Volunteers:

 

Any volunteers who are driving from Olympia to the farm are invited to meet with
others each morning for carpool opportunities.

 

Where:  Chevron Station at Plum and Union (just off the Port of Olympia exit, #105)

When: 9:45 am daily.  Time of departure 10:00 am

What to bring: Your mud boots, heavy duty rain gear (you will get muddy), warm
clothes and socks for yourself, rubber gloves, tools (please have your name on them)

What NOT to bring: children, pets.  We have mud and debris everywhere.

 

Items needed:

 

If you would like to donate items, we would be happy to receive them.  Here is a
list of current items needed.  We will update this list as we continue clean up and
begin reconstruction.

 

Air compressor

Diesel fuel

Gasoline

Hydraulic fluid

Oil 30weight

Oil 15w-40

(our tractors were submerged-we need to replace fluids in all of them)

Rain coats and bibs for volunteers

Hot food for volunteers (especially on weekends)

Firewood

Gallon jugs of drinking water-the water system may not have potable water until
mid-January.

We are also taking monetary donations through our website: www.boistfortvalleyfarm.com

And via mail: 

Boistfort Valley Farm

Heidi & Mike Peroni

PO Box 130 

Curtis WA 98538

 

We have plenty of clothing, and are not in need of many household items yet.

 

Please let us know if you have a specific skill-we will need help with construction,
plumbing, mechanics, you name it. 

 

We are also working on accepting donations to the Boistfort Valley Farm account at
these suppliers in Chehalis: The Farm Store  

Barnett Implement (Account name Mike Peroni)

Palmer Lumber

AutoMotive

 

Thank you, 

 

Heidi & Mike

for not stopping all our other work and helping neighbors with flood cleanup. The chiding took the form of talking about some folks had turned their lives upside down to help their neighbors and other folks had just gone on with their business as usual.

I have sympathy for folks whose homes were flooded and businesses were damaged and animals drowned. It's a terrible thing. But I have been talking about the flood planning (or lack thereof) that has happened with the filling of the wetlands to the west of I5 over the past few years and how deep the water was in those wetlands in 1996. I have wondered aloud how much flood water is being displaced by the filling of those wetlands, but a Walmart Superstore has great appeal to lots of my neighbors and the county decision-makers are generally pro-growth, pro-commercial development of this flood plain valley, so my reservations are out of step with the growth over the past decade.

We drove out west of Chehalis on Sunday and were amazed by the level of the flood waters out towards Adna. Houses that had been raised significantly since the 1996 flood were underwater again. Homes in the Boistfort area that have never flooded were underwater in 2007.

And despite my opposition to filling the wetlands to make room for Walmart, I believe that the filling did not have much to do with the 2007 flooding. I could be wrong about that, but that is what I believe today.

I am told that about 9 inches of rain fell in the Willapa Hills at the headwaters of the Chehalis River in one 24 hour period. I don't think the Chehalis River drainage can handle that kind of rainfall without backing up all over the place. And the proximate cause of the unusual 9 inch rainfall is global warming.

As I have cited elsewhere, the World Bank has noted that the incidence of weather disasters has quadrupled since 1940. You can read the study here if you are interested. The increase is indepedent of changes of population, the increasing number of folks who have moved into historically dangerous floodplains and landslide prone hillsides. The increase is simply about the actual number of weather events of a certain intensity. Hence, the experience of my neighbors who may be farming ground that families have farmed and lived on for generations who have now been flooded. The flood plains of Boistfort, Curtis, Adna, Chehalis and elsewhere just may no longer be habitable. Recent history (1996 and 2007) suggests that a new flood level has been established and flooding with a ten year frequency establishes an area that is simply not suitable for building and growth. It may be suitable for pasture, but you have to be able to move your stock in a hurry as the 2007 experience shows.

Now I have worked for years on raising awareness of global warming, peak oil, sustainability. I travel little at least partially because of concern about the necessary burning of fossil fuels contributing to the dilemma that has recently slammed my neighbors.

I do not think that I am immune from these potential disasters. Much of the clay fill that has been dumped in the flood plain to the west of I5 has been removed from the toe of the hill I live on. It has come from the National Heights area near Kresky and Coal Creek. This whole hillside, the historic hillside neighborhood of Chehalis is on this same hill. This hill is moving. Building keeps occurring up the hill from me and the road above my home keeps inching down toward my home. I do not trust the engineers who have apparently determined that this hill can have increased loading through more building up the slope. I do not trust the engineers who have apparently determined that the toe of this hillside at Coal Creek and Kresky can be removed safely. Need I remind anyone that engineers where in charge of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island? I will not be able to post if this hillside ever gets a major rainfall and slides. I will be buried under my neighbors beautiful new garages which will be hard on both me and my neighbors, but that is the simple reality of life on this hillside.

The simple reality of life in the floodplains of Chehalis and the area west is that those grounds are not suitable for homes or construction anymore. Helping my neighbors clean these homes is not help that helps.

This situation has been described as the blind men and the elephant to me. That we all cannot grasp what is before us and so each of us works on the problem as best we can identify it. There is something to that. But I think of the situation in terms of the story about the work of pulling bodies from the river. We can all join hands and pull bodies from the flooding river, but maybe it makes sense for some folks to go up the river and find out why bodies are falling in the river.

I would prefer not to be chided about not taking on the work of pulling bodies out of the rivers as I expend my efforts working on the root cause, the reason why the bodies are in the rivers. The root cause is global warming.

I understand that my neighbors may not want to hear that their property has now been reclaimed by the weather of the planet, that it no longer belongs to them in the same productive capacity that it has in the past, but I think that is true. I also understand the impulse to shoot the messenger. and the political will to mischaracterize my position as unsympathetic or uncaring. But I have to take those risks because I think that true help to my neighbors, to our children, to our grandchildren comes from recognizing and addressing the cause of the problem that showed up here in Lewis County in it's most recent watery incarnation.

I believe no flood work or cleanup should be done without reckoning with the fact that the high water levels of 1996 and 2007 have established a new paradigm for life in western Lewis County.

Flood Relief -

What is the latest news and needs for the farms and people this weekend? I've been down several times in the last few days and seen amazing things in the communities - Rochester, Adna, Boistfort, etc., where local people (Mike excepting) are organized and working like a well-heeled disaster relief agency, all pretty much on their own. In fact, the places I've visited taking donated supplies are so full of stuff they really can't handle any more. But all are saying there is an accute shortage of volunteers to handle a wide variety of tasks.

I was in a meeting Wednesday with some church people (with some generous funding to direct to the area) and a mental health case worker in Chehalis. The discussion centered on the long-term recovery effort needed. Some political types in the area are pressing for an imagined six-month period wherein everything will be restored. It's an entirely unrealistic idea; more like two years and beyond.

So, what can you tell us now? 

When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, Brazil