A River's Revenge -- The Snohomish Defies Decades Of Dike Building

WHERE DOWN THERE, buried under the angry torrent from last November's historic flood in the Snohomish Valley, is a rotten old survey stake that helped cause all of this.

Or so the story goes.

Legend has it that a farmer named John Misich Sr. was getting tired of mopping up his barns every time the Snohomish River jumped its banks. So, when the Army Corps of Engineers finally came along to help him build a dike on the riverbank, this farmer took it upon himself to raise the survey stakes ever so slightly - when the engineers weren't looking, of course. He hoisted them up a good foot or so, and stood silently by, grinning, as the dikes rose to their bootlegged height.

Of course, legend also has it that this is an utterly ridiculous story, fabricated by one farmer to impugn another in the dike wars of the Snohomish Valley. It also points to the ridiculously stubborn belief that humans - particularly humans in overalls - can control this rebellious river.

Well, it just ain't so.

The Snohomish River has been bucking its banks for 15,000 years - roughly 14,900 years longer than humans have been trying to tame it. The first attempts began just after the turn of the century, and they haven't let up since. Despite big floods in 1921, 1951, 1975, 1986 and again in 1990, people have dug in their heels and remained in the river's flood path, devising new and more elaborate schemes to get even with it after every flood.

Homes and barns have been built ever higher on stilts and concrete blocks; ditches have been carved ever deeper to drain it. But the central weapon in this war against nature has been a straitjacket made of dirt and rocks: 44 miles of dikes have been erected on the river's banks.

A dike is a simple structure with a difficult mission. It is an earthen and rock embankment built parallel to the banks of a river to prevent flooding. In length, it runs from a few dozen feet to many miles; in height, it ranges from a squat mound to an imposing wall 10 to 20 feet high.

The first dikes in the Snohomish Valley were of the smaller variety and emerged in the early 1900s. They were generally hailed as an inventive antidote to a defiant river, but that praise soon soured and took an unexpected turn. The war against nature became a war between farmers.

Human nature being what it is, some farmers built their dikes higher than the dikes across the river or downstream, pushing the flood waters on past their own fields and barns and into less-protected homesteads and pastures.

It wasn't necessarily malicious, mind you; a person has a right to protect his property from ruin. But someone always got flooded downstream, and that has led to some hard feelings in a valley where people grew up together, attended the same churches and frequented the same taverns after Sunday services.

The dike wars have made trouble in this small town of about 6,500 people, although farmers are loath to admit it's an all-out battle - that implies dissension in the otherwise close-knit community of Snohomish. But in truth, it has been a bitter power struggle, in which water is both a weapon and the common enemy.

Tension between farmers has risen and fallen with each decade's flooding, but it spilled into open confrontation on Nov. 25, 1990. On that day, the Snohomish River reared up and overpowered the valley like a stampeding herd through a field of daisies. Record rainfall, coupled with unseasonably warm winds that were later called the "Pineapple Express," caused mountain snow to melt and engorge the Snohomish. The dikes that had been built to control the river burst open in 14 spots. The Snohomish kicked free and let go a massive flood.

Men died. Cows drowned. Houses and barns floated away. Dozens of people were stranded in their homes, or plucked from their roofs by helicopter. One man, a worker from Mexico, who was caught between the rising flood waters and the descending helicopter, decided to take his chances with nature. He stayed in the loft of a barn and eventually emerged, cold but safe.

Downriver, John Misich Jr., a longtime farmer and man of some stature, came across the valley in a boat to feed his heifers. He was found waste deep in water with a confused look on his face. He had hypothermia and was slowly freezing. Other farmers pulled him to safety.

The instinct for survival was strong that night. Upriver, on the flooding Snoqualmie, a young Holstein floated out of the Roetcisoender barn and sputtered into a neighbor's living room. More than 100 dairy cows drowned in that same barn as the water rushed over their backs. The heifer beat some terrible odds - and is now the barn pet.

The flooding was worse than anything in recent memory. No one was spared the river's wrath - and everyone knew part of the reason why. Dikes. At the upper end of the valley, the highest, most bootlegged dike had burst wide open, spitting boulders, snapping trees and thrusting extra water through the entire valley below it. The surging flood mangled railroad tracks, wiped out roads and closed the Harvey airfield. Sections of Highway 9 sunk beneath water. Ebey Island disappeared altogether, buried under 10 feet of angry river.

A natural disaster - the 100-year flood - was aggravated by the attempts to avert it.

PERSONAL AND FARM damage was estimated in the millions of dollars, and come to find out, insurance didn't cover much of the cost. Nor did the county. Or the state. Or the feds. Or anybody. After the flood, there were a lot of angry people wringing water from their welcome mats - the same angry people who showed up at the Silver King Cafe on Dec. 1. It was an unforgettable meeting that would later be called the Silver King Summit, so named for the Snohomish restaurant that overhangs the river and bears marks from a series of big floods. Like a bathtub ring, the mark of Nov. 25 is the highest and darkest.

The mood at the summit was tense. Local politicians, officials and longtime friends were forced to confront each other in a setting that had seen friendlier days. The Silver King is a favorite meeting place, perched right on main street in downtown Snohomish. It is close to the taverns, a bakery and a ludicrously high number of antique shops that have made this small town a mecca for tourists. No matter. Snohomish still identifies itself as a farming community and generations of people have raised their kids in overalls. For the most part, people have gotten along fine.

That's why the summit was so vexing. It was hard for a man like Ward Lawler to look across at Cliff Bailey and see a culprit where he once saw a good friend and respected state senator. They had been ushers at each other's weddings, after all: He didn't like challenging Cliff.

But something had to be done. A bad flood was made worse because Bailey and other influential farmers in the Marshland Flood Control District had stubbornly insisted on building their dikes between one and five feet taller than other dikes bracketing the river. When the biggest one broke, the river behind it lurched out like Niagara Falls, ravaging everything in its path.

The Marshland farmers listened as their neighbors vented anger. It was a showdown with nearly 100 years of history behind it.

The Snohomish Valley was once a vast, forested wetland boasting Sitka spruce, western red cedar and lodgepole pine. In 1879, townfolk began draining it with ditches to take advantage of the rich, alluvial soils. That effort was soon followed by a spotty network of crude dikes made of dirt, gravel and wood chips from local mills. In some stretches, the Army Corps of Engineers helped build the compact mounds, but for the most part, it was left to individual farmers. Based on their locations in the valley, they formed diking districts and taxed themselves to build and repair the dikes. To this day, there is no real authority governing the 11 different districts. And it shows.

The Marshland District is the biggest and taxes itself far more heavily than other districts. For decades, Marshland farmers have successfully cultivated about 6,000 acres of prime valley land fanning out along eight miles of riverbank. The land produces rich crops of peas and sweet corn, and also supports nearly 3,000 dairy cows. Annually, the Marshland farmers earn about $10 million - more money than farmers in any other single diking district.

During the summit, other farmers grumbled about this inequity. They angrily turned their attention to the Marshland farmers, including Don Thomas, Bill Craven and Cliff Bailey. The state senator had called the summit and, before its surprising conclusion, he was going to get an earful.

No one blamed him outright, but Cliff's father, Earl, was one of the first farmers in Snohomish to top his dike with extra soil.

From Earl Bailey's standpoint, it made sense to beat back the river. It made a mess of his crops and dairy operation. But the river had a mind of its own.

THE SNOHOMISH SERVES as a main drainage system for the central Cascade Mountain range. Its mission, for 15,000 years now, has been to wear down those mountains and carry them off to Puget Sound waters. It is a journey of nearly 100 miles and reaches its greatest velocity in the valley of Snohomish, where the Snoqualmie and the Skykomish meet. From that point, in Monroe, all the way north into Everett, the river flexes, twists and arcs like a runaway hose. If left alone over time, it will swivel from one side of the valley floor to the other. Over the river's lifetime, a big flood every 10 to 50 to 100 years is no more than a hearty, seasonal sneeze.

That is why some geologists can't understand why farmers are so surprised when the river lets go a big galump. They say it's only human arrogance that immediately looks for a human cause such as a broken dike or runoff from logging or development to explain such a large flood - and then selects a human invention like bigger dikes and dredging to solve it. Sure, human activity does contribute to flooding, but it does not cause it.

Nor will dikes and dredging cure it. Over geological time, trying to corral a Puget Sound river is as futile as trying to water a California desert - there comes a point where the flooding or the drought will prevail.

In the Snohomish Valley, the dikes are particularly vulnerable to nature's moods. They are made mostly of dirt and have been thrown up by farmers who are not, by trade, engineers.

But even if they were experts with a slide rule, it wouldn't make much difference. On the Mississippi River, for example, the Army Corps of Engineers has built the most extensive levee system in the world and still can't control the floods. The dikes have gone from three feet in height to more than 30 feet, and the river keeps rising. The constriction has merely forced the river to drop its silt inside the channel, rather than scattering it over the flood plain. On some stretches, riverboats are now higher than the townships, which are huddled nervously behind the levees. Residents don't feel any more secure than they did a century ago. As writer John McPhee describes it in "The Control of Nature," "The more the levees confined the river, the more destructive it became when they failed."

On a smaller scale, that is also true in the Snohomish Valley.

Leading up to the Nov. 25 flood, the Marshland dike was a full three feet higher than the dike directly across it in the French Slough district. For 12 hours before the dike blew, the French Slough farmers, and their dairy herds, were taking on water. The overflow released some of the pressure, but not nearly enough. The galloping river started to swirl and dig down, boring into the channel, stalling the flow, and backing things up like a bad bit of plumbing.

The effects were felt about 10 miles upriver. Farmers near Duvall say the Snoqualmie River actually stopped flowing and then reversed itself, heading back upstream. They were incredulous.

"We saw logs in the river going upstream because the water wasn't running out below in the Snohomish River," says dairyman Jim Roetcisoender.

At Roetcisoender's large farm, it was as if the earth had started to spin in reverse. Fallen trees floated backward past his front steps and the water rose ever faster. It spilled into his basement and started climbing the stairs. It rose past pencil marks from the big floods of 1975 and 1986. It came through the door and laid waste to the living-room carpet. The water swirled through the kitchen and licked at the wallpaper; it would have stolen cookies from the Holstein-shaped cookie jar if it hadn't finally receded.

"It started dropping a foot an hour," says Roetcisoender. "We knew something had happened down below."

Just then, the phone rang. It was his brother-in-law in Snohomish. "Did you hear about the dikes?" he asked. "They just blew."

DOWNSTREAM, A HYDRAUlic rebellion was under way. Water in the Snohomish River had built up so fast, it had no place to escape. It dug down into the base of the Marshland dike and, like a rototiller, burrowed under the levee and bubbled up on the other side like a huge boil. The pressure was so enormous, it finally exploded and destroyed the dike, unleashing a torrent of flood water that swept over the valley floor.

Judy and Bob Darlington watched the eruption. From a perch on their farm directly across the Snohomish River, they ducked flying debris from the crumbling dike. Old cottonwood trees that had grown on top of the levee were now snapping like toothpicks. The river was taking giant, 20-foot bites from the bank.

"The torrent was worse than you'd ever see up at Deception Pass," says Bob Darlington.

The Darlingtons had feared this all along. The dike on their side of the river had been constructed 30 years ago according to a rough set of standards for depth and height by the Soil Conservation Service. The Marshland dike had gone up at the same time, to the same standards, but an extra three feet were added on over the years.

Like a jail guard with padded shoulders, it had stood watch over the river on the Marshland side. The additional height was more than enough to create a substantial advantage. For every extra foot of dike, spread along 10,000 feet of bank, about 30,000 cubic feet of water was being diverted every second.

Until it blew, this big dike was a matter of defiant pride and economic power for the Marshland farmers. It had served them well over the years. Crops need to be relatively dry to flourish; a flood can ruin whole fields of peas, spinach or swiss chard.

Don Bailey has seen that happen. He's seen a whole season's work wiped out by one temperamental night of the river. He's seen geese swimming where turnips once grew. He's seen the toes of his hip boots disappear for days. Flooding has made him wonder if it's worth it.

The young farmer and senator's son stands up from the kitchen table and strides across the new living-room carpet (legacy of the Nov. 25 flood). He hauls out a picture album illustrating the disaster. If anyone thinks Marshland farmers got off easy during that flood, they're pouring more than milk into their morning coffee. The Marshland fields were overwhelmed, a muddy swamp covering some of the valley's richest and most productive acres. A turf farm was completely destroyed; most seeded fields were scoured bare.

"You can't point your finger at one group (of farmers) in a big flood and say it's their fault," Bailey says. "It's not fair. It's the whole system."

He stops, knowing that this argument holds only so much water with other farmers. They know - and he knows - that the flooding was intensified by the Marshland dike blowout. Bailey assumes a more diplomatic approach and acknowledges his many friends downstream. Heck, one of them has a younger sister that he dated at Snohomish High School in the early 1970s. He doesn't want to see his friends hurt.

But he insists the Marshland dikes aren't all bad. First, he notes their role as public protector. Without the tall Marshland dikes on the upper end of the valley, he says flooding would jeopardize 90 homes, the Harvey airfield, a log mill, potato plant, Highway 9 and the Burlington Northern Railroad.

Then Bailey sounds a second, more menacing theme. If the Marshlanders are forced to take on too much flood water and farming becomes too difficult, they might park their tractors for good. Just over the hill in Woodinville, he says, industrial land is selling for a staggering $100,000 an acre. Given the right, or wrong, conditions, he could cash in on that and leave farming for good. As he points out: "The Green River Valley used to flood and it's all industrial now."

He raises his eyebrows. Don Bailey is not, by nature, a heavy. And he knows it's not sportsmanlike to threaten to quit just because your team is not getting its way. So he moves back to the first line of defense: "Without dikes in the Marshland district, how are people going to get to work in the morning during floods?

"We're the good guys!"

Tell that to Tennis Roetcisoender.

Tennis is Jim Roetcisoender's uncle, an old-timer whose farm spills out from the Snohomish River, just above Ebey Island and opposite the Marshland district. He's been feuding with Marshlanders for decades and he'll go out of his way to say so. On a recent day, the 83-year-old man climbed down from the roof he was tarring to let it be known that Marshland farmers are finks.

But first things first.

"I don't have any tar on my butt, do I?" he asks his wife, Lillian, before seating himself at the family table.

No, she says with a friendly swat at the man who has been tracking dirt into her house for 61 years.

Tennis settles in and begins: "The dikes on both sides of the river are supposed to be even, but they keep building it up over there. It's their fault we got as much water as we did."

Lillian chimes in. This is a favorite family subject. "They have some domineering men over there," she says. "They have homes up on the hill and they have too much power."

Tennis nods, his flushed cheeks as red as the flannel shirt he is wearing. "They need a good talkin' to and I hope it gets printed all over the front page."

When that gauntlet is dropped before the Marshland district chairman, Don Thomas, he will say only, "I just don't kick people when they're down." Then he hangs up. Without saying goodbye. When it comes to the subject of flood fights and dike wars, farmers can be sensitive.

MAYBE THAT EXPLAINS WHY the Silver King Summit got pretty hot that first day in December. For many, the Marshland dike blowout was the last straw. The surrounding farmers wanted concessions from Marshland and Marshland began to buckle. They were forced to admit that their oversized dike had aggravated the flooding, and they were forced to promise that they wouldn't build it back up to its old, swaggering height. The big dike had come back to bite them and they were nursing a painful wound.

So the larger farmers did something the smaller farmers never thought they'd live to see. The Marshlanders agreed to a plan in which all future dikes in the Snohomish Valley would be built to agreed-upon, lower heights, and existing ones leveled off to a uniform level. It was the first real cease-fire in an old, old war.

But the battle is far from over. For every concession made between farmers, much larger ones are now being asked of nature. The farmers had no sooner agreed to lower their dikes than they began backing a new scheme to control the river: dredging.

Up and down the Snohomish, farmers on both sides of its banks are endorsing this idea and have held several meetings to discuss it. The argument goes something like this: If they can't raise the dikes, they'll lower the river. The channel is filling up with sediment, causing more frequent flooding. Never mind that dikes are the primary cause of this; the farmers would rather scoop out the channel than remove the dikes.

"That river should be dredged," says Tennis Roetcisoender. "When the tide is out, you can walk half way out to the middle." That sentiment echoes up and down the valley, despite strong misgivings by another willful group in the region, fishermen. The one sure way to ruin fish runs is to dig out the silt and snags in a river, they say. Snohomish County engineers agree.

"Put it this way," says Anthony Nahajski, a River Management Engineer. "Dredging for navigational purposes makes sense but dredging for flood control does not. The volumes are too great. By deepening the channel and steepening the slope, you accelerate the river's velocity and encourage more silt to come in. A river will seek an equilibrium. It's trying to spread its energy throughout the system. The moment you create an energy spot through dredging, the river will respond."

Tennis and other farmers wave aside such talk. Who cares about an "energy spot" when you've got eight feet of water in your barn with more on the way? Like those farmers over in Marshland, that bureaucrat needs a talkin' to.

So the valley is organizing. As spring advances, bringing with it the potential for flash flooding, they say dredging is desperately needed to ward off another catastrophic wash-out. Senator Bailey is drumming up support in Olympia while farmers talk among themselves in the valley.

And as they do, the river listens, patient and somewhat amused. As its cousin, the Mississippi, has proved time and again, rivers can manufacture more silt than humans can remove. The humans in overalls can try their luck with dredging - and the Snohomish might even enjoy having its belly scratched for a while - but in another 10 or 50 or 100 years, the river will simply rear up and romp through the valley once more.