Residents’ volunteer efforts protect Sammamish’s lakes
August 3, 2011
By Christopher Huber
Pine Lake resident Kate Bradley collects a water sample from the lake Aug. 1. As the volunteer lake monitor for the King County Lake Stewardship Program, she collects data on water temperature and transparency and collects samples to send to the county labs for testing. Photo by Christopher Huber
The fourth in a series that will examine what people in the city are doing to become more ecologically friendly.
In 1989 a group of Lake Sammamish residents and area citizens came together to discuss development issues. They were concerned about the quickening pace of development along the Interstate-90 corridor and how it might affect water quality in the lake, which stretches the entire western border of what is now Sammamish. They figured more people would help keep the lake clean if the newly organized nonprofit could get the word out.
“We were concerned about a road … and what it would do to the lake,” said Joanna Buehler, Save Lake Sammamish founding member and past president.
King County had recently created sewage treatment plants in Renton and West Point and there was enough data and science that backed up the idea that the water quality would degrade significantly in the coming decades, she said. Save Lake Sammamish formed that year to work with local governments and residents to address the potential environmental problems the area would face with such rapid development.
“The most important issue is the water quality in the lake,” she said.
Save Lake Sammamish is one of three organizations in Sammamish devoted to changing or creating government policy that sheds light on water issues or lessens impact on the delicate lake environment. They also educate the public to improve or maintain, on a house-by-house level, water quality in Lake Sammamish and Pine and Beaver lakes. Friends of Pine Lake and the Beaver Lake Community Club have also worked to address development-related issues such as storm water runoff, mudslides, high phosphorous levels, and poisonous algae blooms, which kill fish and can harm swimmers, Buehler said.
And while these groups do much of the lobbying at the city and county level, local lake residents can do a few things themselves to lessen their impact.
Save Lake Sammamish
Of the many issues for which Save Lake Sammamish advocates, Buehler said the health of the native kokanee salmon population — it’s in consideration for being listed as endangered — is the clearest sign of declining water quality in Lake Sammamish.
“We had a disastrous return last summer,” Buehler said. “The Kokanee is the canary (in the coalmine). If they can’t survive here … there is something terribly, terribly wrong with the lake and it’s that simple. If you have good water quality, you’ll have wildlife. If you have good water quality, you’ll have recreation. If you lose that, it all goes away.”
The lake experienced large-scale algae bloom in 1997. It reached toxic levels that killed fish in areas of particularly high concentration, Buehler said. Toxic algae blooms can also make swimmers sick, she said, and that happens when too much phosphorous or other chemicals drain into the lake.
“Nobody knows why sometimes these algae blooms are toxic and sometimes not,” she said.
Residents who live on or near a lake can help prevent situations like that by scooping their dog poop in the yard, stop using fertilizers or weed killers on their yards and avoid dumping paint or cleaning chemicals down the drain, Buehler said.
Friends of Pine Lake
Friends of Pine Lake has been around since 1990, when longtime Sammamish resident Ilene Stahl formed the Pine Lake Protective Association. She and a group of concerned residents had followed research on the recurring algae blooms since the 1970s, as well as a 1991 University of Washington study on phosphorous diversion from the lake. They began monitoring the water quality and eventually algae blooms diminished for a few years, according to Stahl’s history on the group. But concern cropped up again in 1995 and 1998 when toxic algae and fecal coliform levels forced people and pets to stay out of the water, Stahl said.
Residents on and near the lake have continued monitoring the water quality and have spent much of their energy working with the city on comprehensive planning efforts. Friends of Pine Lake has even appealed two housing developments — Crossings at Pine Lake and Chestnut Lane — due to concerns they would adversely affect Ebright Creek.
“I joined because the environment doesn’t have a voice,” said Erica Tilliacos, longtime Sammamish resident, former chairwoman of the Sammamish Planning Commission and the organization’s president. “It seems like we’re always having to push, push, push, push, push, push, push to get even things the city has agreed to get done.”
Ultimately, she said living in an urbanized area requires residents to strike that fine balance between enjoying or utilizing resources and being good stewards of the environment.
Pine Lake resident Kate Bradley, who collects water samples and other data for the King County Lake Stewardship Program, is concerned about potentially high algae levels and other development-related issues affecting water quality.
She holds a slightly different view on the current state of Pine Lake. In her experience, she said, water quality has remained mostly stable and relatively healthy. She still thinks that the lake needs to be protected from the impacts of development.
“I think there are good reasons to know what’s going on,” said Bradley, who has monitored lake water here since 1994.
Beaver Lake Community Club
While Save Lake Sammamish and Friends of Pine Lake are solely focused on environmental issues related to their respective lakes, the Beaver Lake Community Club organizes to address similar issues, but also puts on events like the Beaver Lake Triathlon each August.
The community club’s main environmental focus has been on water-quality monitoring, according to the club’s website. The group played an integral role in getting gasoline-powered boats banned on Beaver Lake in the early 1980s. Its members also helped create the Beaver Lake Management District in 1995. The residents in the district voluntarily decided to pay an extra tax to support regular water-quality monitoring and testing. That, in turn, established standards for further monitoring.
It is currently active in trying to preserve the rustic feel around the lake, and has recently expressed its stance against the city taking down the barricade at Belvedere Way between East Beaver Lake Drive Southeast and the Trossachs neighborhood.
Buehler adamantly noted the importance of lake residents taking more personal responsibility for water quality to avoid potentially greater problems. While Save Lake Sammamish consists of a mix of Lake Sammamish residents and members from around the Issaquah-Bellevue-Sammamish area, advocacy and education only goes so far. Prevention is simpler and cheaper, she said.
“People react to crises, but by then it’s usually too late,” Buehler said. “It’s death by a thousand cuts. If you keep on making those cuts, you’re eventually going to bleed the patient to death. When it’s gone you can’t fix it.”
Get to know your salmon
Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery are looking for volunteers to serve as educational guides during the hatchery’s busy spawning season, September through November.
Fish from the hatchery are used to stock Beaver Lake, as well as to help with salmon conservation efforts in Lake Sammamish and other regional lakes.
The organization is offering a training program for new volunteers from
8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27 at the Hatchery’s Watershed Science Center, 80 Newport Way S.W. in Issaquah.
To sign up or learn more about the program, call the organization at (425) 427-0259 or email Volunteer Coordinator Beverly Lee at volunteer@issaquahfish.org.
On the web:
Save Lake Sammamish: www.scn.org/savelake
Friends of Pine Lake: www.pine-lake.org
Beaver Lake Community Club: www.beaverlake.org
Reporter Christopher Huber can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242, or chuber@isspress.com.
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