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2 R SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2019 | | News A15 Connor said. Some property would be marketed widely. Some will be earmarked for those living within Hamil- ton’s flood plain. They hope to incentivize Hamilton residents to sell their homes in grant-funded buyouts through FEMA, the state or conservation groups. Then, the homes would be razed, infrastructure such as septic systems would be decommissioned and historic Hamilton would be convert- ed into floodable public space. “Most of it would go back to open habitat,” Cromley said. In the flood plain, market values are lower than com- parable property elsewhere. Connor estimates flood- mitigation buyouts would cover about 60% of property prices at the new town cen- ter. She hopes to draw revenue frommarket sales and raise money through philanthropy or other government funding to sweeten the deal for Ham- ilton residents. But it might remain a hard sell. A home “like a park” When floods fill Hamilton, they leave a half-inch of silt over everything, said Gayle Metcalf, a 65-year-old long- time resident. It can take weeks to shovel out. “It must be rich,” she said. “Things growwell.” Metcalf’s home sits on cinder blocks, with its floor raised head-high. French doors open onto a wrap- around wooden deck that overlooks a manicured gar- den with rhododendrons, daffodils and laceleaf ma- ples. Metcalf has put “every spare second for the last 25 years” into the garden of her 1915 home, her first. “The only place I could afford was in the flood zone,” said the retired teacher. “I fell in love with it when I first saw it.” She loved its rooms that were “little odd shapes,” that it had space for her horse and that it felt “like a park.” Like others in Hamilton, Metcalf has flood stories. She would race home from school to unhook propane tanks, pluck lights fromher yard andmove everything high up in her garage. Then, she’d head to a friend’s house. Permanent marker in the garage records the floodwa- ters’ height in 2003. Water crested a foot below the back door of her raised home, she said. She thinks that’s as high as the water will get. When she < Continued from previous page finished paying her mort- gage, she stopped carrying the flood insurance she’d never used. Metcalf can’t envision vacating her garden, or house, for flooding. For her, she said, it requires a few days’ hassle every six to eight years. So long as the arthritis in her knees allows her to climb the stairs to get inside, she’ll stay. “Once we’ve interfered with the river, we’ve inter- fered. To try to put it back is foolish,” she said. Even those touched direct- ly by flooding are skeptical. In November 2017, Chris Harris’ family was preparing a Thanksgiving feast when water poured over a levee. “She was cooking turkey, and then we had water in the yard,” he said of his mother. In 45minutes, water began to seep into his parents’ rent- al home. “They got 2½ inches in- side,” he said. Afterward, “the landlord tried to move them in on top of it.” His parents lost everything and moved toMount Vernon nearby. “I’ve got something that’s paid for. It’s only a double- wide trailer, but it’s mine,” he said. “I don’t have to listen to anybody. No neighbors too close.” Harris, 30, was able to start a business, a fencing company, because he wasn’t paying rent or a mortgage. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said, of the townmov- ing, or his neighbors. And if they do? “Bye. More room for me.” Johnson, with her horses, dogs and cats, said a town site of 20 acres, for some 80 households, won’t accommo- date her lifestyle. But she’s supportive of the mayor’s plan with Forterra. “It will keep the town alive.” A new life for salmon “Everything conspires against the salmon,” said Schuyler, of the Upper Skagit Tribe, standing at the bank of the river he’s been fishing since he was a teen. Across the Skagit, a two-lane road curves alongside its shore- line, undercutting steep foothills patchy from log- ging. Logging sedimentation, warming waters and pollu- tion are among “cumulative effects” worrisome to Schuy- ler. Only some can be undone. Over more than a century, humans dammed, diked, riprapped, dredged and cleared logs from the Skagit in attempts to control the river and keep an open chan- nel. “We simplified and nar- rowed the main channel,” said Richard Brocksmith, of the Skagit Watershed Coun- cil, an organization coordi- nating salmon habitat resto- ration and protection. Simple rivers aren’t good for salmon, which need logs, debris and side channel “safe zones,” said Correigh Greene, a research biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra- tion’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. Young chi- nook salmon use off-channel habitat to find insects and bulk up before heading to sea. Intense, constrained floods can wash away or smother chinook eggs in gravel and debris. The Skagit River produces about 50% of Puget Sound’s wild chinook salmon, Greene said, whichmakes it crucial for the orcas. Scientists and conserva- tionists say a lack of habitat is constraining salmon popu- lations. Hamilton, which has disconnected sloughs, plugged culverts and acres of prime side-channel real estate running through town, is a top candidate for restoration, Brocksmith said. Moving the town will take years, decades even. To Cromley, who studied biolo- gy in college and always dreamed of working with orcas, it’s the beginning of a bold journey to help the creatures she loves and pre- serve the town she leads. “We’re finally taking a gutsy step,” Cromley said. “We’ve been stuck for so long.” No one in Hamilton will be forced to move so long as their home remains safe, Cromley said. In the coming months, the town council will likely con- sider annexing and zoning Forterra’s land. If approved, Forterra will draw up devel- opment plans, in consulta- tion with Hamilton resi- dents. “They’ll guide the development,” Connor said. Meanwhile, scientists warn of more frequent and intense flooding. As the climate warms, they expect mountain precipita- tion here to fall more often as rain than as snow. Some years, that could intensify streamflow in fall and early winter, when Hamilton typically floods. Models predict “major increases in flood risk,” said Alan Hamlet, an assistant professor in civil and envi- ronmental engineering and earth science at the Universi- ty of Notre Dame, who has studied the Skagit for more than a decade. Even if society makes modest improvements in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, 100-year floods are projected to increase by 49% by the 2080s, according to a study published in the journal BioOne. The re- search found flood control, with existing dams, would be “largely ineffective” in mitigating this increased risk. Experts say it’s encourag- ing that Hamilton is plan- ning now. “When it’s blue sky, it’s awful hard to talk to home- owners,” said TimCook, the hazardmitigation officer for Washington state. A new town site would give Hamilton options. “No one wants a flood. But in Hamilton, it seems like it’s inevitable,” Cook said. “I hate to say it, but there’s a lot of opportunity that comes with events like that.” Evan Bush: 206-464-2253 or ebush@seattletimes.com ; on Twitter: @EvanBush E L L E N M . B A NN E R / T H E S E A T T L E T I ME S Rebecca Bouchey, left, conservation director and project manager at Forterra, and Hamilton Mayor Joan Cromley stand on the property where Forterra and others hope the town of Hamilton can be relocated. E L L E N M . B A NN E R / T H E S E A T T L E T I ME S Gayle Metcalf, a longtime resident of Hamilton, walks through her yard. Her 1915 house is raised on cinder blocks to avoid floodwaters. She can't imagine moving. MOVING HAMILTON E L L E N M . B A NN E R / T H E S E A T T L E T I ME S At the Hamilton Cafe and Store, from left, Mayor Joan Cromley, Forterra con- servation director and project manager Rebecca Bouchey and Forterra CEO Mi- chelle Connor discuss the flood plain where the city of Hamilton lies.