this program was made 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.

[ music ] >> 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 could bfaced in situati wherit's goi extinct. >> or the last sevel decas, the prlems have acceleted he. e last0 years ve seen ve ofhe most gnificanfloods on recd in thehehalis sin. >> and know nothey're lookin, whh is supposeto 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 moneyn salmonecover of climate change. we know that flood is going to get worse. we know that it's going to get hotte onerong decion can have sho not only everyone in this generation, but everyone for generations ahead. [ music ] you kno what haens to this corridor driving lot of what the ture mig be for t chehali thi-5 corror doesn really give n of of wt is outn mig thchehalis bas.i ye the vasmajority of pe,

's whathey're eing they dre throug you see pretty splified, entre. and it tnished mview of at an iredible ace the ehalis was in t past, a still i it's the larst watered that entirelwithin t state washingn, that so fls all thway to t sea. >> onef the unual chacterists of the chalis rir, is th it w the draage outl fothis masve wall ice of thethatxisted ding th it we st ice a. outl ce the ice melteback, e valley was actually ersized lative to thriver that was flowing through it. and this is a recipe for creating terrain in the valley bott that actually flood prone. >> you know, it's a large basin with a diverse range of ecosystems. [ music ]

>> so,he chehas rive has rge numbs of saln partf it is e to its size,u tots chacteristi. pari me salmon'a its size,u ketone spees. ybyow well is thatthe salm. of an enre ecosystem p>>hehalis lmon arescriticl, ketone spees. 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 so euisitelydaptive to thm

the northwest, you're going yn to see them, and some of them are going to look really great and real pristine, but at youeed to rlize is ey're dramaticly diffent than they were 200 years ago. >> imagine we go back to 1850. we're surrounded by this cathedral forest of old growth. a lot osalmon hven. salmon hven is t place where 's basicly as go as it ts for smon. >> saln evolve to tse condions as it ts for smon. th were re befe ssy, whe there'sots, where te >> saln evolve of wooin our stems. to tse condions >> grand total, if you took all the species and added them together, there would have been years ere therwould have be a milli plus fi. [ sic and ter soun ]

if you' talking out chal, they a inextribly nked to is water some of ese ville site you kno al12,0 years ikind of at theye taggeds the ocpancy inur area,ut we ha stories that, r ancests, tho thatent befo us, te us thato far bend at anyeotag cod tell y. >> whave stoes aboutou kn, the glier beinhere. te u>> a our peoeenwere here- at anyeotag cod tell y. 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 whe we cou just pruce d producand giveway. and en also ade.

this wasike the b from e cot to theottom to the oer side of theouns l that tde came througte soour anceors wereerchan land d accessoe througte so my things >> we' a chehas tribe w, but at conferacy eands chehal tribe, wee taing anxpansive you ow, 1500quare mis, whicover theourse ofa few e, th one timreduced r rervation wn to 21cres. so, esseially thsize seven beball fids. we'ra nontrey trib wee very pud of ing a noreaty tre, 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 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. 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, to be a right to have fish.akd that what wee all out. wee salmoneople. to be a right to have fish.akd >> we'rexpiencing credible shoe over t last 40ears. 've en a versharp deine. >> youe affectg my taty right. you goher. [inaudle] our lmon naudible >> when captain gray was coming up the coast, he met a group of people out near west port [inaudible].

[inaudible]. d he sai "okay, s. don't woy, i'llwrite itown." ehalis, d that's what iw. >>irst, eupeanstarted movento the ehalis bin, they ned what paradi this ar was. the betiful tier, theabundan. nurous lanowners here or mesteade, lked abo how equent this ar flooded in ft, some lled an inla sea, 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 them in 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 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 early delopment aroundhe. >> the were ve large commerci fisheri thatere occuingt aroundhe. thearbor. 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 series of floods. of logs uld havedown thrgh . it cld scour out t that l grav and conrt river. thatad been good fh habita into frly bareedrock rers. >> mt of theplash da in oneay or thother, werearriers migrantalmon. >> therwere twoams,a in otwlarge da,ther, thatere builin the bin. one s skoomchuck d. that dam was blt without any ssage for upstream, grating lmon. the cond d's inhe wynooee.

fthatas builtn about 70.on. whenhey builthat dam inhe wynooee. fthatastherwas stila 70.on. remnant ring chiok run the upp wynooch. well, it gone no it's longone. other an reallthe sout tip wynooch, you kn, traditionally, you had the fishing community. that's suffering. >> the chehalis system is the primary fishery in the state the wesside for salmonnd, and wee at a tping poi. 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

a bkeept out ofheme. rain, d from rting. th farm's en in my familsince 18. i'six genetion, myids e seventgenerati here. i stillt 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 fromin ovea hundreyears. momente a t of thearmers tt are in my mmunity,ou kno they've en farmi generations d year and they're l gettg olderand l, and hong their kids wlk not hopg their ds are ing to come ck, whicis kind the kids wlk condrum ingricultu the unid statesight nowis, wod anlosing mey, metimes tice theids to go somethi different.

it just s the oods reay stting in e early 's, been floed, hous tr been he for 10 year were flded. >> we dolood, anthat ooding actuay does eance our soiluite a b, actual. so, it's a win for farmers, but we also have to contend th you kw, what flding canring. all the eens. were certi organic and wei out 100 diffent variies vegetables, fruit and flows, and hbs. , in ', we had feet of wer i, and ended upith a foot of ter in mhome. anour housis one othe dest homes ithe vall, so, sie then, 've raed our hse 5 fee anyou'll bsy's hou. she ised herouse aft '96 d had war in it '07.

so, she' tell yo thathole sto. >>o, the firstime it w rais, we putn 32 incs. we added 4 morconcretelock ok that at. the yogo. see thflood lel? at's theilt. th's not dt. that'slood sil this goeon and o so, he's the mk. says, "ood 12/4/07, righthere. >> the day befor i waactuallylowing d came ithe housand startedaining harr. i ept wellhat nigh didn't wake up or anythg. usually you he a re downpou

diitl wake y up somemes.g. but didn have th. a cousin who was fire cef cale 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 thin theyalled it typhoon wexperienc anywherfrom, dependinwho you lk to, anthat hadever hapned bere that anyone w aware o and as t wateregan trise aand bris staed hitti bethbridgeand builng upe o and codn't g under i just t shakingthe grding,

the poding, anthen ka-om, d there es the bdge. d the ne bridge maybe n as cgged up this onwas, 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 saido myself and tod "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 maged, and asell as csingies mes ans5 for fi days.s, >> we had 29 dairy farms at the time in the valle 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?"

en the water gets the?" and that the queion out how you esstially manage t human dension 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. and varis debrisand thsilt in some aces was about o f. longbell [phonetic] finished logging in the area, the old growth, and wiout replting, en it raed hard the rir up raply and dn rapidl and ashings gr back an grew u there w a diffence that t river wld nogo up asast, h nger perd of tim sically,n the la 3years, they've logged erything

that lgbell loed overower many ars, 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 diment gtingnt. in the river and it's no mystery that that caused flooding issues downstream. if you take a glass of water and you fill it up to just shy athe top, d en you dp a fistful of dirt into it, ifwhat'soing to ppen?f water and you fill it up to just shy well, thwater's ing to fw ouover theop of thglass. a river'no diffent. >> the's stillome nversati to be h on what is the flow that came from 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 many laslides

in thaarea, wathe on the hilides angesrough, y know,gth aggressively harvesting timber off most of the water shed, would bically fd a ughl3 to 9-fd increa in theate of ld slidinas a sult of mber harsting. [ sic ] >> people can point to a number of different areas as far as what contributed, but the main thing was the water. >> it ally is kind of almostff s fowhat we ought could haen. inhat 1990o 2009 meame,e saw flds record imarily in wesrn . >> wel you kno i'm t going get thsystems,he severy ,

across ts couny ofhe natal event thatre occurng, th are morfrequent so, forhe folkshat sa "oh, it a myth. here's the dat in the chalis ban, the five fods th are outde the 1-year flood, a real, hd numbers. gornornslee asd me thi heaid,how comehen talk to l you faers about clate chan, yoall do ts?" ango, 'oh oot. and str ii can'get too apped por up in whs to bla."w.' the bigst increes inhe countryre the norwest and in thet ere's veryew place thathow a deease. sically erything- everybody'seeing me rain in the ture. whate know oas a 0-year ent today is goingo happenore ofte whate know oas a 's just at warme air lds moreater. it warmer the fute, soe can pu more weher

into thosetorms, even if ty're theame exac stor we've sn in theast. into thosetorms, even by t end of e centur it's going toe about and a ha 's rain-d. >> the, in theinter, a very is little wer in thsumm. water this rer already war planning to get warmer. the, >> 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. wel there's reallyhres that climate chae influees

one is sea level rise. the other is snowpack. even more ofhat's faing and wr so, real the thi that driv floodinin the chalis, whicis the cnge in t intensy of hea rain evts. the rangis in th sortf 20% crease by thend of thcentury. [ traiwhistle >> wn you thk about obal waing and other issues that are in frt of us, wee got too somethg. >> wn we jt cannotetobal waith happen ain.ssues >> so,he army rps of engineer startedooking in thehehalis sin at wer rention ba in the 30's.

>> ty've been talkg aboutit sin. thcorps did a buncof studs and didn't do anything. there he be morehan a dozen tes th have be assessed one timor anoer. all ofhose havnot pann oubecause they cldn't past a ct-benefitest. the sitehat doesis thsite thas curreny undeevaluati abov[inaudib]. >> i tnk there beenver 800 sties there w a group formeds basicaym >>hey got tother. ey react to say,we've t a fishy in decline and noyou're tking aut puing a daon a riv, d that will ke the fish proem even rse." and sathissn't worng.guys?

we need bring those twtogether d try toind the lution at satises all parties volved." 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 wnstre. >> onef the fit thingsthat ts toarticipate in th is they-- wt on aatic speci restotion, so that 'll be aual projt. >> so,he chehas basis strateh that is ally a ste of several different types of actions. and since we're focused primarily on reding floodamage and improving habitat for aquac specie we real breathose sues of acons down io those o lae bucket on thelood dame reductn si, is a ste of acons

th range fm the ve small, up to the verlarge. things like levy improvements, on up to the largest proposed action >> inbou . tomagine aruck ming arod the coer. >> ie got a naudible head in the ver road> inbou . >> in nuary of018, the roadr e hillsi, slid dn. the eastnd of thdam is gng to bright he, on thispot. u're loong at itere. it goes ross the river ar sowe're noon the finesco honetic]ree farm

my fatr boughthe prerty in 37. i inrited thproperty when y finesco honetic]ree farm i took or. the'when y get olderthee. mories srt fadin and 's more e work youut in. i nt to beble to pass thitree far on to myhildren and gre in lis count people that o, they he thatpportuni to wk in theoods, on the own prorty d have tt as a lacy pass ono their mily. thdam wille a 45-dree gle fromhis westoint,