Brownies carry colors
February 23, 2009
Third-grade brownie girl scouts (from left) Ava Giovanola, Katelyn Lewis, and Kimberly Heitkamp, all members of troop 41938, and Matisse McCoy, of troop 50614, helped conduct the flag ceremony at the Feb. 17 City Council meeting. Photo by J.B. Wogan
City to pave 248th Avenue
February 23, 2009
2 landowners still object
Muddy potholes like this one will soon be a thing of the past. Photo by J.B. Wogan
The dirt road will become pavement.
The City Council voted 7-0 to take over one-tenth of a mile of private road on 248th Avenue Southeast.
“The deeds are very clear. There’s certainly a need for people who live east of 248th,” Councilwoman Kathy Huckabay said. “I would really like to see this project move forward.”
The project will cost between $50,000-$70,000, with construction beginning in March, according to Public Works Director John Cunningham.
The Public Works Department had been working with landowners to assume responsibility for the road. Some residents on and near 248th Avenue Southeast had asked the city to take over the road and pave it. Read more
Petition attempts to stop 244th
February 23, 2009
Residents cite environmental issues with plan
Ron Cornwall’s backyard offers a westward view of Allen Lake and the land that would one day become a bridge over a wetland.Photo by J.B. Wogan
Water squished under Ron Cornwall’s shoes as he navigated his spongy backyard with his 10-year-old golden retriever Clyde. He cast his hand over Allen Lake and described a summer afternoon when he saw the bushes across the lake shimmying. He was fishing at the time with a friend.
“This bear came cruising across, going after some geese. My buddy and I, our jaws dropped,” Cornwall said.
His backyard is privy to other fauna as well: bald eagles, deer, bobcats, trout, bass and catfish, according to Cornwall. For him and his neighbors, the majesty of Allen Lake is worth fighting for, even if it means taking on a city and a road project planned for decades.
Cornwall, a resident about a block outside the city’s eastern boundary, is petitioning against the city’s construction project that would build a wetland bridge west of Allen Lake. His formal petition challenges the city’s logic and preparation for building the bridge. Cornwall is listed as one of 14 homeowners in the petition, two of which live in Sammamish. Most of the homeowners have properties adjacent to 244th Avenue, just outside city limits.
The project could degrade water quality in the wetland, create flooding, and disrupt the roaming patterns of native wildlife, according to the residents’ petition.
The petitioners haven’t done a formal scientific analysis, but base their assertions on years of living with the animals and plants around the lake.
King County had planned to connect 244th Avenue from Northeast 8th Street to Southeast 8th Street since the early 1990s, if not before, according to City Project Engineer Jed Ireland. The road connection would create better traffic flow throughout the city and give drivers an alternate north-south route.
The city estimates the project will cost about $13 million, with construction beginning in April. That start date hinges on the residents’ petition being dismissed by a King County hearing examiner.
The project would widen the road from two to three lanes, with the middle lane serving as a left-turn lane or as a median.
Allen Lake and its surrounding area is a category 1 wetland, according the state Department of Ecology. That classification means it’s either highly sensitive, rare or has valuable flora and fauna. The classification states that there should not be any degradation to the wetland.
The city’s environmental impact statement acknowledges that without mitigation, water quality and soil in Allen Lake and its surrounding area would be degraded.
As such, the project requires the regulation and filtration of stormwater, and the regular maintenance of vegetation in the wetland area.
To reduce impacts, the plan calls for the removal of nearby gravel roads, power line poles and their conduits; the relocation of a sewer line; the repopulation of native plants; changing the terrain in spots along the wetland to allow for seasonal ponds; and conducting a five-year annual monitoring program to verify that the plan is working.
But Cornwall and his neighbors say the project would still have “devastating effects … on a vast network of wildlife, the wetlands and the greater Sammamish community,” according to the petition.
Land-dwelling animals may be discouraged from roaming the perimeter of the wetland after the bridge’s construction, according to the petition.
Future development, brought on by new traffic capacity on the bridge and the redesigned 244th Avenue, would also exacerbate a flooding problem on Allen Lake, according to the petition.
Pollution from runoff could also contaminate drinking water in a nearby private well, the petition states.
The ultimate conclusion of the petition is that all construction plans around the wetland be halted, with a re-evaluation of the road connection to follow.
“It’s very unlikely that anything washing off the bridge would end up in anybody’s drinking water, quite frankly,” said Ron Little, general manager of the Sammamish Plateau Water and Sewer District.
Because of the geology of the area, water can’t seep down beyond a layer of hard plane and clay in the wetland, and it would be difficult for pollutants to reach a private well, Little explained.
“We don’t see contamination happening over there, even with future development,” Little said.
Hypothetically, the residents’ concerns could be addressed without canceling the project, according to Steve West, a wetland biologist and professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Washington.
“It is possible to build over a wetland with minimal ecological impact,” West said.
The fact that the road connection will be a bridge is encouraging, he said. With a bridge, fish can move around the bridge supports without a problem. New shading under the bridge could affect some of the wetland plant life, but not in a major way, he said.
The biggest negative impact to the wetland will be during the construction phase, West explained.
“With a lot of people in there and a lot of machinery in there, animals will avoid that,” West said.
In some cases, the risk of endangering the wetland might not be worth the project’s ascribed benefits, he added.
“That’s a call that a community has to make. It comes down to a question of values,” he said.
City engineers will need to keep an eye on pollutants flowing into the lake, as well as the introduction of aggressive foreign plants that would kill off native vegetation, according to Rob Harrison, professor of soils and the environment at the University of Washington.
“Given past experience, there’s almost always a negative impact on the hydrology,” Harrison said.
Hydrology is the distribution and circulation of water on and below the ground.
Without the proper engineering, the project could create erosion, Harrison said.
But he said he believed engineers could avoid those pitfalls.
Like West, Harrison said the city would have to make tough choices about construction and mitigation costs and the environmental benefits of those costs.
“There’s a balance between wasting money and doing what you need to do to protect the environment,” he said.
City Attorney Bruce Disend has filed a motion to dismiss the residents’ petition, claiming that the petition is too vague and doesn’t meet the appropriate criteria to challenge the construction project. If the petition is upheld, a King County hearing examiner will conduct an official hearing on the petition March 17 in City Hall.
“We fully intend on taking this as far as we can,” Cornwall said.
Read the reports
Environmental impact statement: www.ci.sammamish.wa.us/files/document/4662.pdf.
How the city would prevent environmental damage to the wetland (scroll down to the wetland mitigation plan): www.ci.sammamish.wa.us/files/document/4664.pdf.
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com. To comment on this story, visit www.SammamishReview.com.
Council trudges through shoreline plan
February 23, 2009
Jim Creevey, a Lake Sammamish homeowner for more than 40 years, tried to explain to the City Council exactly how much his dock meant to him. Read more
Sammamish Forum
February 23, 2009
Support sex education
We are living in a time where our limited funding needs to be put to the best use possible.
Education is always a wise investment.
By investing in a comprehensive and medically accurate sexual education program, young people will have the opportunity to guarantee they have the tools to make more healthy decisions about our future. Read more
Review editorial
February 23, 2009
Firefighter’s pay increase out of line with reality
We certainly wouldn’t want to deny our firefighters their due, but a 7.55 percent pay increase couldn’t come at a worse time for Eastside Fire & Rescue. Read more
Roll Call
February 23, 2009
Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1694
Addressing fiscal matters for the 2007-2009 biennium ESHB 1694, which passed the Senate by a vote of 30 to 18, adjusts the spending for the 2007-09 biennial budget. The 2007-09 biennial operating budget was adopted in 2007 and modified in 2008. It appropriates $33.7 billion from the state General Fund and several other accounts, referred to as the Near General Fund. The total budgeted amount from all funds and accounts, which includes state and federal funds, is $57.2 billion. ESHB 1694 would reduce the 2007-09 Near General Fund budget by $635 million and the total budget by $344 million. The House concurred with the Senate’s amendments on ESHB 1694 by a vote of 80 to 14. The Governor signed ESHB 1694 into law. Read more
Broadhurst unlikely to join Lake Washington schools
February 23, 2009
If the Lake Washington School Board votes to deny the transfer of Broadhurst, the neighborhood’s residents will remain in the Snoqualmie Valley School District. Read more
Day off means service
February 23, 2009
Ivan Leniski, of Sammamish, and Ethan Peltz, of Redmond, among other Sammamish youth, used their Presidents Day to help plant and care for native trees and shrubs at a tree nursery in Lake Sammamish State Park. Leniski, who attends Interlake High School, was volunteering with the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, an organization that tries to maintain or enhance natural areas between Seattle and Central Washington. Photo courtesy Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust
Council approves $103,557 for trucks
February 23, 2009
Three new trucks will enter the City of Sammamish’s fleet in the near future. Read more
