By GWYNETH GIBBY
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 12:00 am
When a farmer has to move his automatic irrigation equipment to high ground to keep it from drowning, he knows something is wrong. That's what Mike Volker of Monroe was doing Tuesday afternoon. He set the field-spanning apparatus to move itself up out of a culvert where it was on the verge of being swamped by three days of rain.
"This area can handle an inch every 24 hours without flooding," Volker said. "Anything over that …"
He gestured toward his water-logged fields.
Volker said the water standing in many of the fields flanking Old River Road, Greenberry Road and Smith Loop was not run-off.
"That water came up from underground," he said, adding that it's probably the same level as the Long Tom River about half a mile away.
Water stood over Eureka Road about a quarter of a mile east of Highway 99W. Bellfountain Road was closed Tuesday south of Alpine for a half mile, according to Benton County Public Works. And Dykstra Road was closed 400 feet from Bellfountain.
Southwest 53rd Street at Southwest Reservoir Avenue was closed for two hours Tuesday, but by late in the afternoon it had reopened.
"We have been clearing culverts, cleaning leaves out," said Jim Stouder, the county's road maintenance manager.
Fortunately, there were no large mudslides to deal with.
The National Weather Service issued a flood advisory Tuesday for the Willamette River at Corvallis, Albany and Harrisburg. The advisory will be in effect until further notice.
The NWS projects the Willamette River in Corvallis will crest today at over 16 feet. The Willamette rose fast - almost five feet in 24 hours from Christmas day until Tuesday afternoon. Bankfull level is 16 feet, which means the level that just fills the channel, not the top of the bank. Flood level is 20 feet.
Meanwhile, rain will continue to fall through this afternoon, according to the NWS. Then it should taper off, to be replaced by fog.
Volker wasn't worried about the water taking a few days to drain from his fields. In 1996, when he was still growing vegetables, he lost a couple of hundred acres of green peas when a foot of rain fell. But now he plants mostly perennial grasses.
"It can take from a few days up to a week under water," he said.
Volker is a third generation farmer on that land and he knows both land and weather well.
"It's gonna do what it's gonna do," he said.