Newman Lake Residents Looking For Flood Relief

More than 100 Newman Lake residents waded through several inches of water running over Starr Road on Wednesday night to discuss flooding problems in their neighborhood.

Weary, and at times angry, residents gathered in a packed grange hall and peppered County Engineer Bill Johns and County Commissioner John Roskelley with pleas for help and questions about how much more flooding the community can expect before the water finally dries up.

Many of the people who made passionate pleas to county officials wore knee-high rubber boots on their feet and the strain of battling floodwaters on their faces. Late arrivals were forced to listen to comments made during the hour-long meeting from the doorway of the Tri-Community Grange.

“It’s almost a county emergency in this area,” resident Randy Gillmore said.

Water overwhelmed the area’s flood control system two weeks ago, and has been pooling near Moab Junction ever since. Hard work by Newman Lake residents has so far prevented serious damage to a half-dozen homes, a handful of businesses and a mobile home park in its path.

But fields where the water has been channeled are filling up, and the runoff is beginning to threaten several mobile homes in the Sunnyvista Trailer Court. One woman said she is concerned her home’s foundation may start to sink because water is softening the ground under the concrete blocks that support her trailer.

“It’s over knee-deep in my yard,” another man said.

Gillmore was one of a handful of residents who asked county engineers to supply the drowning community with pumps or other machinery to divert water and build banks.

That’s not likely because engineers would have to secure a flowage easement to divert water, Johns said. Even then, he said, diverting water isn’t a very good option because the runoff would flow onto private property, meaning the landowner would assume liability.

Instead, Johns urged residents to be patient and continue sandbagging. There’s still a foot of freeboard left between the surface of the lake and the top of the dikes, he told them.

“As bad as this looks, we’ve still got control,” Johns said. “If we lose control of that dike it’s really going to come down.”

The bad news is that seven feet of snow is still packed in the hills above Newman Lake. If all the snow melted at once it would overflow the 1,200-acre lake by 10 feet, Johns said.

“It’s not going to come down that way - I don’t think,” Johns said as the room erupted in nervous laughter.

Residents also worried their water supplies will be contaminated by the runoff. Moab Irrigation manager Kathy Small said the water district has found no evidence of contamination in the public water supply.

Private-well owners should periodically take water samples to a laboratory to have them tested, and “if you have water past the casting on your well, consider it contaminated and boil it,” Small said.

County officials drew criticism for not better managing the level of the lake. But Johns said engineers drained the lake two feet below summer levels and were faultless.

“We had it down to where it needed to be,” Johns said.

Paul Balfour, a Department of Natural Resources forest practitioner, said the state agency has developed the Thompson Creek Watershed Analysis to help prevent future flooding problems. The study is available for review at local libraries, but Balfour admitted it is of no immediate use to a community where yards and roads are already deluged with water.

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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TRENT FLOODING Newman Lake floodwaters are likely to spread over Trent Avenue near Moab Junction through the weekend, Spokane County Engineer Bill Johns said Friday. County engineers are recommending that motorists find an alternate route.