Citizens Panel Looks At Methods To Control Chester Creek Floods

Sat., Aug. 31, 1996

By Brian Coddington brianc@spokesman.com

Lifetime Chester resident Sally Gerimonte remembers the spring of 1950, when what is now Painted Hills Golf Course was completely under water.

Gerimonte, 61, also recalls spring runoff flooding the road leading to the original Chester Elementary.

“We used to have to walk through water to get to school,” she said.

So when Spokane County engineers came looking for Valley residents to sit on the Chester Creek Watershed Committee, Gerimonte volunteered. She figured it was the best way to help solve the area’s flooding problems.

“It happened before, it’s happening now, and it’s going to happen again,” said Gerimonte, one of the watershed committee’s 19 members.

The committee began meeting in July. Its goal is to help county engineers develop a plan to control flooding in the Chester Creek area. The group has studied Chester Creek watershed characteristics, water flow, and how the earth absorbs water and stores water.

The group hopes to make a recommendation to the county’s Water Quality Advisory Committee by the end of the year. Actions they could recommend the county take range from policy changes to construction of ponds to contain the run-off.

Chester Creek extends from the community of Mica north to Dishman-Mica Road, heads west near Painted Hills Golf Course and ends up near Redeemer Lutheran Church, where it flows into the ground. The watershed - a geographic area in which all surface water flows flows into Chester Creek - roughly follows the creek.

“You need to move the water out of the area that floods, but you’ve got to do something with that water,” said Susan Matteson, who chairs the Chester Creek committee and also sits on the Water Quality Advisory Committee.

Last spring, water pooled on Thorpe Road and in Forest Meadow, west of Bowdish and south of the railroad tracks.

Flooding on Thorpe Road was one of the reasons Curtis and Shirley Archer decided to join the panel.

“We’ve been here 18 years and it’s always flooded,” Shirley Archer said.

Tony and Darlene Mazzeo, who moved from Syracuse, N.Y. to the Valley 3-1/2 years ago, got involved by accident. They brought their children to an informational seminar in April thinking it was going to be a fun family outing, and discovered the watershed was something they were concerned about.

“I feel like if you’re going to complain about something, you should be part of the resolution and not part of the problem,” Darlene Mazzeo said.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MEETING DATES Chester Creek Watershed Committee meetings, which are open to the public, are held every other Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Redeemer Lutheran Church, 3606 S. Schafer, and will continue through the fall. The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday.

This sidebar appeared with the story: MEETING DATES Chester Creek Watershed Committee meetings, which are open to the public, are held every other Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Redeemer Lutheran Church, 3606 S. Schafer, and will continue through the fall. The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday.