Water system officials say they need residents to help pay $1.8M loan

CAPE HORN — In two decades on this bend in the river below Concrete, Wally Shaver never saw the water get as high as it did in 2003.

Shaver’s rustic trailer home sits on a deck a few feet above the ground. The water came within a foot of his floor during that record flood.

Shaver recalled standing on his deck with a heavy fishing rod, snagging and collecting lumber that floated over his driveway.

People ask Shaver why he would want to live on Cape Horn, a place that’s so flood prone that the federal government would rather buy the lots than keep paying flood insurance claims.

“I just love it up here,” Shaver said. “I wouldn’t be anyplace else.”

That’s part of the reason Shaver and some other Cape Horn residents don’t appreciate Skagit County’s effort to use Federal Emergency Management Agency dollars to buy properties on Cape Horn that have endured repeated flood damage.

Those same people also don’t approve of the Hamilton Public Development Authority. The PDA is trying to use the federal buyouts to induce people to move to a planned-for new Hamilton that would be relocated to higher ground across Highway 20 to the north.

Cape Horn residents say they aren’t interested in moving to Hamilton, and they aren’t as worried about the flooding as their governments are. The flood doesn’t come every 3 1/2 years, as the state claims, and it doesn’t do them any real harm, they say.

“We don’t have any complaints,” Cape Horn resident Richard Moore said. “We’re taking care of ourselves up here.”

Moore called the Hamilton PDA’s plan a “forced relocation.”

The buyout program doesn’t force anyone to sell. However, the PDA does approach owners of some of the most flood-prone lots to find out if they would be willing to sell. FEMA has prioritized 21 lots on Cape Horn that have received multiple insurance payments over the last 10 years.

Even as FEMA seeks to pluck willing property owners from Cape Horn a few at a time, those owners are wrapped up in a 30-year investment they’ve made in their community’s water supply.

The Cape Horn Maintenance Corp. secured a $1.8 million, 30-year loan from the state Public Works Board for upgrades to the water system. The money mostly went to buy larger water mains, more fire hydrants and new hookups for every lot.

Before the loan, the corporation’s board approved regular increases to an annual assessment charged to lot owners and added other amenities, following a state Board of Health order to make improvements. The corporation put in a second water tower, a second well and a powerful new generator for the pumps that kicks on automatically when the power goes out.

Now the annual maintenance assessment is needed to repay the loan. Shaver, who is past president of the corporation’s board, said the FEMA buyout program is jeopardizing fee collections.

Since the county acquired 28 lots from a FEMA buyout after the 1995 flood, the county has not been paying its assessments and now owes the corporation more than $70,000, Shaver said.

On Monday, the county commissioners signed a grant application seeking $1.1 million from FEMA to purchase six more Cape Horn lots.

It’s not clear whether future assessments on those six lots will be paid, either.

“If they keep taking these lots away from us, we’re not going to have enough money to maintain our water system,” Shaver said.

Lauren Freitas, who consulted with the county on the grant application, said the grant makes room for those payments. If approved, the grant should bring in enough money to allow the county to pay 30 years in fees for each of the lots up front, she said.

That’s not certain to happen, Freitas added. That payment would need to be part of the sales negotiations after the grant is awarded.

As for the assessments on the 28 lots the county acquired after 1995, the county’s legal staff will need to review the original terms of those sales to find out whether the county is obligated to pay, county Surface Water Manager Ric Boge said.

Members of the maintenance corporation say their by-laws make it clear: Anyone who owns property on Cape Horn must pay the assessment.

For now, governments appear to be at cross purposes, supporting improvements to Cape Horn’s water system while trying to dismantle at least part of the community through the buyout program.

Freitas said the FEMA application process is much too cumbersome to take people out of Cape Horn or its corporation’s assessment rolls that quickly. It would be optimistic, she said, to anticipate that the county will purchase all 21 of the highest-priority lots in the next decade.

Freitas said she recognized the need for a better water system in Cape Horn, even if the river is slowly carving its way into and through that community.

“It kills me to see money invested in flood-prone areas, but that’s for the short term. People live there in the short term,” Freitas said.

• Ralph Schwartz can be reached at 360-416-2138 or .