Black Diamond NOW

31 Days Of Adventure In Our Community - My January 2012 Challenge To All

The web is all astir offering numerous 31 day challenges entering January and the New Year.  Using the above graphic as a boundary map to help define our broader community, I offer the following 31 day January 2012 challenge (opportunity).  Whoever takes advantage of the most of these opportunities in January will receive a $25 gift certificate to the restaurant or other establishment of your choice in Black Diamond.

Hiking Trails for Natural Beauty & Exercise

• Jellum & Cinnabar Mining Hub (for more info beyond this link, search this blog for "Cinnabar")
• Hanging Gardens
• The Cathedral
• Icy Creek (for more info beyond this link, search this blog for Icy Creek)
• Ravensdale Creek (the "slatted bridge" loop)
• Ravensdale Lake (the lake and creek east of SR 160)
• Frog Lake
• Franklin Heritage Area (also, follow the link to the Black Diamond Historical Society who sponsors two tours each spring, typically one in February and one in March - credit to those who go on either of these in 2012)

Area Parks To Visit & Enjoy

• Lake Sawyer Regional Park
• Nolte State Park
• Kanaskat Palmer State Park (winter camping and Yurts here)
• Flaming Geyser State Park
• Lake 12 King County Lake Access

Entertainment & Culinary Delights

• Friday night Dinner & Jazz at Black Diamond Pizza & Deli and Baker Street Books (live jazz most Friday or Saturday nights and no cover).  Baker Street Books is directly across the street from Michael's place 
• Breakfast, brunch or dinner at the Black Diamond Bakery
• Awesome Italian at Mama Passarelli's
• Awesome BBQ at Rooters Famous BBQ

Enjoy & Contribute To The Future Of Our Community

• Visit & become a member of the Black Diamond Historical Society
• Volunteer and/or contribute to the Black Diamond Community Center (gas vouchers for the needy are particularly in demand)

For The Adventurous

• Paddleboard around Lake Sawyer ( you can borrow our paddle board)
• Kayak to where Ravensdale Creek and Frog Lake/Rock Creek dump into Lake Sawyer (we would be happy to lend you our two kayaks)
• Enjoy the Lake Sawyer Community Club Polar Bear swim New Years Day (a certified goose-bump event)
• Participate in one of the Yarrow Bay MPD special citizen committees (attend the Water Quality committee formation meeting on Wed. January 4 at 6:30 pm at the Black Diamond Elementary school or attend the Green Valley Road commitee formation meeting on Tues. January 10 at 6:30 pm at the Black Diamond Elementary school)
• Go skateboarding with local kids or just stop by the skateboard park downtown next to the elementary school.  Extra credit if you actually give it a try
• Bicycle, jog or walk any of the cross country trails on or around Ravensdale Creek between Lake Sawyer and SR 169 (credit goes to each outing)
• Bird watch at Frog Lake
• Try fishing in Lake Sawyer - catching a fish is worth extra credit
• Run, jog, walk around Lake Sawyer
• Enjoy a lazy explorative day at the Black Diamond Public Library

And last but not least, attend a City Council meeting (Jan. 5 and Jan. 19 beginning at 7 pm), attend a City Council Open Community Forum (Jan. 12 beginning at 6:30 pm at the Black Diamond Community Center) or just give any of your Councilmembers a call to share what is on your mind.

 

A Nation Of Class Warriors?

Interesting chart based on a recent Pew Research poll and courtesy of Slate Magazine and Matthew Yglesias.  There doesn't appear to be a lot of trust in our financial institutions even among Republicans at the national level.  What parallels can you think of at the state and local level?  Please don't answer.

Better Days Ahead

After another intense Council meeting last night, I take inspiration from the natural beauty of our community and the people who live here.

Sunrise picture taken on Dec. 21, 2011.

 

Is Solar Power Dead In The U.S.?

Judging from all of the publicity surrounding the collapse of Solyndra, a solar power company backed by Federal loans, one might conclude that solar in the U.S. is dead.  In addition, we hear more and more about cheap shale sourced natural gas (see yesterday's post re Jevon's Paradox).  So where is solar today?

Remarkably, it appears that installations of solar power will set a new record in the U.S. for 2011 - this even in a recessionary period and during an abysmal housing market.  According to Renewable Energy World, there were 449 megawatts of grid connected PV installed in the U.S. in the third quarter alone - that's enough to power 449,000 homes for one hour at 1 megawatt per 1,000 homes.  Divide by 24 hours and you still have a big number.  By the way, PV stands for "photovoltaic" sources of power and refers to the actual physical process by which sunlight is converted into electricity via a solar cell.

What's going on to account for these positive trends for solar in the face of current economic realities and competition from alternative energy sources such as natural gas?  It's called economics 101!

According to the source Green Tech Solar, the cost of solar decreased by 30% in 2011 alone.  H'mm - there does in fact appear to be a relationship between volume and price.  At least in my judgement, this is where a longer term and trend perspective on the part of our legislators and leadership is critical.  If you are just following Wall Street from day to day, you won't get it.

 

Jevon's Paradox Redeaux

Coal burning factories in 19th century Manchester England, credit Wikipedia.

In a post earlier this year, I focused on Energy Efficiency & Jevon's Paradox.  In economics, the Jevons paradox  is the proposition that technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource.  The increased efficiency of coal extraction literally fueled the industrial revolution in England.  As a result, energy consumption increased dramatically as did industrial production.

When oil was discovered in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century, coal (old technology) declined, oil became king and energy consumption once again took a great leap forward as did industrial production.  For the last 20 years or so, we seem to have been in a very different cycle.  Despite technological advances in oil exploration and extraction methods, the marginal cost to produce these incremental sources of energy has often exceeded the cost of just importing more oil, particularly when the environmental consequences are considered.  As a result, today the U.S. is heavily dependent on imported oil with profound implications for our economy. 

It's natural, therefore, to see increasing focus on both energy conservation and greater development of "renewable" sources of energy such as geothermal, tidal, wind, bio-fuel and solar.  In light of this history, I was particularly intrigued by a recent article in the Seattle Times regarding the Shale Boom and how exploiting our country's natural gas resources could once again put the U.S. atop the world in energy production and independence.  Already, we see casualties in the "renewables" market caused by increasing supplies of cheaper natural gas.  Even the Centralia coal fired power plant here in Washington will soon be converting from coal to natural gas - for both environmental and economic reasons.

What would Jevon have to say about all of this?  I surely couldn't say, but his paradox remains worth considering as we make our own choices for the future.  What are we willing to sacrifice (e.g., water quality and environmental degradation) in order to obtain energy for the future?  At least for me, conservation and renewable continue to top my list of of criteria for the future.  Breathing the air and drinking the water in Manchester or even Black Diamond in the early 20th century is not a goal we should ascribe to.  We can do better.

 

Lake Wilderness Overcrossing - Then and Now

Photo courtesy of King County Archives

The above picture was taken in 1934 and shows the overcrossing and railroad tracks that once connected all the way to Black Diamond and Franklin.  Located just northwest of the Maple Valley Library and roundabout that was recently constructed, this old railroad bed has been turned into a trail for use by bikers, joggers and walkers.  You can actually hit the trail at 288th and eventually connect with the Cedar River Trail that will take you all the way to Renton and Lake Washington.  As the tri-cities of Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond work to connect all our trail systems, this is a key artery for linking us all together.  Following is a picture taken earlier this week of this same overcrossing as it is today.

Algae Still Blooms At Lake Sawyer

Based on what we observed this weekend, it appears that at least one strain of algae remains alive and well in the lake.

If this were red in color, I would be particularly alarmed, but for this I'm not sure about the implications.  Red algae is particularly toxic.  This was confined to small areas and appeared to have been wind blown from some source.  Within one day, it had disappeared.  Not very pretty looking though.  The lake water remains quite clear now.  Time to do some more research.

1. Where on the lake might this be growing/coming from?  I have seen it before during summer/low flow periods as Rock Creek/Frog Lake discharge into Lake Sawyer.
2. What particular type of algae is this?
3. Should this be cause for concern and if so, what should we being doing about it?

North & South Korea By Night - Illuminating

In one of the more spectacular comparisons of North and South Korea, the following seems to capture it all.

"Cow Power" Comes To The Enumclaw Plateau

Dairies have long faced the challenge of handling their biggest milk making by-product - MANURE.  Traditional methods are not pretty as can be seen in the graphic that follows:

Now, 3 dairy farms in Enumclaw are teaming up with a Skagit county based company called Farm Power Northwest to construct an anaerobic digester to process this waste.  The new company will be called Rainier Biogas.  The $4 million project includes a 1-million gallon digester vessel and is expected to generate enough electricity to power 600 homes.  In addition, the elimination of manure lagoon methane emissions combined with clean electricity will reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 9,000 tons of CO2 per year - the equivalent of removing 2,200 cars from our roads.

Anaerobic digesters rely on naturally occuring micro-organisms to break down or digest the waste, producing waste gas that can then be harnessed to produce electricity.  This technology has been around for many years, but what has changed is that it is now much more affordable to use for smaller scale projects.  King County has committed $492,000 to the project with funding provided by Federal grants.  The project is expected to be up and running in 2012.  Appears to be a great step forward for sustainable agriculture right in our backyard.

For those interested, following are two more graphics, first of the new process flow and then of the digester process.

 

Reflections On Becoming A Techno Retard

I've always considered myself to be ahead of the curve in adopting new technology, but increasingly I find myself scrambling to keep up.  The above picture is of the Apple II plus of which I was one of the early adopters.  Introduced in June 1979, well after I was out of graduate school where we still had to use punch cards to run our BASIC computer programs on mainframes, we jumped in early and bought this wonderful machine which was the latest and greatest at the time.  With 48 K of ram expandable to 64 K, there was not a lot of computing power here.  Doing a financial spreadsheet for home budgeting was about all we could do, except for playing Tetrus.

Today, we are just deluged with all of the new electronic tools.  When our children and grandchildren come to visit we see laptops, iPads, smart phones, iPods and Kindle spread around the house.  Wii Dance is great fun on the big screen and Nintendo DS units are in every bedroom.  Want to watch a movie - just go to Netflix running through our home wi-fi connection and Wii.  Judy's home desk top computer is pretty lonely these days.  Wow - what a change in such a short period of time.

But while we can keep up by buying the latest and greatest hardware, being "functionally" skilled is a whole nother issue and it seems that I keep falling further and further behind.  Anyone else out there feeling this same angst?  Fortunately, we have our grandchildren to help us keep learning.  And if you want to get in touch with me, don't txt.

What are your tips for keeping up?

And true confession - I still really enjoy reading a hardback book from Bob at Baker Street Books here in Black Diamond.  This is truly one of our community's treasures and increasingly a great entertainment hub with live jazz most every Friday or Saturday evening.  Am almost through the tome Peter The Great by Robert Massie that Bob got for me - great russian history and a great read.

One more tip.  If you buy any of this new technology and it's not available in town, do it on line. In that way, the City of Black Diamond will recieve the sales tax that would otherwise go to the brick and mortar outlet's home city.

Fall Colors

After last night's city council meeting I am spent as it finally ended after 11:30 pm.  Great input from our citizens in Black Diamond on complex issues. I am proud of our community.    Earlier this week, I posted a photo of another spectacular sunrise.  This photo is of a sunset this fall.

Photo taken in October 2011.

2011 Retail Sales Trends By City

The above data shows in town retail sales trends by City so far in 2011.  Interestingly, our neighbor Covington tops the list.  Other neighbors such as Auburn and Kent do not appear to be so fortunate. 

We in Black Diamond didn't make the list because the total of in town retail sales is a small number.  Overall, however, when both in town and internet sales are included, we are doing ok with year to-date total retail sales growing in the 6 to 7% range - with city sales tax receipts growing accordingly.  But, sales tax receipts still represent a relatively small part of City general budget revenues.  We do need more retail/commercial development in our City.

Cleaning Up The Green/Duwamish River Watershed

As many of you are aware, our lower Green River/Duwamish watershed is designated as a Superfund site with lots of legacy contamination as shown above.  This contamination resulted historically from many of the early aerospace (Boeing) and other manufacturing industries that initially formed along the Duwamish. The levels of existing pollution are well documented but what to do about it is a work in progress.  And just so you know, the term Superfund is hollow - there is no fund.  Any cleanup of this pollution must be paid for by current or past property owners and/or current government agencies.  Expected cleanup costs range from $200 million up to more than double this amount.

Our Regional Water Quality Committee was briefed last week about clean-up efforts and schedules.  Some key takeaways for me:

1. The biggest risk to humans appears to be the bottom dwelling fish and shellfish that reside in the Duwamish.  Because salmon spend very little time during their spawning cycle in the Duwamish, there seems to be very little risk here to our fisheries. 
2. Young people ages 0 to 5 are the highest health risk population.
3. PAH (petroleum derivitives) from stormwater appear to be the biggest current risk for adding further contamination to the Green/Duwamish.  Though PAH's may not kill fish, they do appear to have a very significant impact on their health and long term life span.
4. Cleanup can be dicey - dredging up this material can cause more problems than letting it lie as evidenced by findings from the clean-up efforts at Commencement Bay in Tacoma.

What can we expect to see in the future?  We will likely see more capping, less dredging and increased use of granular activated carbon to contain legacy contamination.  Also, we may need to adjust our expectations - it is highly unlikely that we will ever return to natural background levels of pollution.  The Duwamish is likely never to be pristine again.  All the more reason for protecting the middle and upper Green before it gets defiled.

Current cleanup timelines appear to be problematic.  Why on earth should it take until 2018 to begin cleanup efforts?

 

A Beautiful Morning Sunrise

Great way to start the day.  Photo taken this morning.

Even More Big Logs!

Thanks again to Bernie McKinney, following are some more photos of big logs apparently taken in the early 1920's based on Jack Sperry's assessment of auto models shown at the time. A whole different world.

Wow, look at this train and the truck below.

Can you imagine the headrig at the sawmill designed to process these logs?

Pretty comfy for a log home set on a train.

P.S.  Am a bit consumed right now with proposed CFD (Community Facilities District) legislation, critical Comprehensive Plan changes and other legislation facing us these last final weeks of the month, so this will be a light week of posts.

Local Business Focus - Horizon Pet Supply

If you are looking for all natural food for your pet or maybe a special gift or treat for your pet this Christmas, you should consider dropping by Horizon Pet Supply located right here in Black Diamond at Diamond Square.  I am certainly no officiando of pet food or pet supply stores, since we currently have no pets, but I was pleased to find that we have a retail outlet right here in our community focused on healthy diets for pets.  Their theme is "Only the good stuff, with good old fashioned customer service" and they are local.  Definately worth giving them a try.

Gain Weight - Stop Being Skinny and Tired

Apparently this ad preceded McDonald's and the fast food industry. 

State Parks - A Disaster In The Making

In our community, we are blessed with some of the most beautiful scenic areas and natural wonders in King County, if not the entire State of Washington.  The Green River Gorge spanning the 12 miles from Kanaskat-Palmer State Park in the northeast quadrant to Flaming Geyser State Park in the southwest is an amazing area.  We even have Nolte State Park and the Bass Lake, Beaver Lake and Dandy Lake complex located in between.  In total, we have over 1,000 acres of spectacular open space.  So what does the future hold?  Good question.  Some of this open space land is owned by State Fish & Wildlife, some by State Dept. of Natural Resources, some by King County and by far the biggest chunks by Washington State Parks.  For those not aware, our State Parks are now in fiscal crisis.  Historically, Parks have relied on contributions from the State's General Fund.  Given the State's current fiscal crisis, State Parks have been asked to transform itself from a "State Supported Agency" into a "Fee For Service Agency".

This transition is proving to be much harder than policy makers would have hoped.  Tuesday morning, Courtney Feeney (Friends of Flaming Geyser) and I attended a special session of the Washington State Parks & Recreation Commission in Olympia.  How depressing.  I fully understand the difficulty of making major organization transformations such as this but even with all my grey hairs and scars from leading past organization change efforts at Weyerhaeuser and elsewhere, I couldn't believe what I heard today.  THE key to success of any fundamental organizational change/business transformation is that leadership take responsibility for making the changes necessary.  Clearly, this is not the case for State Parks today.

First, we heard a diatribe from Parks Commission Chairman Joe Tallar about how unfair this all was and how current circumstances were the direct result of failures of legislatures in the past and present.  Teapartyesk in its blaming of the dems.  If you are a Parks person, not very inspiring or constructive leadership in the evaluation of alternatives given current realities.  Then we heard from staff.  Though I understand current angst, I once again heard the theme "it's not our problem", "we are victims" - we know that we are going to destroy your Parks, but blame the legislature, not us.  So long as this attitude remains, we are headed for disaster, at least in my opinion. 

So we then got the numbers.  Guess how many permanent employees are being cut from on the ground field employees?  Over 220 out of just 300 field personnel are being axed - these are our park rangers and maintenance personnel.  The dollar savings of these cuts as presented by staff is $7 million.  How many are being cut from HQ staff - 15 or less.  The dollar savings of HQ staff cuts is $1.3 million. H'mmm.  Let's cut our field staff nearly 75% but headquarters staff cuts are less than 17%?  What's wrong with this picture?   I am more than upset - not because the legislature is requiring that State Parks become a self supporting entity, but because the Park service is headed in the direction of absolutely descimating and destroying our parks system while retaining a large HQ staff - and even worse, they deny any responsibility to fix it.  It's time for a change in Parks leadership!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For more on the numbers, follow this link to State Parks.

BIG LOGS!

Photos courtesy of Bernie McKinney

Thanks to my Middle Green River Coalition (MGRC) colleague, we have some pictures of the early logging days here in the northwest.  If you want to talk about really big trees and logs, these photos put it in perspective.  Judging by the vehicles shown, I am guessing that these photos were taken in the 1890's or very early 1900's - or maybe even earlier.  These trees were not just big, but giant.  For contrast, take a look at what you see being hauled by logging trucks of today.  Thanks Bernie!  Will post more of these photos later.

Cenex - Support A Local Business While Helping A Family In Need

Councilmember elect Tammie Boxx-Deady and I had the opportunity to meet with Cheryl Hanson, director of the Black Diamond Community Center, this past week.  Cutbacks in federal FEMA funding are having a big adverse impact on many of our local Food Banks.  We understand that Maple Valley's Food Bank funding has now been reduced by 40% entering the new year.  Fortunately, our Black Diamond Community Center Food Bank has not historically relied on federal funding so we are in a bit better position.  But what do you think might be the most in demand item that our in-need community requests?  As it turns out, gasoline vouchers top the list. Our community's food bank typically has plenty of soup and even some wonderful winter coats and jackets right now, but gas vouchers are consistently at or near the top.

Here is where our local Cenex station is now helping out.  If you buy a $20 voucher (that you can either donate or use yourself at a later time), you receive an immediate 10 cent per gallon discount at the pump for your current fill-up.  Sounds pretty good to me.  A great opportunity to support our local businesses, support our Black Diamond Community Center and at the same time save yourself some money in the process.  Thanks, Cenex.  It's a great deal.