Local KOA Campground will soon be DOA

A popular fixture along the Yakima River for 40 years could be gone later this year, a casualty of the drive to save salmon and reduce flood threats.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation has made an offer to buy the 23-acre KOA Campground, located east of Kmart and between the State Route 24 bridge and Sportsman State Park.

Removing the campground, coupled with the new, longer river bridge and the future movement of levees away from the river bank are seen as ways to promote a healthy Yakima River and the flood plain connected to it.

Merlin Horn knows all about the plans that involve a host of public agencies.

Owner of the campground for seven years, Horn and his wife, Dorothy, would like to retire and say it appears inevitable that the property will become a public asset.

"When there are enough agencies and people that want something to happen, it usually does," the 73-year-old Horn said. "We don't feel like fighting it. If I was 50, I might think about it."

The negotiations that led to a formal offer submitted to the Horns on Thursday were open and without threat, he said.

It comes down to a willing seller and a willing buyer -- the foundation of the 1994 federal law that authorized the bureau to purchase land and water rights in order to restore salmon and improve fish habitat along the Yakima and Naches rivers.

Horn said he received the offer with mixed emotions.

"We made a lot of good friends," he added.

Doug Marshall is philosophical about his impending move from the campground he has called home for seven years. The campground has room for a number of long-term residents as well as RVers and campers who fill the KOA nearly every weekend during the summer.

"It's been a pleasure living here," said the 39-year-old Marshall, one of about a dozen permanent KOA residents. "There is nothing I can do about it. It forces things to go on."

Richard Cox, on the other hand, isn't sure what the future holds for him and his wife, Jo.

The couple have lived at KOA 15 years.

"We thought we'd be here till I checked out," the 83-year-old World War II veteran said Friday. "Now they have come up with this. We don't know what they will do and don't know where we would move."

It's certain they are unlikely to find a repeat of the $250 monthly rent they pay to have their mobile home at KOA.

"It's a worry to us," he said.

The campground will remain open through Labor Day as the wheels of an acceptance of the offer, followed by a closing and help for the residents to relocate, roll through the summer.

Walt Larrick, assistant manager of the Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project, said federal law imposes strict requirements on relocating people in the path of a federal purchase.

"We will work with the individuals and put together a package they find acceptable," he assured. "When the deal closes, we will issue checks and assist them in moving out."

The bureau won't disclose the price offered to the Horns until it has been accepted, which could take at least 30 days. The property is assessed at nearly $1.46 million. The Horns bought the camp in 2001 for $1.9 million, according to county property records.

The agency, which already owns 600 acres of river bottom land on the east side of the Yakima River, has long made KOA a priority for improving the flood plain across the river from Union Gap.

Yakima County, too, is interested in upgrading the flood plain and reducing the problems the existing federal levees, which run through the urban area, have created for the river and its thousands of nearby residents and businesses.

A flood management plan for the Upper Yakima River calls for pushing the levees back to a spot near Keys Road. The replacement levees would be about 5 feet high as opposed to the current 10 feet. The Yakima River in the urban area reaches its narrowest point at KOA.

But to move the levees back, two things had to happen.

One has been achieved with construction of the new State Route 24 bridge that gives the river more room to move beneath it. The old bridge and its piers were constantly under assault from the pounding river as it shot through the narrow opening.

The second is the removal of the KOA Campground.

Joel Freudenthal, fish and wildlife biologist for the county, said the bottleneck next to KOA caused the river to drop its load of gravel upstream of the bridge. The ever-rising gravel bar threatened the levee at the outlet for the Yakima Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant and Buchanan Lake, across Interstate 82 from the Yakima Speedway.

Relocating the levee would reduce the threats to those structures and allow high water to spread out and slow down.

"You can carry a much bigger flood through that whole region," he said.

Larrick, himself a fish biologist, said reconnecting much of the historic flood plain cut off by levee construction will also improve fish habitat. Old river side channels that offered places to rest and feed for fish will be restored.

"Instead of one thread of the river moving fast and deep, we can pick up some of the old side channels and more habitat," he said. "You can relieve some of the flooding that has occurred. We will affect that whole reach through there."

Some of the prior land purchases east of the river have made the Bureau of Reclamation the largest water-right holder on an old irrigation system known as the Blue Slough. Larrick said the irrigation channel has become clogged and impassable for fish. By opening Blue Slough, chinook salmon could repopulate the slough's entire stretch.

Once the bureau completes its purchase of KOA, the buildings and the camping sites, 184 spaces in all, will be removed. Eventually, when the levee that ties into the bridge abutment is moved further back, the river will consume the site as part of the flood plain.

"The campground is really the only thing in the way," Larrick said. "It will be a river flood plain again. It is a big undertaking."

Jesus Mendez doesn't know much about all that. He's aware of the possible sale. Barely a five-month resident of the KOA mobile home park, the 85-year-old Mendez enjoys the trees and the asphalt driveway where he walks regularly.

"I will move. I want the next place to be as nice as this one," he said through a translator, his granddaughter, Maria Flores.

* David Lester can be reached at 577-7674 or dlester@yakimaherald.com.