Oregon Public Broadcasting

The number of Western Washington and Oregon households and businesses that have applied for federal disaster assistance has crossed the 11,000 mark.

The area hit by last month’s floods and mudslides includes an unusual concentration of small family farms and dairies.  Correspondent Tom Banse reports some are bouncing back quickly.  On other farms, it looks like the disaster might have happened just yesterday.

One month after the punishing storms, volunteers are still welcome and needed in Washington’s Lewis County.

CURTIS, Wash. – The December storms swept away stored vegetables and deposited a thick layer of silt on Boistfort Valley Farm.

In the Boistfort Valley, a thick layer of mud still coats fields.  Some pastures look more like log yards, so littered with flood debris.

Volunteer director Hannah Johnson assigns an Everett, Washington family to wash and sanitize vegetable bins salvaged from the flood.

Hannah Johnson: “We’re still in the middle of this flood.  It’s a month later for people who just saw it on the news.  But the farmers are going to be dealing with it -- along with all the other victims of this flood -- for months and months and months to come.”

Johnson is helping Boistfort Valley Farm get back on its feet.  The 35-acre organic farm supplies produce to customers from Chehalis to Seattle.

Hannah Johnson: “They’re a primary source of my food. I have a vested interest in taking care of them as my local-est organic farm.”

Up the road, the farm owner struggles through a tall stack of bills in a makeshift office.

Mike Peroni: “...mm, that’s FEMA...”

Mike Peroni appears weary.  He moved his family to a temporary rental while their farmhouse is gutted and repaired.  Peroni had flood insurance on his house, but he’s learned the farm operation was underinsured.  He plans to carry on despite heavy losses.
 
Mike Peroni: “I feel like we’re starting over completely with the exception of the continued loyal support of our customers.”

Tom Banse: "And that’s after how many years?"

Mike Peroni: “I’ve been selling at the local farmers markets and through CSA’s for 20 years.”

A whiteboard on the wall tracks the alphabet soup of agencies the farmer has approached for help.

Just this week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture opened signup for an emergency relief program.  It’ll pay to remove debris from fields, reseed pasture, plow under mud, and repair fences.

Lyle Heimbiger: “We’re one of the most popular places in town right now.”

Lyle Heimbiger is the Farm Service director for Lewis, Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties.  He was set to retire in mid-December.  But he’s stayed on to get the aid moving.
 
Lyle Heimbiger: “I’ve been here 24 years.  These aren’t just names and numbers.  They’re faces. You know too dang many of them.”

Jennifer Belknap and her husband grow vegetables on the aptly named Rising River Farm near Rochester, Washington. 

Jennifer Belknap: “I’ll show you some high water marks...”

She says the outpouring of help after the flood has restored her faith in humanity.

Jennifer Belknap: “On the surface, you look at this situation and it’s pretty horrifying. You would think I would just be a wreck and really depressed.  But because so many people helped us, the light is at the end of the tunnel.”

Belknap and a bunch of her neighbors are organic farmers.  That adds an extra wrinkle to the flood recovery.  Upstream, motor oil, diesel, raw sewage, and who knows what else spilled into the Chehalis River.

Jennifer Belknap: “The first day we were out canoeing around you definitely could smell the diesel or the gas in the water.  But by the second and third day you couldn’t smell that anymore and I couldn’t see sheens of questionable things. And I never did smell sewage.”

Belknap says an organic inspector has already come to check for contamination.  He gave the all clear.  State agriculture inspectors are confident that none of the organic farms affected by flooding will lose their certifications.  The inch or two of silt left behind along this stretch might actually do good.

Jennifer Belknap: “The flooding and the silt deposits are nature’s way of keeping these grounds fertile."

Online:

USDA Farm Service Agency

Boistfort Valley Farm

Rising River Farm