4,200-Foot Snohomish River Dike Planned -- New Road To Top Levee In Summer 1997

EVERETT - A federal, county and local partnership has pooled about $5 million to build a 4,200-foot span of dike topped by a new stretch of Lowell-Snohomish River Road, closed since the floods last fall.

The floods gouged a huge hole, which was dubbed "Norwegian Bay," into the banks of the Snohomish River east of Everett, taking out a 1,000-foot stretch of dike and riverside road.

The Army Corps of Engineers built an emergency dike at the height of the floods.

All but 2.2 miles of the Marshland Flood Control District's 9-mile dike system have already been modernized with rounded, grassy dikes that let floodwaters flow over smoothly rather than gouging holes.

Last year's break washed out part of Marshland's remaining old "peanut dike," a vertical berm of eroding dirt and rock.

Work is expected to begin on the new dike in July. It will follow the line of the emergency dike and replace an adjacent, downriver stretch of the peanut dike. That work is to be completed by October.

Then a new road is to be built atop that dike in summer 1997.

No money had been found yet to replace the remaining 8,000 feet of peanut dike, said Matt Brady, of the Snohomish Conservation District.

The dike, road and land costs for that final piece of the Marshland system, planned for construction in 1997, are estimated at $8 million. Six houses now stand in the way, and some residents don't want to move.

A news conference was held yesterday in the Everett office of U.S. Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Langley, to announce that the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service has awarded a $2.3 million grant for the dike project. Metcalf and U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Slade Gorton worked to secure that grant.

Those funds alone would build a 12-foot-wide dike, too narrow to support a road. So Snohomish County has secured $2.5 million in federal highway money to widen the future dike's width to 40 feet and rebuild that stretch of Lowell-Snohomish River Road.

In addition, the Marshland district has spent about $100,000 of its own money to buy a barn, farmhouse and 10 acres of farmland needed for the project. The county expects to pay about $75,000 to buy 22 more acres of farmland.

The completed dike will protect farms, Highway 9, Harvey Field and Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railroad tracks.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service, then known as the Soil Conservation Service, began building the Marshland dikes in 1960, but the project stalled in recent years.

"I had the privilege of seeing the first load of dirt dumped to start this project about 25 years ago," said George Stocker, a retired farmer who now works as the Marshland District's manager and secretary. "And, the good lord willing, I'll see the last load of dirt dumped."