Washington: Finally someone suggests that unsustainable logging caused flooding

In western Washington state, heavy late-December snowstorms gave way
to January rain and flooding that caused three major rivers to
overflow their banks. It is no secret that the Pacific Northwest is a
rainy region. But locals have typically referred to these severe
floods as “Hundred Year Floods,” meaning they only occur every hundred
years. Yet for the past three years, Washington residents have
experienced a severe flood each winter. Has the “Hundred Year Flood”
become an annual event? And if so, why? Research suggests three
factors that have contributed to these more frequent, more severe
floods in Washington: Development, logging and climate change. Logging
and development play an important role in turning heavy rainfall into
a flood.

Denser forests slow down the rain; areas that had been
clear-cut in Lewis County became landslides during the 2007 floods.
Development paves over marshes and soil that can soak up the water.
And climate change—itself fueled by untrammeled capitalist
development—has lead to heavier winter storms in the western part of
the state. Much of the development has been in floodplains—the areas
where rivers flooded out of their banks.

If you place homes,
businesses, parking lots and roads in a floodplain, the water will not
be able to soak down into the ground. A recent study by the U.S.
Geological Survey shows that the rate of land conversion in the Puget
Sound region is the fastest in the United States. Between 1973 and
2000, clear-cutting decreased forest cover by 10 percent while
development—paving over land—increased 7 percent. Last year,
University of Washington geologist David Montgomery testified before
the state legislature: “It appears to me that the flooding and
landslide problems … stem from the combination of an unusually large
storm and decades of risky behavior both in upland forestry practices
and downstream floodplain development. The combination put people at
risk and will do so again under the present system.”
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