderquist called "stream-simulation" which, theoretically, restores the area to its original flow before the road was ever created. As a concrete culvert, it has a 75 to 100 year lifespan. But, because modern construction guidelines ensure overbuilding, he said it's likely to last much longer.
"The neatest thing for me with these is just the fact that we're able to get out ahead of them, be proactive and really fix the road issues while enhancing the environment for a relatively low cost to the county," Soderquist said. "As a public servant, that's the goal. ... That cost-benefit is what's huge for me."
Read more about efforts for salmon in the Chehalis Basin at any of the following sites: https://www.coastsalmonpartnership.org/, http://www.chehalisleadentity.org/, https://lewisconservation.wordpress.com/, https://chehalisbasinstrategy.com/ or https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/habitat-recovery/chehalis-basin-strategy.
