Richland museum curator Connie Estep was driving with other curators from Bozeman to Seattle. As they drove through Spokane, one of the passengers said, “Close your eyes and don’t bother opening them again until the summit of the Cascades. There’s nothing to see.”

Estep, who is involved in efforts to educate the Northwest about the region’s ice age floods, explained that, on the contrary, the drive from Spokane to Seattle is filled with evidence of one of the planet’s greatest geological stories. You can see lap marks on the hillsides where ancient floodwaters – released in torrents from an ice dam in present-day Montana – roared through the land.

Unfortunately, many people don’t know the ice age floods story or how to spot evidence of its plotline. The Ice Age Floods Institute, National Park Service, National Parks Conservation Association and many other flood aficionados have been telling the story for years through history classes, field trips, public talks and interpretive signs. But it hasn’t been enough to get the story out in a mainstream way.

So they’ve also been working to create the Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail, which would be “a network of marked touring routes extending across parts of Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon, with several special interpretive centers located across the region,” according to the floods institute’s Web site.

Finally, their goal might be one step closer to reality. Bills in the U.S. House and Senate would provide between $8 million and $12 million in Department of Interior funds to create the 600-mile trail. The bills have bipartisan support and would make it easy for various federal agencies to cooperate in the effort.

The trail will never be completed without financial support and partnership from state and local governments and private sector groups, but the federal go-ahead is an essential step.

“So much of what we do in Eastern Washington is shaped by what those floods did long ago,” explained Gary Kleinknecht, president of the Ice Age Floods Institute. “It’s a connection with the planet we live on.”

Some remnants of the floods are easy to see. Dry Falls, 90 miles west of Spokane, is wider and deeper than Niagara Falls. No water pours over it today, but its deep canyon was sculpted by the raging floods. A visitor’s center and interpretive signs tell that story.

But other parts of the flood story remain invisible. Huge boulders – called erratics – hitched rides on the floods. You can spot a few erratics as you drive the region’s rural highways, but unless you know what you are looking for, the erratics appear to be plain rocks in the middle of nowhere.

Creating the Ice Age Floods Trail might seem like busywork for a Congress grappling with Iraq. But the floods are a reminder that there was a dynamic planet here before humans arrived.

We have an obligation to understand the planet’s history and help preserve it for the future.