County Searches For Money To Fix Path

Five months after high water washed it away, a stretch of the Centennial Trail still isn’t fixed because Spokane County doesn’t have money for the work.

“We’ve got our antenna out and we’re searching for funding,” said county parks manager Wyn Birkenthal.

An engineer who studied the problem for the county estimates that shoring up the path and laying new asphalt will cost $336,000.

Floods in mid-May washed out about 550 feet of the trail between Flora and Barker roads in the Spokane Valley.

Birkenthal said it’s possible the damage might not be repaired by next summer.

“I’m hopeful our efforts will bear more fruit than that,” he said.

The damage did not close the trail but forces most bicyclists to dismount and all skaters to step gingerly.

The county parks advisory committee will hold a public hearing tonight to discuss trail repairs and possible ways to fund them. That hearing is required because the county is asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help pay for the work.

If recent history is any indication, FEMA’s contribution won’t come anywhere near covering the entire cost of repairs. The agency contributed $14,000 of the $74,000 needed to repair the same stretch of trail after 1996 floods.

This time, the county plans to raise the trail above flood levels, and protect the shoreline with concrete walls and wire baskets filled with rocks.

Ecologists and some engineers advise against such fixes because they destroy shoreline habitat and can cause worse flooding downstream. The Centennial Trail was built in part to help people better appreciate nature.

The damaged trail originally was protected by wooden retaining walls.

The walls were lost in the 1996 floods and replaced with “earth pillows,” biodegradable fabric filled with soil and small rocks. Native shrubs were planted on the pillows but didn’t have time to root before this year’s floods.

Engineer Dave Larsen wrote in his June report to commissioners that such environmentally sensitive techniques work well where currents are gentle. But they’d never withstand the bruising of the Spokane River flowing at full fury, he wrote.

Birkenthal said it will probably be spring before FEMA decides whether to give the county money.

The county has asked the nonprofit Friends of the Centennial Trail to seek donations. And the county asked for money from the state Parks and Recreation Commission.

“Nothing has materialized,” Birkenthal said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo Map of area

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Next meeting The county parks advisory committee will discuss trail repairs during a hearing tonight at 6:30 at the parks administrative building, 404 N. Havana.