Reckoning with Northwest Flooding: We need to think about this Differently
Sydnee Chapman
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Ed: Reprinted with permission from Salish Current
As the past few weeks — and years — have shown, floods in Northwest Washington are only getting worse in terms of frequency and size.
Communities across the state are facing long-term relief and recovery efforts after what Gov. Bob Ferguson called “undoubtedly one of the most devastating in our state’s history.”
Environmental experts are warning that flood events are only going to worsen in coming years. Living with them, they say, will require policy change and a mindset shift that focuses more on working with nature than controlling it.
Kaia Hayes, land and water policy manager at the Bellingham-based environmental nonprofit RE Sources, said the causes behind worsening floods are twofold. “We’re contending with a bit of a two-headed hydra right now. One of them is the legacy effect of the last century of land-use decisions. The other is the compounding effect of climate change,” she wrote in an email. “We’ve made modest gains in correcting for these mistakes as we understand the ramifications better, but they aren’t enough to close the widening gap.”
https://www.postalley.org/2025/12/21/reckoning-with-northwest-flooding-we-need-to-think-about-this-differently/
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