For many years, there has been talk of building a “ring dike” around La Conner to protect the low-lying areas of the town from potential Skagit River flooding.

Now, the proposal to build an earthen dike across the northern edge of town from the channel on the west, and connecting to existing farmland dikes on the east, is something that is moving forward quickly.

Earlier this year, there was hope that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would kick in the first $100,000 to fund the dike studies, but that turned out to be something too costly for the town to accept.

The town would have been...