By Alex G. Alexander
The Herald’s photo of Riverfront Boulevard in its May 11 article on home construction (“Everett was 9th fastest growing city in the state last year”) shows an unfortunate situation. The construction of residences on a landfilled segment of Old Lowell’s floodplain is perhaps the most irresponsible project in Everett’s history.
Since Everett’s founding, the city has poorly grasped the Snohomish River’s purpose, its character and its terms of stewardship with nature. To this day there persists a horrific entanglement of tasks and timeline in which Everett’s economic interests are of little matter in nature’s evolution of the Snohomish Valley floor. A resource of great beauty most of the time, the river has no quarrel with people most of the time. But its is compelled by nature to perform tasks of unimaginable destructive force in its own timeline. People who understand this do not build homes in its path.
Efforts to bypass the river via landfill elevation have already failed in several dimensions. A recent study on river raises from 1942 to 2015 (“Evolving River Runoffs & the Impending Cascadia Subduction,” A.G Alexander), involving 118 floods in 73 years, revealed mean elevation increases attaining a threat of floods to the housing development by 2070 to 2075. One should take no comfort from this. A toddler’s drowning fifty years hence will be lo less devastating for parents and community than today.
A second dimension was the failure to reckon with the impending earthquake from the Cascadia subduction, the slippage of Pacific and North American tectonic plates. Release of tectonic pressure with massive earthquakes, land subsidence and tsunamis has happened 41 times since glacial recession. Sunken tree evidence on nearby Ebey Island suggests that the latest subsidence (in 1700) was in the order of 10 to 12 feet locally. A similar subsidence today would render Riverfront Boulevard accessible to floodwater inundation.
To have landfilled this site to a level safe from tectonic processes would have created instability issues in the evolving valley floor. The surface of Ebey Island, marshland and the still-untrammeled portion of Lowell’s floodplain to the north is but a thin, soft post-glacial layer, subject to settling even by dike construction. Developers could not continue dumping thousands of tons on this area without threatening the hydrology of the entire valley floor downriver from Snohomish — if they have not already done so.
A letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency states in effect that flooding should not be a problem. With respect to the river’s needs and potential dangers I submit my own experiences since 1939 and that of my family who have witnessed every flood at Lowell since 1873.
The housing construction on Old Lowell’s floodplain is no source of pride. It remains a project in hiding behind public unawareness of river issues and planning disregard for public safety
Alex G. Alexander lives in Everett
Correction: A sentence in the fourth paragraph has been changed to correct an editing error. The sentence is now correct.
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