Clark County owns a 107-acre property across the East Fork Lewis River from Lewisville Regional Park

VANCOUVER – Delivery of new water tanks for Camp Hope may impact park use and access at Lewisville Regional Park in Battle Ground. Clark County owns a 107-acre property across the East Fork Lewis River from Lewisville Regional Park. The property is leased to Camp Hope of Southwest Washington, which offers day and overnight camps, facility rentals and community events. The property’s water system is aging and no longer meets drinking water requirements. Public Works is making necessary improvements to the water system this summer. The project includes replacing existing water storage tanks, updating piping and the water distribution system, and installing a sanitation system. 

Because of the site’s steep hills, unpaved roads and thick vegetation and tree canopy, getting project materials to the site faces additional challenges. It has been determined that for various reasons, the best way to deliver the new water tanks delivered to the project site will be to transport them via helicopter from Lewisville Regional Park. 

Impacts to Lewisville Regional Park

The new water tanks and their concrete support structures will be delivered to Lewisville Regional Park, then transported via helicopter across the East Fork Lewis River and to the hillside project site at Camp Hope. The helicopter operation is most likely to occur sometime between July 1 and 3. During helicopter operations: 

• There will be a road closure in the park to limit vehicles near the work site. This may impact access to parking near some park amenities. 
• The helicopter must pick up six items from the park, one at a time (three tanks and three tank support structures). Each time the helicopter picks up one of these items, it must hover at a fairly low elevation for about 10 minutes to allow crews to attach the item to the helicopter’s harness system. This will generate a significant amount of noise in the park intermittently over the course of several hours. 
• A narrow area underneath the helicopter’s flight path must be cleared. This area of the park will be closed to visitors. 

Once plans are finalized, a map of closed areas and park impacts will be posted on the park webpage. 

While the date and time are subject to change based on helicopter availability and weather, currently the operation is scheduled for the afternoon of July 3. We are working to reduce the impacts to Lewisville Regional Park users as much as possible. Several weeks ago, we stopped accepting reservations for picnic shelters at Lewisville Regional Park for the first few days in July, to minimize the potential for disruption from the helicopter operation on park users. We have begun contacting those with existing reservations/event permits to let them know about the potential for impacts to the park on the date of their event.

If the date or time of the operation changes, we will update the project webpage and contact any patrons with reservations or park use permits for that same date. 

For questions about picnic shelter reservations and event permits at Lewisville Regional Park, contact (564) 397-2285 or parks@clark.wa.gov. For questions about the Camp Hope water system upgrade project, please contact Evelyn Ives at (564) 397-5885 or evelyn.ives@clark.wa.gov. 

More information can be found at https://clark.wa.gov/public-works/camp-hope and the Public Works homepage.

For information about road and park projects, closures, opportunities for community input, and more, residents can follow Public Works on X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook and Instagram and view information on Nextdoor. 

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Information provided by Clark Co. WA Communications.