Catastrophic Consequences -- Old-Timers Say The Capricious Tolt River Poses A Real Threat To Them. And What's Worse, It's A Recent Change In County Policy That Makes It Even More Likely To Happen.

Forty years ago, Jack Perrigoue played a role in a drama that might have come straight out of the movies.

His small, picturesque home town in the heart of farming country was lashed with torrential rains for days. The town's river swelled over its banks and began trying to force its way into an old, dried-up channel - one that would take it straight into town, flood the main street and wipe out dozens of houses.

Perrigoue and 40 of his neighbors put together a daring plan: they would stretch junk cars across the river to form a makeshift dike, and force the water to return to its current channel.

Working furiously in the dark, they strung a dozen rusty cars together with cables through the windows, pushed them into the river, and waited in suspense. The current surged against the metal, then pushed the cars slowly against the bank and into place.

Redirected by the crude dike, the river moved back within its banks.

And the town was saved.

It is 40 years later, and Jack Perrigoue is standing with his neighbor Claude Stephens on the very spot where the river once nearly broke free.

The river is the Tolt. The town is Carnation. And Perrigoue can still point to the place where the cars, now entombed in dirt, helped save the town in 1951.

In 1991, if the Tolt tried to jump again, Perrigoue says he probably wouldn't be able to use junk cars - or anything, for that matter - to control the volatile river.

And Perrigoue says a catastrophe like that is more likely to happen because of a gradual change in King County policy allowing gravel, rocks and tree debris to remain in the river channel.

Dredging and debris-clearing, once routine maintenance jobs performed annually by the county, are restricted now to improve river habitat for wildlife. The dikes that King County built - and Tolt Valley homeowners count on as a safeguard - are now believed to provide scant protection. And in any case, the county's till for river protection work is empty.

"We feel the whole community is in danger," Perrigoue says. The river is trying to get through the old channel, he said, "and once it's got these trees down, it's got a straight shot to town."

When the sun is shining and the weather is mild, the Tolt becomes the quintessential Northwest river, a slice of scenery from a picture postcard. Its cool, shallow waters ripple over egg-shaped rocks worn smooth by time and current. The water takes on an emerald hue in sunlight, and the river is framed on both sides by tall stands of Douglas fir, hemlock and cottonwoods.

But after a winter rainstorm, the Tolt is transformed from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Clear, sparkling water turns mud-brown and angry. The river can rip apart a bank, roll boulders, fell tall trees in a matter of minutes.

Experts say the Tolt is one of the most volatile rivers on the Eastside. Strong water velocity and especially loose, gravelly soil combine to make the Tolt shift course on the valley floor more than any other Eastside river. Recent, extensive clear cutting on the river's south side may also play a role in dumping more runoff and sediment into the Tolt.

Most people who live on its banks were wooed by the Tolt's tranquil summer beauty. Some knew it had a fickle personality. Others did not.

But if they didn't know it before, they did after the flood of last November.

In November's storm, heavy mountain rainfall caused dramatic channel alterations overnight. And the county's recent policy decision not to dredge the river and remove debris probably made it more volatile.

The Tolt in November swept entire acres of land downstream, wiped out several rustic cabins and destroyed a $25,000 poultry barn-cooling setup owned by Stephens. It uprooted dozens of cottonwoods and left them lying on a football field-size gravel bar. It re-entered old channels, created new islands and abandoned old ones.

The overnight remapping of the Tolt River shocked landowners. On his chicken farm, Stephens discovered the river had started to undermine a dike. Just upriver, on Perrigoue's property, the river began edging toward an old channel. If the dike broke or the water entered the old channel, the town of Carnation could be in danger again, Perrigoue believes.

Jerry Creek, a flood expert for the county's Surface Water Management division, says the danger to Carnation is minimal. The Tolt, which has been moving around in its channel "since the ice age," would take years to wipe out the dike or re-enter the old channel.

Even if it did, an old railroad grade between the town and the river would probably stop the river from flooding the town, said surface water management senior engineer Tom Bean. Bean expects the county to patch up Stephens' dike this summer.

Not all the experts agree that the Tolt poses little threat, however.

King County Fire District 10 planners think the danger is so serious that they're making special contingency plans to safeguard people living along the river.

Assistant Chief Lee Soptich says if the water got into the old channel, the river could wipe out the Tolt River Road and strand several hundred people who live upstream and use the road as the only way to get out of their homes.

And if the channel changed course or wiped out a dike, it could flood the area where new houses are approved for construction, Soptich said.

"Obviously, we're real concerned about it," Soptich said.

County surface water management planners say there are other, more serious dangers in King County.

Upstream in the San Souci Ville neighborhood, there is no dike and the houses have already been surrounded by water once, Creek said. The county would like to buy out those properties, but money may not be immediately available.

And it's not even clear if dikes are the solution.

A committee of Snoqualmie Valley residents studying flooding concerns for the King County Council is trying to decide if dikes are of any benefit at all, and how best to manage them, said committee member Linda Pfeiffer.

Pfeiffer, a Carnation sheep farmer, says she thinks dikes can actually make flooding worse because they give residents a false sense of security. Also, studies seem to show that on certain rivers - such as the Tolt - the banks are too unstable to hold a dike in place, making erosion far more likely.

Next month, the advisory committee will submit a report to the county council with recommendations on dikes and dredging.

Looking up from the troublesome place where the river is gnawing at the dike, chicken farmer Stephens spies a familiar sight. "Look, a bald eagle," he says.

The bird is flying low over the river, possibly looking for fish. It rounds a bend and flies out of sight.

Eagles in the air. Salmon in the water. These are among the reasons why the county doesn't clean debris out of the river anymore.

Creek explains that logs and other debris create variety in the river. A few trees may form a temporary dam, creating a pool where salmon fry can grow up. Insects survive in such pools and provide fish with food. And debris may form shade that fish seek out in the summer.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the county spent $1 million to $2 million yearly to clean out the rivers, Creek said. King County has stopped doing river maintenance because it was expensive, and because it helped only a handful of private property owners.

Perrigoue and Stephens say the river will continue to wreak worse damage on Tolt River residents until the county returns to its old practice of cleaning debris and dredging in the summer.

They could be right, Creek says. But in any case, the cleanup would only benefit private landowners. And the county won't do that kind of work anymore.

The county now discourages unnatural controls to river systems, like levees and riprap, and discourages development along sections of volatile rivers that are prone to meandering.

Creek says he doesn't want to downplay the danger on the Tolt River. "These people, given the erosion and flooding, have a real problem," he said. "Knowing what I know about river things, I'd move from there."

But he added: "Why are we blaming some agency, somebody, for a natural occurrence?"

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TOLT RIVER FACTS

Length: Approximately 20 miles.

Source: Cascade Mountains east of Palmer and Crosby mountains. The Tolt River watershed is owned by Weyerhaeuser and managed by the Seattle Water Department.

Mouth: Enters the Snoqualmie River at Carnation.

Character: The Tolt is a favorite of salmon, trout and steelhead fishermen. A dam on the south fork forms the Tolt River Reservoir, which supplies the Eastside with water. Timber is grown and harvested up and down the river. About 100-200 families live on the river's edge.

Record floods: December, 1959, with 17,400 cubic feet per second measured near Carnation; February, 1951, with 16,800 cubic feet per second. At 11,200 feet per second, last November's flood was the fifth worst on record. The average annual flow is 582 cubic feet per second.

Erosion rate: From 1964 to 1977, the river near Carnation eroded about 2 feet per year. From 1977 to 1991, the river eroded 10 to 12 feet per year.

Sources: U.S. Geological Survey, King County Surface Water Management Tolt and Raging River Channel Migration Study.