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September 26, 2003
 

Public Meeting on October 2nd Will Review
Study of Miller and Walker Creek Basins

Planning for Miller and Walker Creeks, both heavily impacted by Sea-Tac Airport, will come into public scrutiny at a meeting on Thursday, 2 October, to be held in Burien at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Center, 19010 1st Avenue So. (Map).

Doors open at 6.30 p.m., with the formal presentation beginning at 7. The meeting is expected to adjourn shortly after 8.

This will be the public's first opportunity to learn what representatives of the cities of Burien, Normandy Park, & SeaTac, the State DOT, King County Department of Natural Resources, and Sea-Tac Airport (Port of Seattle) are planning for the future of Miller Creek and its main tributary, Walker Creek.

Why Is This Relevant to the Third Runway?
The headwaters of the two creeks are on Sea-Tac Airport property, in areas that will be seriously affected by third-runway construction, if it starts up again. The Airport is under heavy obligations to keep the creeks healthy despite construction work, existing Airport operations, & possible actual operation of the third runway. The creeks, wetlands, ponds, lakes, &c, are already under stress from pollution from many sources, especially from Sea-Tac, which is by far the biggest industrial operation in the basin. For example, zinc & copper, very hazardous to fish, are present at unacceptably high levels in local water, & most of this pollution comes from Sea-Tac. Glycols from de-icing escape from the Airport all year round, & they too are fish-killers. (These, & similar, problems are supposed to be addressed in the Port's new NPDES permit, but it may take years for the Port to come into compliance.)

The Port seems to have no budget for the necessary, expensive mitigation of runway impacts as required by the State and the Army Engineers. The Port is also very concerned about the cost of meeting the conditions of its renewed NPDES (sec. 402) permit, which is supposed to go a long way in reducing future pollution in the basin.

Neighbors are concerned that the Port may try to shift responsibility for ITS duty to mitigate impacts on Miller-Creek impacts over to other entities, and/or delay doing what it is supposed to do until the Miller Creek Basin study is complete and ITS components are in place.

What To Expect at the Meeting
The first half-hour of the meeting will be the usual "open house" with display boards & maps on view. Printed hand-outs should also be available. Starting at 7, the planners will make a formal presentation of about 40 minutes, describing the planning process, the work done to date, the goals of the process, basin problems identified, & possible solutions to those problems. Then there will be a short question-&-answer period, ending at 8, with further opportunity for comments. No doubt, there will be the usual sign-up sheet to receive information as the process unfolds.

What To Look for, What To Ask for, at the Meeting
Describe the situation at "build-out". Interested citizens can insist that the planners ("Project Management Team") present a clear description of their proposals for work in the basin & the intended results, at "build-out" (all work completed). Exactly what will be built, & where? What pollutants will still be present, at what levels, where? How will stream quality be affected? What will be the effect on wild life (especially fish)? This description should be in two parts: the basin with the third runway, the basin with no third runway.

Describe the Port's mitigation work, at "build-out". The planners should also give us a separate, parallel, description of their understanding of the in-basin work that the Port is obliged to do under the terms of its sec. 404 wetlands-filling permit from the Army Engineers & under the terms of the State's approval of the wetlands work, as modified by the Pollution Control Hearings Board. The project team should tell us what the state of the basin will be after the Port does its required work, & then what the basin will look like after the additional work that the team will recommend.

Describe the impact of implementation of the new NPDES permit at "build-out". The basin will change as the conditions of the Airport's new NPDES permit come into effect. The project team needs to show the public how this will affect the team's plans. The public expects that the Port will do the necessary work under the permit, on its own budget, & not try to shift work needed for NPDES compliance over into this plan.

The public needs to know the differences between these three different projects (runway mitigation, NPDES permit, & other general improvements in the basin). The public needs to know how the three projects relate to each other.

The project team assumes that things will work out just as planned, if the Port complies with the conditions imposed on its wetlands work by Ecology & the PCHB. Is this a safe assumption, or should the experts in this team take a second look, make a Plan B in case contamination leaks from the fill into the local waters, for example?

How reliable is the information gathered to date? Is the project team dependent on the Port to give them descriptions of present conditions inside the fences? Or is the relevant information coming from independent sources? It is well-known that serious pollution problems continue on Port property, out of public observation. A companion question is whether independent monitoring will be in place to ensure that the plan is complied with, when everything is completed.

Can the culvert problem be fixed right away? The study has already revealed that there is at least one culvert in the basin that is nearly impassable to fish migrating upstream to spawn. (A culvert can be a worse obstacle than a dam.) The team should provide more precise identification of all culvert problems. Any culvert impeding migration should either be rebuilt entirely, or modified, so as to allow passage to spawning areas deeper in the basin. This would appear to be something that the planners could recommend to their bosses as an item for immediate action.

How much restoration? An issue in the planning to date is the level of restoration that should be achieved. Does the team conclude that the basin so heavily urbanized that creek restoration should not be planned in some areas, because of cost factors?  If so, how much money is involved? Will the planners, or their bosses (especially at the Port and the WSDOT), choose cheap solutions instead of the right solutions?

Budget. Do not expect much talk about the budget for doing the work that the plan will eventually describe. (The study itself will cost $580,000.) The planners appear not to have reached the cost-estimation phase of their work, but they may have some approximate numbers that they could discuss, if asked. It would be useful to know how the costs will be shared amongst the various governmental agencies, but the plan is not expected to make recommendations on this subject.

Where To Go for More Information
In the last few days, a great deal of new information has been posted on the project's website (part of the King County website). Especially interesting, but too long to report in this newsletter, is the document "Findings", which sets out goals, problems, and solutions. The site also contains a map of the basin area, general description of the project, summaries of the meetings of the project team, & much more, including a comment form.

What Happens after the Meeting?
After the meeting, citizens & outside experts will doubtless make a variety of comments & suggestions, the project team will "tweak" the work done to date, &, yes, another public meeting will certainly follow.

Citizens in the mean time can be lobbying for early action on items (such as culverts that block fish migration) that can be dealt with, independently of the full plan. And they can be talking with their local elected officials about the need to find money to implement the final plan.

The study is to be completed in 2004, & then it will be up the various agencies to decide what to do with it. Put it on the shelf? Implement it? Try to cut costs by deciding not to do various expensive parts?

An overview
This study aims, & should aim, at correcting problems in the Miller/Walker Creek basin that will still remain after the Port of Seattle has done what it is charged with doing by its various permits. Keeping the Port's obligations separate from the obligations of everyone else is central to our concerns.

A first impression after reviewing the materials at the project website is that the planners have been focusing on relevant environmental issues, & have identified real issues to be addressed, but that their proposed solutions at this stage seem to lack detail. The study is, of course, still in early days.

Normandy Park & Burien have their own water-quality experts looking at this study, & citizen groups may also want to have their own consultants review the proposals. Outside expertise will be especially helpful in identifying anything that would shift the Port's legal obligations under its various permits into the work that this study will recommend.

The project team has responded quickly to requests to put additional information on their website. This seems to be one project where one can keep in touch through the World Wide Web (& without having 10 pounds of paper on the desk).


Miller Creek

Miller Creek Estuary
September, 2003

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©RCAA 2003
Regional Commission on Airport Affairs is a nonprofit citizens' organization
19900 4th Ave S.
Normandy Park, WA 98166
(206)824-3120
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links
-Salmon/Miller/Walker
Planning Effort Website
-Highline Wetlands Aerial Photo Album


-Findings
-King County's Basin Map [acrobat 477kb] Includes Salmon & Miller/Walker, but not Des Moines Creeks
-Wetlands Resources Map [webpage] Includes Miller/Walker & Des Moines Creeks, but not Salmon Creek
-Wetlands Resources Map
[acrobat 12.45 MP] large file, prints out well


 

Miller Creek Near Proposed 3rd Runway Site