Floods could destroy Renig Road section

Published 2:28 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

SNOQUALMIE — According to King County, a portion of Renig

Road is so eroded it could almost wash away this winter and force residents to

use alternate routes.

“We’re hoping to have it done pretty quickly before we get to the

full-on flood season,” explained Jon Cassidy, supervising engineer for

road maintenance in the county’s department of transportation.

The road’s problem section lies in its 40000 block — an

embankment approximatley 40 feet long that sits next to the Snoqualmie River’s

south fork, near the merging of its north and middle forks.

The road, which is traveled on by approximately 500 vehicles per

day, is typically overrun with floodwater a few times each winter. The

notorious Snoqualmie River already overflowed a few weeks ago, knocking out

about 10 feet of pavement and an alder tree that had held soil in place.

So far, county workers put up barriers to protect the road and

officials have applied for emergency construction permits to fix the situation.

More than 200 feet of the bank will be stabilized, even though the

damaged portion is smaller. Trees, bushes and fabric material will be used in

the repair.

Cassidy expects the permits to be approved and to start construction

as early as this week.

Bank reinforcement should take one month to complete, but if

the weather turns nasty, it could take twice that long.

After looking at aerial photos of the river taken in 1998, Cassidy

discovered that since that time, the river has pushed its way 50 to 100 feet

to the north.

“You don’t usually see that kind of movement so fast,” he said.

“Water has a way of cutting its path wherever it wants to go.”

“We’ve been monitoring it for the last six to eight months,” he added.

For now, Renig Road travelers need not worry, Cassidy said. The

road is safe, and barriers have been installed to keep traffic within each lane.

Because of the situation’s urgency, the county has also applied for

the right-of-way to construct a temporary road through property which

borders the Renig Road and is owned by Valley resident Art Skolnik.

The problem with a temporary road is that Skolnik has plans to

fence the land and build a breeding paddock to hold eight pregnant mares that

will soon be transferred to that area. The land is part of Skolnik’s

Rosebud River Ranch, where he runs his business of raising Rocky

Mountain horses, a breed used for trail riding.

“I’ve already ordered the materials to construct the fence and

breeding paddock,” Skolnik said, explaining that the horses will start to

give birth in February, and they will have nowhere to go if that section of

land is not available.

“(The county looks) at it as an open field, opens space and easy

to run a road through. But if there was a house on the land, they wouldn’t

even suggest it,” he said.

Although Skolnik owns almost 80 acres, he can only use 35 of them

because of environmental restrictions. He explained that he’s trying to

run his business on the existing land and can’t afford to give any of it up to

the county.

But Cassidy said the temporary road would only be constructed if

severe flooding occurred during the upcoming reinforcement

construction. He explained that the temporary road is only a precautionary measure

and will most likely not be used because the county has 10 feet of

right-of-way on the other side of the Reinig Road in which to guide traffic through.

Still, Skolnik worries that the county could go through his land

even without his permission and said he wonders why nothing was done up

to now about the damaged road.

“They’ve known this all along, this erosion has been coming,” he said.