do good things for everybody else. ♪ let it be, let it be ♪ ♪ let it be, let it be ♪ ♪ whisper words of wisdom ♪ ♪ let it be ♪ - [tom] hit it. yes. (upbeat music) - open those fingers up around it. nice, u got it. and on three. - [tom] yay! woo! dear forrest! - remember when i couldn't do this at all? watch. (slide whistle tooting) ha ha! - okay, i have a question for you, privately, okay? do you remember talking. well, she can listen.

if you get dizzy, let me know. - thanks for helping making this happen. - oh, you're welcome. - yeah! (indistinct) - three very talented people here. that's a lotta talent standing together. forrest. - ah! i'll kill you! - you're gonna kill me? - yeah. ah! ha ha ha! ha ha ha ha! - tolliver! tolliver! (drums banging) (cymbals crashing)

- [tom] ha ha ha! yay! his program was madeing) possible in part with grants from patagonia, the maybelle clark macdonald foundation, the sol duc foundation, the freas foundation, with additional support provided by friends of grays harbor, the wild steelhead coalition, and viewers like you. [ river sounds ] [ sic anriver sods ]

>> this is what our people have called forever ensulapch [phonetic], and ensulapch, if you do a little translation of it is, "my wealth water." this basin just provides everything that you could possibly need to build a strong society. [ sic ]

>> the smon, there pa of thisalley. the chalis rir hioricallyas been e of theost signicant paproduceralley. salmoin washiton stat >> tre is a pulationthat's , paproduceralley. and th's the sing inook ru >> or e la sevel decas, the prle he aclerated re in oubasin. the last 3years haveeen five of the mt significant floods on recd in thehehalis sin. >> and know nothey're lookin, on recd in thehehalis sin. which is supposed to help. and that's very controversial. >> we're actually taking dams out these days. the idea proposing to build one, you know, at a time when we're spending an awful lot of mon on salm recover >> it'really bkyard're america cing thempacts lot

of climate change. we know that flood is going to get worse. we know that it's going to get hotr. anwe know at fisheries are ing away not only everyone in this generation, but everyone for generations ahead. [ music ] >>ou know,hat happs to is cordor is dving a l ofhat thfuture mht beor t chehali the i-5 rridor dsn't reay gi you a fr represention ofhat is o in e chehalis bin. the i-5 rridor dsn't reay ye the vasmajori gi you a fofeople,ention 's whathey're eing they dre throug you see pretty splified, entre. d it tnished mview of at an iredible ace the ehalis

ywas the past, and sll is.ntre. it's the larst watered that entirelwithin t state washingn, that so fls all thway to t sea. >> o of the usual aracteriics of thehehalis ver, is at itas the dinage ouet for ththat ested durince the last ice a. once the ice meld back, thvalley was actually oversid relati to the ver that was flowing through it. and this is a recipe for creating terrain in the valley boom thatis ac. >> you know, it's a large basin with a diverse range of ecosystems. [ music ]

>> so,he chehas rive has rge numbs of saln part oit is duto its size, ansome oit is du tots cracteriscs. pari an salmos a its size, aystone scies.du chehalisalmon a critally imptant to ca, thats southe residt kill whales, that co anfeed offhe waington cst. >> the smon evold right ong with t landsca thate know tay. d it shod not be big stery aso why th're soxquisite adaptiv to ts, you kw, dynam and somewhat dgerous environmt of theorthwest the northwest, you're going yn to see them, and some of them are going to look really great and real pristine, but wh you nee to reaze is th're amatical differe

than they were 200 years ago. >> imagine we go back to 1850. we're surrounded by this cathedral forest of old growth. >> a lotf salmoneaven. salmoneaven ishe place whero as it ge for saln. salmoneaven ishe place whero >> smon evold tohese contions ath were re befen. ssy, whe there'sots, where te of wooin our stems. >> grand total, if you took all the species and added them together, there would have been years ere therwould ha be a milli plus fi. [ sic and ter sods ] e>>f you'realking babout chehis peopl ey are ixtricabl link to thisater.

some othese llage tes, y know, along e basis been probab d, 12,0 yrs is ki of whatthey'vey tes, y know, in o area, b we havetories that areoo oen, you ow, r ancests, those that wt, te us thato far bend at any gtag coultell you >>e h>> a our peoo you ow, twereere at what -- at that time would have been basically the northern most expanse of north america. we have more stories, flood stories, about the actual land being transformed overnight. you know, these are stories that have been passed on. >> and so this environment was just so abundant in resources wherwe couldust prodetories anproduce d give ay.d on. >> anand en also ade.nment was just so abundant in resources of t mountai. to thed

l that tde came througte soour anceors were merchan land d accessoe througte so my things >> we' a chehas tribe w, likee're unied chehis tribe >>but at conferacy eands fr the bch tothe headate. chehis tribe wee talking anxpansive you ow, 1500quare mis, whicover theourse ofa few e, th one timreduced r rervation wn to 21cres. soessentiay the si of sen basebl fields wewee very pud ofbe. ing a ntreaty ibe, cause 've never reliuished y of ourights tohis rive or the ld surrouing this river. >> our people's rights to hunt and fish in our usual though they were never relinquished. [ music ]

>> we have a relationship with the chehalis basin that goes back centuries. our usual and accustomed area extends into the basin, out into the ocean. our ancestors, over 150 years ago, secured this area by treaty. while we may have relinquished our property ownership to that basin and to those areas, we've never relinquished our spiritual connection. we've ner relinqshed ose anceral homends. and accustomed territory all throughout grays harbor and all of the watersheds that empty within it, which include the chehalis basin. >> treaties with the united states are the supreme law of the ld. at we rein was t righto have sh, salm, everythi that altribes i all ese regionrelied o

to take [inaudible] there had to be a right to have fish. that what wee all out. >> wre experiencinincredib shoralls in r fishers we've se. >> you'raffectg my taty right. you t her. we've se. [inaudle] our lmon naudible >> when captain gray was coming up the coast, he met a group of people out near west port [inaudible]. [inaudible] ehal? and they said, "no, no. [inaudible]." and he said, "okay, yes.

don't worry, i'll write it dn." ehalis, d that's what iw. >>irst, eupes starteto mo into thchehalisasin, theyoted wt a padise thiarea was e beautil timberthe abdant fisand game nurous lanowners here or mesteade, in fac some caed itn inlandea, justecause tre was s muchater her every wter. and one of the things they write about is how important the native people were in helping thein crossing rivers, on navigating the landscape. but then, as more and more people came, and more industrial interests came and realized the bounty of natural resources in this region, things began to change much more rapidly.

>> in the early settling by europeans, in the northwest, one of the first things that would happen is that the valley bottoms would be cleared. flat ground is sort of the best farming land, but it had all these big trees. the trees were cut down. a lot of that land was converted. the rivers were also cleaned up of their woody debris. image how yowould t arnd the ldscape back in the 19 century the rivers werkind of like the highways. they were the ways you could get from the coast to the interior, and opening the rivers up was actually a major piece ofarly devopment around t northwe. there we very lge coercial fheries they were using traps, similar to what was going on in the columbia. the harvest rates were pretty high. the next really big thing on the scene was the advent of logging. they tried to cut it all. from the harbor, all the way to the head waters.

to cate like series of floods. essentially were moving cut logs down to the harbor. >>magine t effects that l of logwould ha down tough theiver. it cld scour out t that l grav and conrt river thatad bn good fh habita into frly bareedrock rers. >> mt of theplash da in oneay or thother, the, two rge dams thatere builin the bin. e was skkumchu dam. for stream, grating lmon. the second d's inhe wynooee. fthatas builtn about 70.. whenhey builthat dam inhe wynooee. fthatastherwas stila 70.. remnant ring chiok run the upp wynooch.

well, it gone no it's longone. other th really e south tip w traditionally, you had the fishing community. that's suffering. >> the chehalis system is the primary fishery in the state the wesside for salmonnd, and 're at aipping pnt.is the primary fishery in the state we're waing the fine le ri. the fisrs, the logger th, th valley a worki -- is a workg valley [ musi] th vyes, y can see my empr -- is a workg valley in a bakeept out ofherain, anfr. this fars been i my fily sinc1872.

i'm sigenerati, my kid are venth geration he. we have about 0 acre my fily sinc1872. i stilhave the homtead dee sign by ulyss s. gra.. next year we start on year 149th. we're hoping to make it to 150. then we'll reevaluate thinvestme. weotr than mneighborfiveto 150. ws, we a enjoyina respit from having bovines at t mome for theirst tim in over hundred ars. a lot the farrs that e iny communy, you kw, they've en farmi generations d year anthey'rall geing olde and lo in the oth like am, and hong their kids wlk not hopg their ds are ing to come ba, whicis kind the kids wlk condrum ingricultu the unid statesight nowis, wod d losingoney, sometimeentice t kids to go somethi different. it juswas thfloods rlly arting ithe earl90's,

been floed, hous tr been he for 10 year were flded. >>e do flo, and th floong actualldoes enhce our so quite ait, actuly. so, it's a win for farmers, but we also have to contend th you kw, what flding canring. all the eens. are cerfi organ and are grong all the eens. abou100 differenvarietie of vetables, fruits, d flower and herbs. , in ', we had feet of wer i, and ended upith a foot of ter in mhome. d our hoe is onef the oldest hes ithe vall, so, sie then, 've ised ourouse 5 ft. anyou'll bsy's hou. so, she' tell yo thathole sto. >>o, the firstime it w rais, we putn 32 incs.

so, 4 cier block >>o, so, ter th'07it w raisood, we raised -s. we added 4 morconcretelos. ok that at. the yogo. see thflood lel? that's t silt. th's not dt. that'slood sil th goes onnd on. so, he's the mk. says, "ood 12/4/07, righthere. so>> t d before, was tually pwing and it w snowingately, d i quitbout noo i ept wellhat nigh didn't wakme up or anying. ually ifou havea real dow, 'll wakeou up sotimes. but di't have at. real dow, a usinho was fire cef calle to s how higit wagoing toet, ani went wh the flhlight and call him bacand said

and it w. so, we d peop in t field but think th were a litt a at h fast thgs stted to hpen, d they we seeinghings at had neverappened fore. and e rain tt moved om thcoast [iudible] lls, was toential, d i thk th called a typho. wexperienc anywherfrom, dependinwho you lk to, anthat hadever hapned fore thaanyone w aware o and as t wateregan trise aand bris staed hitti fothbridgeand builng upo and codn't g under i just t shakingthe grding, the poding, anthen ka-om, d there es the bdge. aslogged uas this e was,nd thet

the pbut it wilbe sholym, d thanhere it mes.e. and it hs that >>s each othese bre, it increasethe powebehind i >> ts is whe the brie in it iofficial gone. ont of o house ud to be. and wn it bke throh finall in theinaudie] hou brid, that wer hit t levee athe airrt and actuly b. and so, that really caused flooding across the freeway. >> [inaudible] the residences with no lights, but water. and i said to self d to my iend, "we've g to do somethg abouthis. this is ing to b tougfor all us." we had most 500escues and weere pickg pele out otrees, off throoftops out the wat.

>> refgera. and thoands of milies mes anschools d chures, small sinessesere daged, and of those, i think i counted about 16 that were flooded in one way or another. we had five farms that were essentially wiped out. two of them lost all of their cows. >> flooding is the number 1 cost to the federal government in disasters. >> now, there's two aspects to flood hazards. one is, "where's the water going to go? how muchater will go wherehow fast?" anthe otheof coursis li, "well,hat's the and thn about w do youssential mana the hum dimensi of the equation in terms of where we build things,

how we delop, what kd of infrtructuree put at risk? >> after one of these catastrophic storms, everybody has a theory. erybody s a theo on w this haened. >> aut a thi of theory. fielwas coved wi logs and varioudebrisand the lt in some aces was about o f. en i wasbout 68, longbell [phonetic] finished logging in the area, the old growth, and without planting en it raed hard the rir up raply and dn rapidl and ashings gr back an grew u there w a diffence r longereriod ofime, it wld r sically,n the la 30 year theye relogg everythg at longbl loggedover howe,

people would probably tell me i'm wrong, but i look at the river about every day. >> something like 1700 landslides were documented in that one event. that's a lot of timber ansedimentetting to the rivs. and it's no mystery that that caused flooding issu downstrea if you take a glass of water and you fill it up to just shy at the t, and then y dump a fistful of dirt into it, what's gng to haen? wellthe wates going flow out overhe top othe glas a ver's noifferent >> the's stillome nversati to be h on wt is thelow th came fr up there. >> what you have in the willapa hills area is an area that's naturallvery prone land sling, because it has very deeply weathered rock, so there's not a lot of strength in the rock itself. so, one of the reasonshy w haveeen soany laslides on the hilides rough, y know, aggressively harvesting timber off most of the water shed,

in my rearch gro arou the norwest, would bically fd a ughl3 to 9-fd increa in the re of lansliding a relt of tier harveing. [ muc ] >> people can point to a number of different areas as far as what contributed, but the main thing was the water. r what wthought could ppe. as w that 19 to 2009timefram s main thing was the water. record imarily in wesrn . >> wel you kno i'm t going get but da if y look the stos, thsystems,he severy across ts couny ofhe natal event that a occurring they a more fruent. >>o, for the folkshat sa "oh, it a myth.

here's the dat in the chehas basin, thoss that are outside the 100-year flood, a real, hd number governor inse asked this. thahe said, "hocome whe0-year fli ta to all u farmerer goverabt clime chan, this. yoall do ts?" thaand i id, "goverr, i0-year fn't get in the rninger and art my tctor d go, 'oshoot. might ha just kied a polar be ten yea from no' i cat get towrapped up in o" the bigst increes inhe country a thers ry few pces at show decrease basicay everytng -- inhe country a erybody'seeing me ra in the ture. is goingo happenore ofte 's warmein the fure, wcan pu more weher into tho storms, even ifhey're t same ext stms we'veeen in t past. by the end othe centy, it's goif

>> the chalis ban, it rain-fe and what that means is that we have ls of wat inhe winte and ver litt water ithe summ. this rer already waris tplanning to get warmer. >> there has been two big fish kills since the '07 storm from low flows, high temperature. >> there[ muc ]en two big fish kills since the '07 storm our wier flowsay get whole lobigger. well,here's reallyhree facrs that cmate chae inuences to make flding rse in t future. one is sea level rise. the other is snowpack. the warmer temperatures means less sno and en you'vgot a stmack. evt, more that's lling

inteity of hvy rain ents. whe and e range in thetmsort o20e evt, more that's lling by the e of the ntury. [ ain whise ] b>> wn you thk about obal waing and other issues that are in frt of us, wee got too somethg. b>> wn we jt cannotetobal waith happen ain.ssues r rention ba in the 30's. >> ty've been talkg aboutit sin. thcorps did a buh of sties and didn't do anything. >> thereave be morehan a dozesites

th have en asssed one te or anoer. all ofhose havnot pann t because they cldn't past a ct-benefitest. the sitehat doesis thsite thas curreny t becunder aluation't above e past a ct-benefitest. >> i thi there's been or 80s >> thereas a gro formed in chehalis that was called on voice,nd iwas peop that wted a sotion tohe floodg, basicay supporng a dam >>hey got tother. theyeactedo say, "'ve goa fisherin decline and w you'realking aut puing a daon a riv, d that will ke the fish proem even rse." an finally theovernor d leslators me togetr this isn working we nd to bri thostwo togeer,

which clearly identified our relationship and recognized our legal status as a treaty tribe to the region. >> the idea was to bring interests from a variety of different perspectives. >> and our job is to think about this valley for everybody in it. don't du on theguy wnstream. >> onef the fit thingsthat ts toarticipa in thats they we willpend an ual amou on aatic speciesestorati, sohat itl be a dl projec so,he chehas basi stragy referto an apoach that is rely a sui of several different types of actions. and since we're focused primarily on reducing fld dama and improving habitat for aquac specie we real breathose sues of acons wn into ose two large cke. on thelood dame reductn si, is a ste of acons that range from the very small, up to the verlarge. things like levy improvements,