??óóçóçoo7■g this program was me 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 ]

[ muc and ver soun ] >> 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.

[ music ] the saln, they' partf this vley. ey're pa of who are. the chelis rive histically h been on >> the is a polation at's in really tough strai, weould be ced in aituati wherit's goi extinct. >> t>> or e lastseveradecade at's in really tough strai, the probms hav accerated he in our sin. the last 30 ars have sn five the mossignificant floods recorin the chalis ban. >> and know nothey're lookin, rewhich 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

>> it'sd erica fang the iacts of climate change. we know that flood is going to get worse. we know that it's going to get hotte ha such brd impactto, >>n not only everyone in this generation, but everyone for generations ahead. [ music ] >> y know, wt happentoad. th corrir is dving a l ofhat the ture mig be f the chelis. the 5 corrid doesn'teally give y a fair presentaon what is outn thchehalisasin. the 5ye the vasmajorially give y a faofeople,ntaon

's whathey're eing they dre throug u see a etty simified, entrench channel and it tarshed my ew of wh an incdible ple the chalis was inhe pas and sti is. 's the large watersh that'sntirely thin thetate washingn, that so fls all thway to t sea. >> onef the unual chacterists of the chalis rir, is th it w the draage outl r this msive walof ice of thethat ested durinth it wthe st ice agetl once the ice melteback, 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, t chehaliriver has lae o tots charaeristics >> so, i me salmon'ar has lae o ketone spees. you cajudge thhealth of an enre esystem how welit is th the saon are tiving. >> chalis saon are criticly impornt to or, thats southe residen and ed off t kilwashgton cst.come the smon evold right alg with theandscape that wkno. d it shod not be big stery aso why th're

the northwest, you're going yn to see them, and some of them are going to look really great d reallyristine, but what you nee than they were 200 years ago. >> imagine we go back to 1850. we're surrounded by this cathedral forest of old growth. >> lot of lmon hean. lmon hven is t place where it basical as good it getsor salmo >> saln evolve to tse condions thatere he befor thisrea was ttled, where warsheds we mey, wherehere's ls of wood our sysms. >> grand total, if you took all the species and added them together, there would have been years ere therwould ha been millionlus fish [ muc and water soun ]er, there would have been years

>> iyou're tking abouchehaliseople, theyre inextcably linked tthis wat. some of ese village tes, younow, 12,0 yea is kindf what ey've taed as thoccupanc, in ourrea, bute have sries at are t oft, you kn, r ancests, those that wt, in tells that gfar beyoies wh any gtag coultell you >> whave stoes aboutou kn, the glier beinhere. in tell>> a our peoeeyoies wh awere herat what you at thatime 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 whe we cou just pruce d producand giveway. and en also ade.

this wasike the b from e cot to theottom of the snd, downto the cumb, to the oer side of theouns >> we're chehalitribe no but at conferacy expds chehal tribe, >> we'rfrom the bch tono e head wers. we'rtaing an eansive,s you kne chehal tribe, >> wwhich er the crse of few execive actis, th one timreduced r rervation wn to 21cres. we'rvery pro of beg a noreaty tre, the lansurroundg this river. >> our people's rights to hunt and fish in our usual and accustom grounds wer, 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 neverelinquied the ancestl homelas. >> t quinaulriver trty of855, estlished o usual 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 the lan wh we reta was the right n

d to be a right to have fish. at's whoe are. that'shat wee all out. wee salmoneople. that'shat wee all out. >> we' expiencing credible shoe over t last 40ears. 've en a versharp deine. >> you'raffectin my trey right. you goher. [inaudle] our lmon naudible of people out near west port [inaudible].

[inaible] chehalis d they sd, "no, . [inaudible]." and he said, "okay, yes. don't worry,'ll write it dow" ehalis, d that's what iw. >>irst, eupeanstarted movento the ehalis bin, nurous lanowners here or mesteade, taed aboutow fruently ts area foded. in fac some caed heritn inlandea,, justecause tre was s muchater her every wter. and one ofhe things they write about is how important the native people were in helping them 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 ge e 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 they wof ely develment could get from ound theorthwest interior, >> tre were ry large commes they wthatere occuingt could get from ound thearbor.st interior, 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. essentiay wereoving cu logs dn to thearbor. >> igine theffects that blaing load ful logs wod have wn throu the riv. it cou sco out the gravelnd s that h beegood fishabitat,into . >> mosof the sash damsin one, wn throu the riv. werearriers migrantalmon. there re two ds, two rge dams thatere builin the bin. e was skkumchuckam. that d was bui without any paage for upream, miating saon. the cond dam in t wynooch.

fthatas builtn about 70.. whenhey builthat dam in t wynooch. fthatastherwas stila 70.. mnant spng chino run the upp wynooch. well, it gone no 's long ne. the stufaround t nationa fore and theational rks, traditionally, you had the fishing community. that's suffering. >> the chehalis system is the primary fishery in the state onhe west de for salmon a steelhe, and wee at a tping poi. 're walkg the fine linright no >>he fishe, the loggers,he farme, [ music >>yes, y can see my empr loggers,he farme,

in barn a lontime. keep it t of the in, and om rotti. is farm'been in my famy s. i'm sigenerati, my kid are venth geration he. i still ve t next year we start on year 149th. we're hoping to make it to 150. then we'll reevaluate the vestment over a ndred yes. lot of t farmershat are in mo ey've en farmi generations d years and ey're l gettg olderand lon, and hong their kids wl come bk and ey're l gettg olderand lon, orot hopintheir ki are gog to ce back the unid statesight nowis, wod and ey're l gettg olderand lon, oroand sing mon,ki sotimes ence the ks to go doomethingifferent.

just wathe flds reall starng in thearly 90, houseshat had ver en flood, just been he for 10ll staryear were flded., >>e do flo, and th floong actually es enhan our soiluite a b, actual. so, it's a win for farmers, but we also have to contend th you kw, what floong c. all the eens. were certied organic and i abt 100 diffent variies vegetables, fruit anflowers,nd her. soin '07we had 8eet of wer in oubarn, and i ded up wh a ot of war in my me. and r house one of e olst homes in e valley anhad nevehad wate in iup untilhis flood. so, sincthen, wee rais our hse 5 fee and u'll bet's hou. she ised herouse aft '96 d had war in it '07.

, she'llell you that wly s>> s t first te it was6 raisee d had war in it '07. so, af7 fld, we raed -- we added 4 more ncrete blockisee d had war in it '07. ok that at. we added there you .te blockisee d had war in it '07. see thflood lel? at's theil that not dus ththisoes on a on. so, he's the mk. itays, "fld 12/4/07, righthere. so>> t dayefore, i was acag andand me in thhouse an it srted raingarder. and it was a hd rain, but the rivewas fair low. didn't wake up or anythg. ually ifou havea real dow,

'll wakeou up sotimes. but didn have th.a real dow, to seeow high was ing to g, ani went wh the flhlight and call him bacand said "it'going toe thhighest er." d it w. so, we d people in theid whenhis acally arted gog on, stard to hapn, at hown anthey werseeing tngs th had never hpened bere. and thrain thamoved fr the ast [inaible] his, s torrtial, and i thin theyalled it typhoon and thrain thamoved fr wexperienc anywherfrom, dependinwho you lk to,s, 16 t20 incheof rain a veryvery sho amount time. d as theater ban to se and deis start hitting the p and codn't getnder it,just t sh,

e pounng, and en ka-bo, anthere go the brie. then it'pushing down tthe nextridge. anthe nextridge isaybe not as c, but it will shortly and he e >> thiis wherehe bridgin frt of ourouse useto be. it is ficiallyone. >> thi>>nd wheit brodgin frt of throh finallo be. the [audibl housebridgethae >> thi>at t airpo andgin actual breecd the le. be. and so, that really caused flooding across the freeway. >> [inaudible] the residences with no lights, but water. and i said to mylf anto my frnd, e've goto do somethinabout is. this is ing to b tougfor all us." and of tse rescu, the'd probly about00 -- most 170ere air scues.

d we we pickin peop out of ees, off the oftops, out ofhe r >> refrirators, sher, yer, onef the s, cabins. >>nd thousds of falies hos and hools anchurch, small sinessesere damad, as wl as clong i-5 for fi days. >>e had 29airy far at t time inhe valley, 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 coursisthe li, "well,hat's thego? en the wat gets the?" d that'she questn of the equation in terms of where we build things, how we delop, what kinof infrtructuree put at risk? >> after one of these catastrophic storms, everybody has a theory. evybody haa theory on whyh. >> abo a thirdf that field s cs anvarious bris, and the si whyh. en i wasbout 6 or 8, longbell [phonetic] finished logging in the area, en it raed hard the rir and an grew u there w a diffence thathe riverould t go up fast, and it wld stay hier folonger piod of te, anstayed medn for mu long period time. sically,n the la 30 year theye relogg everythg

th longbellogged er howeverany year d the rir again going u and do faster an it used to. 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 and sement getng intohe river and it's no mystery that that caused flooding if you take a glass of water and you fill it up to just shy the topanthen youump fistful of dirt into it, at's goi to happ? wellthe wates going flow out overhe top othe glas >> what you have in the willapa hills area is an area that's narally ve prone to ld slidin because it has very deeply weathered rock, so there's not a lot of strength in the rock itself. so, one of the reasonshy we have seen so my landides

in that ea, was e chges in the root rength on hillsid throh, you kw, aggressively harvesting timber off most of the water shed, over abo a 10- or 15-ye period. my resech group aroundhe, in the re of lansliding a relt of tier harveing. [ musi] >> people can point to a number of different areas as far as what contributed, but the main thing was the water. ifowhat we ought alscould haen.rts inhat 1990o 2009 meame,e saw flds record imarily in wesrn . >> well, you kno i'm t going get intohether tre'sin wesrn . obal warng or anhing, if youook athe stos, thsystems,he severy

at areccurring,they areor. >>o, for t folks tt say,oh, it's myth." in the chalis ban, the five fods th are outde the 1-year flood, a real, hd number governor insleasked mehis. th he said, "hocome whe floi ta to all u farmerr abouclimate change you l do thi" and i sa, "goverr, i n't get in the rning and art my tctor d go, 'oshoot. i ght haveust kill a polar bearen yearsrom now. i can'get too apped up in whs to bla." >>he bigge increas in t country are i inhe northwe andd up the noreast.." basicalle- erybody'seeing me ra in the ture. what we ow of as 100-ar eventoday, goingo happenore ofte it'sust thatarmer air holdmore wat. it's wmer inhe futur so we n pull me weathe

to thosetorms,ven it's wmer inhe futur if ty're theame exac stor we've sn in theast. by t end of e centur it's going toe about and a ha >> the chalis ban, it rain-fe in t winter,nd very litt wr this riv already warm,planning . >> there has been two big fish kills since the '07 storm fr low flows, high temperature. [ musi] >> our smer flowma our wint flows m get a ole lot gger. >> well,here's really tee facto that clite change inflnces

one is sea level rise. the other is snowpack. the warmer temperatures means less snow. , reallyhe thirdhat driv floodinin the chalis, whicis the cnge in t intensy of hea rain evts. thrange isn the sort of % incrse the endf the ceury. trn whistl] >> wheyou thinabout glal warmg and other issues that are in fronof u we'vgot to dsomethin >> wheyou thinabout glal we jt cannotet warth happen ain.ssues >> so,he army rps of engineer startedooking in the chalis ban at wat reteion backn the 19's.

>> theve been talkinabout since t flood othe '30s the corps did a buncof studs and didn't do anything. there he beenmorehan a s thatave be assessed atne timor anoth. all ofhose havnot pann oubecausthey coun't st a cosbenefit st. e site tt does, the te that'currentl oubecausthey coun't under aluation above e st a cosbenefit st. >> i thi there's been or 80s the chelis rive sinc1933. there w a group formeds that wted a sotionn voictohe floodg,ople basic>> ty got togeer.. their veryirst optn to stop thfloodingwas buila dam. they rcted to y, "we'v got a shery inecline and noyou're tking abo puttg a dam a river anth will ma the sh probl even woe." an>>inal the gernor an legiators ca togethe said, "y know wh guys?

we neeto bring those o, thatl paies invoed." 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. n't dumpn the y downstream >> one othe firsthings at they d to gethe tribe on aquic species rtorati, so tt it'll a dual oject. so, t chehas basis strate rh of several different types of actions. and since we're focused primarily on reducing fld damage and t for aquatispecies,e really bres 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, on up to the largest proposed action in the strategy is a propose flooretentiostructur at wouldold back5,000-acre et of fld waters inboundn mark 1. heree're gng arod thcorner, d you ve tomagine aruck ming arod the coer. >> i'vgot a [iudible] head. >> in nuary of018, the roadr e hillsi, slid dn. e east e of the m is goi to be ght hereon this ot. yore looki at it he. itoes ross the river r sowe're noon the finesco honetic]ree farm

my fathebought t prerty in 37. i inrited thproperty when y finesco honetic]ree farm took ove ye i've be atthed to the propty for 8years. the'when y get olderthee. mories srt fadin and it more th work youut in. the'whi nt to beble toee. pass thitree farn in lew county,eople that own tree fas, they he that oortunity to wo, on the own prorty d have tt as a lacy pass ono their mily. the dam will be a 45-degree angle from this west point,