Black Diamond NOW

The Johnson Clay Mine & Reflections From Gomer Evans

In an earlier post Clay Mining - A Significant Part of Our History, I focused on the role that clay mining played in our area's history and on the Kummer mine that was located just a few miles from Black Diamond along the Green River and Green Valley Road. The Kummer mine, or Claymine as it was commonly known by locals began operations clear back in 1889.  Just recently, I learned that there was another clay mine located in our area - this one just south across the Green River from Kummer and known as the Johnson Mine.  As it turns out, the Johnson Mine operated well into the early 1950's and once employed a young buck and Welsh descendent by the name of Gomer Evans - yes, the same Gomer Evans that is a former mayor of Black Diamond and can now be seen restoring trains at the Black Diamond Historical Museum. 

I had an opportunity to spend some time with Gomer last week at the Museum and learn more about the Johnson mine's history.  Following is a sketch that Gomer drew showing the mine's location and some of the mine fixtures.  We're pretty sure that is very close to scale.

As you can see at the bottom of the sketch, what is now Green Valley Road was then known as Clay Mine road, with the Kummer mine located right along the Green River at the bottom of the gorge at or near water level.  The Johnson mine was apparently just south on the other side of the river.  A haul road connected the mine's operations with what is now SR 169, with processed clay trucked from the mine to a plant in Renton.

The Johnson mine apparently was also located very close to the river down into the gorge.  An electric hoist line was used to haul ore containing both coal and clay up the hill in coal cars on rail.  These cars were then dumped into bunkers where trucks could be loaded to take the ore for further processing.  The following picture, courtesy of Palmer Coking Coal Company and Bill Kombol, shows the coal/clay bunkers.

(NOTE: King County Assessor photo #262106-9022 dated November 13, 1951.)

To quote from the notes of Bill Kombol, "This 1951 photo shows the coal and clay bunkers (i.e. storage/processing facilities) of the Kummer Coal Company as later operated by the Johnson Coal Co. and Palmer Coking Coal Co., Inc.  The bunker’s capacity was listed as 150 tons.  Originally built as a coal bunker, it was later used for clay.  Evan "Mickey" Johnson owned and operated what was known as the Johnson coal mine located between Black Diamond and Enumclaw.  The mine operated from about 1944, when these bunkers were believed to have been built until 1956.  The Kummer mine was unique in that both coal and clay were taken from the same portal and processed on site.  Following mining, slabs of mill-ends were laid on the ground and covered first with coal and then with freshly mined clay. This wood/coal base was set on fire and the clay was burned to rid it of carbon contaminants. The resulting fire clay was sold to Gladding McBean in Renton for the production of bricks.  The Kummer clay beds were discovered by Jacob Sants on August 15, 1888 and named for George Kummer, ceramist for the Denny Clay Company.  This site is located south of the Green River and west of SR 169 on property now owned by Washington State Parks & Recreation in Section 26-21-6."

The long rows that you see in Gomer's sketch represent the slab wood rows where a first layer of slab wood was layed down, and a few tires sometimes too according to Gomer.  Anything to make it burn.  Mined clay ore, which contained coal and apparently looked just like coal, was then piled onto these rows perhaps 15 feet high.  They were then lit on fire until the piles burned down.  Just think of all that smoke.  The piles burned for maybe 30 days before the refined clay was then loaded into trucks for hauling to Renton.  According to Gomer, his job was to load the trucks and unless you did it just right, you ended up dumping this hot clay right on your head.  I guess that Welshmen have long been known for being a bit hard headed.

The building at middle top of Gomer's sketch is the powder house where dynamite was stored and the wash house was the place for partying, but more on this in a later post.  Thanks so much Bill Kombol and Gomer Evans for sharing with us an important and fun part of our local history.

Beaver Lake Tree Planting Event - Help Us Restore This Property

Last Saturday we had Make A Difference Day and did battle with himalayan blackberry vines.  This Saturday (Oct. 29) we are looking for volunteers to help us restore Beaver Lake to the next level - achieving a long term "natural state".  With over 1,000 trees already planted, we have lots yet to go including 1,300 more trees planned for planting this weekend.  Come help us starting at 10 am.  Become a member of the Middle Green River Coalition for 2012 for the bargain sum of $25 and contribute to preserving the last best places in King County. 

Beaver Lake is part of the Bass Lake, Beaver Lake and Dandy Lake complex located just west of SR169 and south of the Green River Gorge toward Enumclaw. It alls drains into the Green River through Christie creek just east of Flaming Geyser State Park.  To get there, follow SR 169 south toward Enumclaw.  Go over the Green River Gorge Bridge and back up the hill.  Turn right on 383rd Street.  You will see large homes up on the hill to your right.  Follow this road and you eventually find yourself at Bearver Lake which is on your right.  Another great opportunity to help improve and restore natural areas within our community.

Medic One & EMS

Photo of Valley Communication's call center in Kent.  All 911 calls in our community are handled through this Valley Com center.  From here, all police, fire, basic life support and advanced life support services are dispatched.

I was recently appointed to a Medic One/EMS (Emergency Medical Services) task force by King County Executive Dow Constantine.  The purpose of the task force is to review current Medic One and EMS services provided in King County and develop a recommendation for a future levy designed to replace the current special levy that expires at the end of 2012.  Because our daughter and son in law are both emergency medicine physicians, I definately have a passionate interest in the subject. I also have much to learn.

One of the most amazing statistics I have seen is the very high rate of survival we have here in King County for cardiac arrest victims compared to elsewhere in the country.

The only area with comparable survival rates is the small community of Rochester Minnesota, home of the Mayo Clinic.  You definately don't want to have a heart attack if you live in Detroit.  Even more remarkable, the trends show continued improvement.

As I learn more in coming months, I'll post additional info and data.  Following is a summary of current response time trends.

BLS stands for Basic Life Support services that are dispatched from our local fire departments and districts - our firefighters are very well trained and are the first to respond to all EMS calls.  If you have seen the statistics for Fire District 44, you will see that the vast majority of calls handled are EMS related.  Because these fire stations are located closest to the public, their response times are the fastest. 

ALS stands for Advanced Life Support services provided by even more highly trained paramedics. Because ALS centers are spread more widely around the county, response times from these facilities are a bit longer on average.  ALS paramedics are dispatched about 26% of the time based on the judgement of the dispatcher as to the need.

Make A Difference Day - Quite A Success

The above photo is courtesy of Ron Olness and the Covington/Maple Valley Reporter

This last Saturday was Make A Difference Day here in Black Diamond, and boy did we.  In all we had about 120 volunteers undertake tasks throughout the community.  This is believed to be the biggest turnout yet.  Some volunteers cut wood for people who needed it to heat their homes this winter.  Others did painting around the Community Center and Historical Museum. The motley crew that you see pictured above is what we call the "A Team".  Our task - remove all the blackberry vines, undergrowth and debris that had grown up around the entrance to Diamond Glen.  Believe me, these were huge vines - a virtual jungle.  Not for the faint of heart. If you see this bunch walking down the street together, my advice is to get out of their way.

What a difference it turned out to be. Take a look the next time you go through town headed north on SR 169.  Special thanks go to the Kiwanis, Rotary, Lake Sawyer Christian Church and City of Black Diamond staff.

For more pictures, follow this link to the Make A Difference Day slide show prepared by Ron Olness.

 

 

 

Black Diamond Historical Society Annual Meeting - Great Fun

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend the annual meeting of the Black Diamond Historical Society.  It turned out to be so much fun.  In the above picture you see Steve Israel and Fran Wold playing coal mining songs that Steve composed.  Wow, so very talented.  I never realized.  A great crowd/turnout.

One of the highlights was the raffle of Ruth Ayers Hofto's painting "Mount Rainier Campground: As I remember it in the 1930's".  It is a beautiful piece and was raffled off as part of the Historical Society's current fund raising activities.  Believe it or not, Ruth is now 101 years old and completed this painting in 2006.  What an example she is to us all.  Ruth is shown in the picture that follows in the dark glasses.  She picked the winning raffle ticket.

A couple more pictures of this fun event follow.

Standing room only.  If you haven't been to the Museum recently, I encourage you to visit soon.  Lot's to see.

Puget Sound Fire & Clay Company - Van Asselt Plant

The above photo is courtesy of University of Washington Libraries, Asahel Curtis Collection, CUR786 circa 1910.

In an ealier post, I focused on the beginnings of the Clay Mining industry in our region with one of the first clay mines located at Kummer along Green Valley Road.  Established in 1889, all of the clay and coal mined at Kummer was shipped to the company's plant at Van Asselt where clay pipe for sewer systems was the principle product.   Van Asselt was apparently located in what is now the Georgetown district of Seattle at the foot of Beacon Hill.  The picture above shows the Van Asselt plant as it was in 1910.  300 or so people were employed during this early period.

Like many company's of the time, turbulant financial conditions seemed to be the norm.  A labor strike at the Kummer mine in 1891 and the accumlation of a heavy debt load forced the owners of Puget Sound Fire & Clay Co. to seek outside investors.  Enter Arthur Denny, one of Seattle's founding fathers.  Apparently impressed with propects for the clay industry, Denny purchased the company in 1892 and immediately set out to expand what then became the Denny Clay Company.  George Kummer was one of only two former shareholders to maintain an interest in the new company.

This capital infusion led to significant expansion at Van Asselt.  Behind the buildings shown above were five circular, crown-topped, down draft sewer pipe kilns, two of which were 30 feet in diameter.  Plans called for expanding to a total of ten kilns.  Besides sewer pipe, the plant also began making brick.  The pug mill had a capacity to produce 60,000 bricks per day.  Other products included fire-proofing and ornamental terracotta for use as lawn vases, umbrella stands, jardinieres, fancy design and rustic work.  Demand apparently exceeded supply and the company searched for other opportunities for expansion.  Railroads to the rescue as I will explore in a later post.

 

Well Logs - A Wealth Of Water Quality/Quantity Data Available In Our Area

The above screen print shows the wealth of well log data available as maintained by the Washington State Department Of Ecology.  As you can see, there are wells everywhere in our area.  Some are production wells, like those of the Covington Water District and others are just for gathering monitoring data.  Unfortunately, getting access to this data isn't quite as user friendly as one would hope, but the data sources are there.  Worth considering as we work to navigate our future.

p.s. - Why the screen print is crooked is beyond me, but that is what you see when you log into the link shown above.

Weekly Trend Charts Of Interest

No surprises here re the trend in Health Insurance Deductibles.  Be sure to let me know if any of your deductibles decreased.

When will home values stabilize?  Still so much forclosure overhang out there - in the millions of homes.  No more home equity credit card for the foreseable future.

There may actually be some good news in the chart above.  Apartments and multi-family housing are all the rage right now in the development community.  Population continues to grow and people must live somewhere, even when evicted from there homes.  When doubling up, there are only so many people that you can put into a bedroom.  So - eventually, one might reasonbly expect new home construction to eventually come back, whether it be in 5 years or 8 years or 10 years, and the cycle will swing back.  And like past cycles, you will likely see a glut in apartments and multi-family housing within the next 5 to 7 years.  Affordability, however, seems to me to be the wild card and this is where homebuilders and land developers may well have to face a whole new reality, even with increased demand for their product.  Mortgage rates just can't get materially lower.  With needing 20% down and limited increases in take home pay for the bottom 95% of us, particularly given health care cost trends, where will the money come from to pay the higher prices from the past? 

Make A Difference Day - Saturday October 22

Please make it a point to come join us for Make A Difference Day this Saturday October 22 here in Black Diamond.  We will be meeting for Breakfast at the Black Diamond Community Center beginning at 8 am.  I understand that Andy Williamson and our Publics Works Dept. has arranged for a "blackberry removal" brigade at Diamond Glen.  So, come help us and help your community get better.  It's fun too!

2011 Garden Potato Harvest - Feast Or Famine?

Its a good thing that we don't have to rely on what we grow for our food supply.  But, we did do better this year, particularly with peas, cucumbers and potatos.  We even did ok with one of our potato boxes.  They are just 2' by 2' and below is a picture of what we got from one of them:

Maybe if I blow up the picture a little more the pile will look even more impressive.  We also planted a row of potatos in our garden, so we got a few more. 

Judy suggested that I put a bunch of newspaper under the pile and mound up the potatos around it, but truth prevailed.  A few meals for the two of us anyway.  I wonder what our cost per pound turned out to be?  Not sure that I really want to know.  Very fun with all the fingerlings.  We've already harvested and eaten some prior to our final harvest, so it turned out to be a fun year.

 

Kids These Days

When a book just doesn't work as well as an iPad. The video that follows is an absolute must see.  Great commentary about the world our children and grandchildren are now growing up in.

 

And to think that I bought the first Apple II+ with 56k of capacity when it was first released well after graduating from college.  My, my!

 

 

 

 

Pink Salmon Are Running In The Green River - Amazing Catches

The above picture shows two pink salmon caught earlier this Thursday along the Green River at Auburn Narrows.  What beautiful fish.  According to this fisherman, overall he caught 15 fish before deciding to keep these two which he intends to smoke.  What a great ethic - two is all he needed to smoke.  Apparently, pinks are not the most valued of salmon, mostly used for smoking or BBQ immediately after catching - interesting specie.  But, there is no doubt that the river is full of these fish right now.  In fact, silvers are beginning to come in now too. I saw a couple caught.  I had never realized how prolific some of our fisheries really are.  A couple of pictures follow:

Notice how much of a hump back these fish develop as they mature and spawn upstream.

So many fish caught, I couldn't keep track.

Lot's of people fishing and catching.

Salmon eggs anyone?

That's a silver being gutted on the upper right.

Congratulations To Rockridge Orchards & Cidery - King County Small Business Of The Year

We should all offer congratulations to Rockridge Orchards & Cidery for being named Small Business of the Year for King County in Rural Areas.  As I have posted in the past, their apple cider is a real treat, both hard and soft, and now they also have a wine selection.  Located along SR 169 just north of Enumclaw, they are definately worth our patronage.  Good for your, Rockrigde, and good for us having you as an important part of our community.

Clay Mining - A Significant Part Of Our History

We all know how significant a role that coal mining played in our community's history.  I recently learned that Cinnabar and Realgar mining for mercury also took place in the Jellum area.  And now - clay mining which was far more important than I would have imagined.

Perhaps you have driven along Green Valley Road and seen the old school house at what is called Kummer (pronounced like comer from what I am told).  In an article published in the Black Diamond Historical Society newsletter in November 1999, Dorothy Franz Corlett explains that their family didn't live in Black Diamond.  They "came on the school bus from Claymine (Kummer)".  Wow - Claymine was actually the familiar name for the area in the 1930's and this tells us much of it's history.

Interestingly, in researching the history of clay mining in the region, I find that it really dates back to the Great Fire in Seattle.  Rebuilding required new construction materials and clay products were an important part of this.  One of the companies formed shortly after the Seattle Great Fire in 1889 was the Puget Sound Fire Clay Company.  Soon after company formation, George W. Kummer, who previously had experience in the clay industry, joined the company as secretary and treasurer.  The company owned 40 acres of clay and coal lands along the Green River - which soon became known as Kummer.  The company mined both clay and coal at Kummer, with the coal used strictly for company use at it's plant then located at Van Asselt (in Seattle) where the plant had two small kilns.  Sewer pipe quickly became the the principal product at Van Asselt and the plant supplied miles and miles of sewer pipe for Seattle and other commuinity's in the region during this period early in the century.

There is much more to this story of interest and I will report more in future posts.  Clay mining and processing were in fact a big deal here.

Getting To Know Flaming Geyser State Park

In a past post A Sunny Day At Flaming Geyser State Park I focused primarily on the area of the park located very near the park entrance.  This includes wonderful stretches of the Green River, prime fishing areas and a Remote Control airplane center.  Beautiful.  But prior to last week, I must admit that my exploration of the park was pretty limited.  The park area totals 480 acres and includes some fun trails for hiking, pristine wetlands, prime sidestreams for salmon spawning and a conference/retreat center that makes an ideal get-away for organizations of all sizes and makeup.  Last week, I had the opportunity to explore the Park a bit further.

To some, the above picture may not be particularly "sexy".  But to me, this speaks volumes about how our natural areas are being maintained within the Park and how critical these areas are to maintaining suitable fisheries and wildlife habitat.  Trout Unlimited even maintains conditioning ponds for both winter and summer run steelhead within the Park.

Following are a couple more pictures of the natural area located within the park at the eastern end.  Nice trails and beautiful streams as shown below.

Christie Creek is an important salmon and steelhead spawning stream.

As we all know, our State Parks are now struggling for survival.  The Discover Pass is helping with funding, but is also unlikely to be an adequate source of revenue for our Parks in the years ahead.  What's the answer?  At least in my view, Park survival will increasingly depend on the ability of each Park to be self sustaining revenue wise.  For example, Kanaskat-Palmer State Park located about 16 miles upstream of Flaming Geyser has lots of campsites and Yerts that each year generate total revenues that exceed the direct cost of keeping the park open.  As it now stands, Flaming Geyser has no comparable revenue generating capacity, be it camp sites or conference facilities.  The retreat/conference center - not currently available due to lack of water and sewer capacity within the park.  Fortunately, I have learned that new wells were finally drilled this year (though not yet approved for use by King County) that will eventually be able to supply water to the conference center - hopefully very soon.  For sewer, more investment is still required to make this adequate, but if this becomes a constraint to finally opening the conference center, then Honey Buckets or other portable toilet companies can certainly help us bridge this gap at affordable cost until capital funds are available. 

We need to get this center open NOW for Flaming Geyser State Park to become more fiscally viable and to remain open in the future.  I will admit to having first hand knowledge of how some of the very significant expenditures on capital improvements within the Park system have been made in recent years.  Though I am troubled by what I see and the lack of return on many of these investments, at least as I perceive it, we need to look ahead.  Flaming Geyser State Park has largely been left out of the investment equation so far.  This needs to be reprioritized and corrected in the future.  We should demand it.

In addition, there is an important role in the future that can also be played by the community.  Whether it be a Foundation or some other local funding/sponsorship mechanism, our Parks' future may well rest with community support and help.  Our Middle Green River Coalition fully intends to play an active role in helping to create this future.  It's absolutely imperative that Kanaskat-Palmer, Nolte and Flaming Geyser remain open and available to our community in the future - whatever happens in Olympia.

Region Water Quality Trends - Discouraging

Last week, our Regional Water Quality Committee received a briefing from King County staff regarding water quality trend results in the Puget Sound Region for the year 2010.  Following is a summary of the results presented

The large lakes noted below are Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish.  Lake Sawyer, which would be number three on the list but not included in this data, is also posting good results for phosphorus.

Unfortunately, when it comes to streams in the region, the news re temperature and dissolved oxygen levels is not nearly so good.

The good news - less fecal bacterial contamination of our beaches.  The bad news, marine water quality remains below standard or is declining from prior years.

 
Bad news for our fisheries.  Little or no improvement.  FYI, WRIA 9 refers to the Green-Duwamish watershed.

Once again, pretty bad news.

I am also a member of the South Central Action Area Committee (SCAACG) of the Puget Sount Partnership - the entity charged with saving Puget Sound.  My emphasis, while being on this committee and representing our community, has been to focus on the steps required to actually improve water quality.  In a briefing prepared by King County staff in June, I found it eye opening that "roughly more than three quarters of the developed land in King Count was built out prior to 1990 using no stormwater control methods or the ineffective intitial methods developed in the 1970's.  ----- this was a time with no or relatively little flow control and virtually no water quality control."

In my business experience, I have been faced with many of these same issues, most notably in the Cape Cod area (excessive nitrogen and phosphorus) and in the Chesapeake Bay region where excess nitrogen is the compelling call to arms.  In all cases, including our challenges here in Puget Sound, the biggest issue we face is "sins of the past".  I see a lot of great proposals for making new developments better, and this is all good including Yarrow Bay's committment for zero net new discharge of phosphorus into Lake Sawyer, but until we have the will to tackle the bigger issues which are legacy problems from our past, we are likely to continue to be disappointed by annual water quality results like those summarized above.

My current advice to SCAACG, spend less on studies and more on actually making some changes in our historical stormwater management systems.

 

More Lake Sawyer And Black Diamond History

The photo above is courtesy of the Issaquah Historical Society and shows the Gronlund family and friends at Lake Sawyer during this period.  Like so many lakes in our area, they often served both as reservoirs for logging storage/sawmill infeed and recreation.  The picture above is of a birthday party at Lake Sawyer with 11 kids early in the century.  Ruth Gronlund is shown second from the right. Apparently her brother Vern died of hemophelia a few days earlier.  Vern is pictured in the photo that follows also taken from this same era while Ruth Gronlund milks a cow at Lake Sawyer.  Obviously, colored pictures were not possible at the time, but hand touch-up served the purpose - picture again courtesy of the Issaquah Historical Society.

This would date the birthday party photo at sometime soon after 1920 since Vern is not in the photo then. Vern was 12 when he passed away.  When was the last time any of you milked a cow by hand?

For more on the recreational history of Lake Sawyer, follow these links to Lake Sawyer Paradise Circa 1925 and Lake Sawyer History - Another Mystery.  Additional historical information regarding Lake Sawyer can be accessed by clicking on the Lake Sawyer Category for this blog or by following the Black Diamond History Facebook blog.  Great stuff.

 

Low Impact Development - A Few Words Of Caution

In a post last week, I focused on Low Impact Development tools and techniques for improving stormwater management.  These tools include rain gardens, rainwater harvesting, pervious pavers etc.  For more info on this topic, follow this link to Low Impact Development - What Does This Mean?  And while I am a big fan of these largely decentralized approaches to stormwater management, a word of caution is also in order.  It needs to be done right.

As an example, there are lessons to be learned from the City of Seattle's experience putting in rain gardens in the Ballard community.  Not all went well, including several gardens that just didn't drain, creating ponds and a potential safety hazard for children and breeding ground for insects.  Following are a couple of pictures from this project:

To fix the problems, many of these "rain gardens" had to be removed and others repaired - at a cost of approximately $500,000.  While I am in no way trying to be critical of the City, I am most interested in what we can learn from this experience.  The lesson I believe - you must do your homework.  This means understanding the soils at each and every site.  If you have impervious clay, it obviously makes no sense to put a rain garden there.  It just won't drain.  I would also add that, in my experience,  Low Impact Development requires different skills than traditional civil engineers are schooled in.  It's a different world, so be careful.

For example, in our City of Black Diamond, there are many areas where the underlying soils are dense glacial till and these do not drain well.  Most of the Lawson Hills area is a case in point.  Rainwater just runs off in sheets with very little absorption.  These areas would not appear to be good candidates for rain gardens or pervious pavers.  Rain water harvesting might make sense here but we must pick and choose what fits best where based on "specific site conditions".  In other areas of the City, soils are highly permeable, like where we live.  Perfect candidates for rain gardens.

While offering no panacea, there is an important role for Low Impact Development in our future.  It just has to be done right and where it fits.

Open Public Forum Rescheduled For Sunday October 16 At 2 PM

Due to a potential conflict with Development Agreement public hearings, we have rescheduled the open community forum for Sunday Oct. 16 at 2 pm at the Black Diamond Community Center.  With important changes to the city's Comprehensive Plan now pending and public hearings scheduled for Tues Oct. 18, it is very timely that we have the opportunity to discuss and get your input.  Look forward to seeing you there.

Covington Water District - Serving A Big Part Of Our Community

The Covington Water District currently serves a significant part of our community concentrated in the area immediately surrounding Lake Sawyer.  As can be seen from the above service area map, the District also serves the cities of Covington and Maple Valley and big parts of unincorporated King County.  Their service area totals about 50 square miles - quite a large area.  I recently had the opportunity to meet with District General Manager Gwenn Maxfield to better understand the district, it's sources of water supply and future plans.

A significant source of water supply for the District is a series of wells located very close to Lake Sawyer just north and west of the lake and less that 100 yards from our home.  In addition, note all of the areas in pink on this map - they are all independent water systems that rely on wells for their source of supply.  Because wells can deplete groundwater resources, with potential adverse impact on lake water levels and stream flows, I was very interested to learn more about the districts wells and their underlying hydrogeology. 

First question - do the district's wells cause Lake Sawyer water levels to decline in the summer due to groundwater depletion?  Based on a hydrogeologic assessment report completed in the 1980's, it appears that the answer to this question is NO.  The wells draw water from groundwater sources not connected with the lake and therefore have no direct impact.  In addition, it appears that groundwater flows are basically from east to west.  With the wells located west of the lake, they would be downstream, not upstream, and therefore would not impact lake water levels even if they were hydrogeologically connected. 

However, due to the westerly flows, groundwater pumped from these wells can have an adverse impact on streams located further west - in this case Soos Creek which drains into the Green River and supports a major salmon and steelhead hatchery.  Reduced groundwater means reduced stream flows, particularly in the summer and fall.  Reduced stream flows result in higher water temperatures and lower dissolved oxygen levels - not good for salmon.  Therefore, my second question focused on total district water supply sources and future plans.

For perspective, the 222nd Wellfield has been the largest historical source of water supply for the district and this is the one located near our home just west of north Lake Sawyer.  Big changes in the future.  The Covington Water District is now a "partner" with the City of Tacoma and one other water district with access to water supplied from the Green River at the Howard Hanson Dam.  Tacoma remains the largest partner with an 83% share, but the Covington Water District now has a significant new source of water for the future.  As can be seen from the graphic above, Covington Water District supply now substantially exceeds demand for quite some time.  And editorially, I should add that the surplus is actually much higher than these data indicate.  Historically, conservation measures have proven far more effective than forecast and all water supply planners want to have a significant safety factor built in.  That's just the nature of the beast.  For more on this topic, follow this link to Water Conservation - A Pacific Northwest Success Story.

What this means operationally, according to Gwenn Maxfield, is that the District will likely begin shifting operational priorities.  The wells which have historically been the main district workhorse of supply, will become more of a backup just used to accomodate peak demand.  The less water that is pumped from these wells, the less electricity that is needed and the more money the district can save.  This is still a work in process with more interties and connections yet to be made, but the trend is headed in this direction.  And from my perspective, this is good news for Soos Creek and the Green River watershed. 

I have tons more info and data should you have other questions - just let me know.  Thanks again to Gwenn Maxfield for being so gracious and forthcoming in answering all of my questions.