Washington State flooding puts cross-border planning under spotlight

In the weeks after water poured into Abbotsford, British Columbia, from the Nooksack River in Washington state in 2021, then mayor Henry Braun learned something that shocked him. After decades of talk about the need for a two-country solution to cross-border flooding that has repeatedly devastated people in B.C.’s Fraser Valley, his American counterparts had a plan.

It wasn’t a plan to erect new dykes at Everson, the Washington town at a spot where the Nooksack regularly leaps over its banks and flows downhill toward British Columbia. It also wasn’t a plan to erect new obstacles to slow the flow of those waters, dissipating them or giving those in B.C. more time to respond.

It was, instead, a plan to more clearly define a floodway toward Sumas, funnelling the overflow north toward the border, and then across.

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“Their solution is to leave the Nooksack alone at Everson,” said Mr. Braun, who was the mayor of Abbotsford four years ago, the last time floods devastated the area, causing billions of dollars in damages.

“Because their floodplain map stops right at the 49^th parallel. But the water doesn’t stop there. It’s going to keep going.”

On Friday, as floodwaters again drove British Columbians from homes and farms, Abbotsford’s current mayor renewed calls for help from the United States.

Farmers in B.C. flood zone frustrated that politicians failed to learn from last disaster

The city needs “to have our friends in Washington state wake up,” Mayor Ross Siemens said. He likened those flooded by the Nooksack to those in the U.S. who, in decades past, were flooded by Columbia River waters that flowed down from B.C.

But the Columbia has for decades been jointly managed by both countries under an international treaty.

The Nooksack, too, “needs to be part of that international treaty with the U.S.,” Mr. Siemens said. “We cannot continue to take this water.”

There is a financial logic to addressing the problem south of the border. A previous Canadian engineering study showed that a $29-million Nooksack levee in Washington state could prevent more than $500-million in Abbotsford area flood damage.

But Mr. Braun long ago concluded that there is little likelihood of that happening. A levee to protect B.C. from Nooksack floodwaters would instead divert them toward more populated downstream communities in Washington, including Lynden and Bellingham – a political non-starter in the state.

That means, Mr. Braun said, there is little Canada can do to contain the Nooksack, which, long ago, flowed into the Fraser River. When it floods, some of its waters naturally return to that historical path.

“This is all about physics. The water is coming. There’s nothing we can do to stop it. Nothing,” Mr. Braun said.

He concluded the only workable option is for Canada to act on its own, investing more than $1-billion in a new pump station in B.C. to safely transport Nooksack waters into the Fraser River.

But he accused Canadian federal and provincial leaders of turning their backs on farmers whose life savings are once again threatened by flooding.

“I’m disgusted with them,” Mr. Braun said in an interview Friday.

Had new pumps been built after the 2021 floods, he said, B.C. should have been able to rest easy this week.

The current flooding, he said, was avoidable.

Mr. Braun came to his conclusion after watching decades of unfulfilled promises by governments on both sides of the border to come up with solutions.

In the wake of devastating floods in 1990, both country’s governments created a Nooksack River International Task Force. When it proved unable to achieve any improvements of consequence, state, local and Indigenous governments – nine in total – signed into place a new Nooksack and Sumas Transboundary Flood Initiative Collaborative Framework in 2023, with fresh promises to find solutions.

But a status report published by the initiative last year described what it called an “incredibly complex” situation, with a floodplain bisected by an international border and passing through an area where those who have an interest include four governments – two federal, one state and one provincial – as well as three Canadian First Nations, two U.S. tribal nations and a series of municipal governments and private property owners.

Adding to the complication are the presence of salmon in the Nooksack. An imperative to preserve fish habitat has prevented work to dig out sediments that have accumulated in the riverbed, reducing the volume it can carry within its banks by at least 30 per cent.

Inaction has stirred deep frustration south of the border, too.

“The solution is probably to dredge the river,” said Ryan LeCompte, whose house was among those flooded this week in the Washington border town of Sumas. But “they won’t do that.”

“We can’t seem to fix the problem,” said Kyle Pike, who also fled his home in Sumas this week. “We talk about it, bring it up. And nothing happens.”

This week’s flood brought 20 centimetres of water into Everson’s city hall, where a US$1.4-million renovation had only been completed in October.

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“The question to ask is, what has come out of that collaboration over the last 30-plus years? What has reduced flood risk for anybody in Whatcom County or Abbotsford?” asked John Perry, Everson’s mayor. For the flood-stricken towns of northern Washington state, the answer is “zero. Absolutely zero,” he said.

Mr. Perry has never wanted to go it alone on flood control. He has family in Canada, and relationships with other nearby communities.

But the latest flood has brought sharp new questions. “Are we trying to accomplish something that works for both B.C. and Whatcom County? Or is every community in it for themselves?” he asked.

Everson is located in Whatcom County, which has recently begun a feasibility study of ring dykes to encircle Everson and nearby Nooksack. Such dykes would protect local homes, but leave floodwaters to flow to B.C.

The county has also worked to remove structures in the floodpath. “We bought out 22 homes since the ’21 flood. They’re all demoed,” said Paula Harris, the county’s river and flood manager.

But attempts to find solutions to the flooding, she said, are complicated by the difficulty of securing the most basic facts about Nooksack flows. “We can’t even trust our gauges. When a riverbed erodes like this – and has this much sediment – it changes so quickly that all the tools we use break down.”

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Still, officials said some progress in international co-operation has been made since 2021.

Satpal Sidhu, the top administrator of Whatcom County, has spoken this week with Mr. Siemens in Abbotsford, sharing with those north of the border the data it received from U.S. federal agencies monitoring river volumes.

“Whatever information they are sharing with us, we are sharing with the TFI members,” Mr. Sidhu said, referring to the transboundary flood initiative. “Communication doesn’t cost anything, but it helps so much,” he said.

He acknowledged that the transboundary initiative has yet to come up with any tangible plans to alleviate flooding.

In B.C., meanwhile, the province said cross-border co-operation had also yielded improvements in computer modelling and flood warning. But Kelly Greene, the provincial minister of emergency management and climate readiness, could point to no other progress from the cross-border co-operation.

“Our relationship with Washington State, and all signatories of the Transboundary Flood Initiative, remains strong and respectful,” she said in a statement. And, she added, “we are committed to highlighting the sense of urgency around advancing this critical work with our partners.”