Black Diamond NOW

Taking Time To Get Out - A Hike To Jellum

For some reason I seem to have succumbed to the malaise of the wet and dreary PNW weather and lost sight of what lights my fire - getting out and enjoying our wonderful natural areas.  Where else in King County or any Urban Growth Area within the state for that matter, can you drive in a circle of less than 10 miles and experience so much natural wonder that we have readily accessible to our community.  So I said the heck with it.  No more meetings today, no committees tonight or worrying about this or that problem we face here in Black Diamond. Time to get out and about and recharge my batteries.

My hike of choice this day - Jellum.  What's neat about hiking to Jellum is that it has some wild trail up on the ridge overlooking the Green River, there is an abandoned processing area for extracting mercury from Cinnabar mined along the rivers edge and then you have access to get down to the river itself - raging today.  Round trip - about 2 to 2 1/2 hours depending on how much time you take exploring the old Cinnabar mine processing area.  With all the wind and ice damage from earlier storms, hiking the trail made it a really special adventure.  Why do I enjoy this so much?  Following are a few pictures.

Beautiful natural forest.  You can just smell the freshness in the air.

Cinnabar processing area with concrete block in the back.

Hoping for something inscribed on this block, but no luck.

Landslide that occured last year pretty much eliminating any beach near the old Jellum mine.

Wow, what power when the Green turns brown.  Special thanks to Lisa Parsons for opening up so many wonderful places for Judy and I to explore.  If you want to search for more local hikes and natural areas, just click on Local Trails and you will have lots of choices.

 

Want An Incentive To Compost And Recycle - Downsize Your Garbage Can

One very simple way to increase the amount of waste that you either compost or recycle is to get a smaller garbage can.  With the new garbage service rate increases enacted earlier this year, we decided to downsize our garbage can from a 60 gallon container supplied by Allied Waste to a 20 gallon can that we supply ourselves.  Over the years we have become better at composting food waste and recycling the obvious candidates - paper and cardboard.  But, it's easy to get lazy and just dump it in the garbage.  So off on a new experiment we went.

First realization is that a 20 gallon garbage can is really small, so we have little room for error or egregious consumption and waste.  Our second realization is that we have been dumping a lot more recyclable and compostable material in the garbage than we had thought.  And finally, by adopted better habits we can save money in the process.  Following is a comparison of monthly garbage rates we are currently paying versus current rates based on our old habits.

• One 60 gallon cart supplied by Allied Waste with weekly service - $21.58/mo.
• One 20 gallon can supplied by us with weekly service - $8.14/mo.

If you really want to conserve, you can also sign up for once a month service with a 32 gallon can that you supply for just $4.91/mo.  There are other rate saving options also available in between but if you want help paying for your monthly smart phone bill, here you go.  And talk about helping your kids and grand kids learn good habits in sustainability - composting and recycling is a great and yet simple place to start.

What should we put in the Garbage Can?  According to Allied Waste's web site, following is a list of appropriate "garbage" items:

• Aerosol Cans (empty)
• Animal waste or pet litter (bagged)
• Ashes (bagged)
• Carbon Paper
• CD's
• Ceramics or Dishes
• Detergent Boxes
• Diapers
• Empty Motor Oil Containers
• Greasy Car Parts
• Lids or Bottle Caps
• Medical Needeles or Sharps (unless packed in a container)
• Mirrors or Window Glass
• Paper Towels, Plates or Napkins
• Plastics or Aluminum contaminated with food
• Plastic or Waxed Cardboard
• Plastic Cups, Plates, Utensils or Plastic Takeout Containers
• Styrofoam Food Takeout Containers or other Styrofoam
• Tissue or Foil Wrapping Paper
• Tissues or Toilet Paper
• Toxic Containers (empty)
• Waxed Paper or Cartons
• Light Bulbs

Do not put in the Garbage Can:

• Hazordous Waste
• Computers, Televisions and Cell Phones
• Electronics
• Fluorescent Tubes & Bulbs
• Liquids
• Medical Waste
• Wet Paint
• Yard Debris (put in yard recycling)

For those "non garbage can" items noted above, our City annually holds a recycling event in early March.  This is a great opportunity to get rid of the really "bad stuff" and do it safely.  Will keep you apprised of the exact dates.

Two solid waste handlers currently service our tri-city area of Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond - Allied Waste (once known as Rabanco) and Waste Management.  While "garbage" collected by these companies throughout King County (excluding the City of Seattle) is all dumped at King County's Cedar Hills Landfill, recycling operations for both yard waste and home recycle products are self contained and unique to each company.  Their incentive - the less they dump in land fill, the less their costs will be.  In addition, the more they can recover of value, the less their costs become.  Following is a summary of the new products most typically made from recycled materials:

1. Paper becomes new paper
2. Cardboard becomes new cardboard
3. Newspaper is made into fruit packing trays and new newspaper
4. Glass gets made into new blass bottles and jars
5. Aluminum cans are made into new aluminum cans
6. Tin cans are made into rebar for construction projects
7. Plasic bottles become new fleece clothing and carpeting
8. Plastic containers are made into shoe inserts, recycling containers, bins and buckets
9. Plastic bags are made into decking and building products

One more interesting aside - what impact has the "great recession" had on waste being dumped in the County's landfill.  Believe it or not there was a more than a 30% reduction in tons of landfill waste being dumped at the County's Cedar Hills site from 2007 til 2010.  What does this say about our consumptive habits?  I should also offer kudos to the County for making big reductions in operating costs during this period despite the fact that many of their costs are fixed and do not vary based upon the volume of waste landfilled.

I found the recycling operation at Allied Waste (also now known as Republic Services) to be really interesting.  For more info, be sure to play the video:

 

 

Lake Sawyer Water Quality Trends - 2011 Monitoring Results

Each year, the King County Lake Stewardship Program (KCLSP) publishes a report summarizing water quality testing results for Lake Sawyer.  The City of Black Diamond contracts with KCLSP to do this testing and reporting.  This is in addition to the water quality testing conducted by the City itself where the focus is principally on the watershed upstream of the lake.  For a complete copy of this report follow this link to Download Sawyer_WY2011rev.

By and large, results show a lot of stability with little significant change in water quality over the last several years - either for phosphorus or water clarity (secchi index).  Following are several summary charts.

LSIN1 references to a sample point at the inlet, LSIN9 is a sample point roughly in the middle of the lake and LSIN10 is at the outlet.

For those interested in more information, the report noted above is a fairly easy read.

Managing Stormwater When All You Have Is A Drainage System

Believe it or not, the idea of managing stormwater to prevent pollution and protect our fisheries is a fairly new concept in our state and elsewhere in the country.  Prior to the early 1990's, little attention was really paid to stormwater as an important environmental imperative.  To the extent that stormwater retention/detention ponds were included as part of a new development, they were pretty small and particularly during storm events, the water just flowed.  If you drive through Lawson Hills Estates or the Morgan Creek development, both of which were built during the 80's/early 90's period, you will find some stormwater pond capacity, but pretty small.  Most of our city developed well before this period and we pretty much just have what I'll call a "drainage system" - all runoff flows directly into our streams and lakes, untreated and unattenuated.  As a result, runoff from our streets and other impervious surfaces which are typically high in phosphorus and toxic metals such as copper from brake pads, end up polluting our streams and lakes and despoiling our fisheries.

While current regulations require a much higher standard for new development, including a net no new phosphorus loading to Lake Sawyer as a result of Yarrow Bay's planned Master Planned Development, it is important that we also focus on making improvements to the "drainage system" that we now have in the City.  And to their credit, this is exactly what our Public Works Department and City staff have been focusing on.

Today, if you drive through the City when it's raining, you will find water just flowing into our streams from our roads, driveways and parking lots.  Water is lazy - it always goes downhill and this is where our streams are.  As a result, City staff has submitted an application for a $700,000+ grant that would allow us to improve stormwater management along SR169 (runoff today drains directly to Ginder Creek untreated and unattenuated).  The following graphic shows what is currently being planned.

Let's hope that we can make this happen.  Improvement to water quality as a result would be very beneficial.  Kudo's to staff!

Managing Our Groundwater Resources - Or Not?

Groundwater represents a vital natural resource and is critical to maintaining both healthy fisheries and potable water supplies in our region.  Yet, the more I learn about the sometimes arcane groundwater regulatory environment, it appears to me to be the least managed of our state's natural resources. 

A recent article in Crosscut.com focused on groundwater being pumped from wells to supply giant feedlots in Eastern Washington.  The volume of water pumped from these wells is incredible and in several cases exceeds all of the water our City of Black Diamond will need or use in the next 30 years.   Appropriately so, our city is limited in the daily and annual volumes we can withdraw from our springs.  Yet east of the mountains, we have a dry region of the state where feedlot operators can pump unlimited volumes, jeopradizing long term water supplies to farmers and communities in the area.  Bizarre.

On the westside, we have our own controversy.  The way current law reads, if you build a home in the county and outside of an Urban Growth Area (UGA), you are free to put in a well and use the water to irrigate up to 1/2 acre of landscape on your property without limit to the amount of water you can withdraw.  From the standpoint of avoiding depletion of our groundwater resources, this may be ok in some areas - but everywhere? 

The biggest local controversy appears to be between the Covington Water District, which supplies potable water to area homes but where homeowners use wells to irrigate their yards.  This deprives the District of revenues that they might otherwise have (used to finance District water supply capacity investment) and since the District also pumps significant volumes of water from local groundwater sources, they are loath to see these resources further depleted.  The District's policy adopted last year is to no longer supply potable water to new homes that choose to irrigate their yards with well water.  Needless to say, homeowners are not happy. 

I have no dog in this hunt other than protecting our groundwater resources.  It would be nice if we had some facts and data about this groundwater resource, recharge rates and how much withdrawal can safely be allowed without depleting the resource and protecting our fisheries.

King County Parks & Natural Resources - A Huge Asset

The above graphic shows a map of King County and the Parks and natural resource assets that we have here.  Click on it to enlarge. I was really surprised at the extent of these assets including the following county profile:

Features
2,131 square miles
1,931,249 population
14th most populated county in the U.S.
760 lakes and reservoirs
975 wetlands
38.15 inches average annual precipitation
6 major river systems
3,000 miles of streams
100 miles of marine coastline
850,000 acres of forestlands

In addition, we have:

500 flood facilities and revetments totaling more than 119
miles of riverbank
26,000 acres of parks and natural lands
200 parks and 175 miles of regional trails
353 miles of underground wastewater pipes and tunnels
8 solid waste transfer stations and 2 rural drop boxes
920 acre Cedar Hills Regional Landfill
2 major regional wastewater treatment plants with
1 under construction; 2 smaller treatment plants
4 combined sewer overflow treatment plants
2,369 commercial/residential stormwater control facilities
700 low impact development sites

I continue to be very impressed with King County's Natural Resources & Parks website and the vast amount of information available to us.  Check it out.

Landsburg Headworks Circa 1899

In an earlier post, I focused on Taylor - A Mining Town Condemned.  Though once a thriving community of nearly 1,000, concern existed that coal and clay mining in the area was contaminating the Cedar River and the City of Seattle's principal water supply source.  Located just a few miles south of Taylor between Hobart and Ravensdale is Landsburg where the diversion dam, an intake canal, settling basin and gatehouse were built across the Cedar River in 1899 to supply Seattle's growing water needs.  This turned out to be quite a public works project as can be seen in the following photos.

Photo courtesy of University of Washington Libraries, WWDL0568, Anders Beer Wilse, cira 1899

The above photo shows the headworks under construction.

Photo courtesy of University of Washington Libraries, WWDL0541, Anders Beer Wilse, circa 1899

The above photo shows the intake diversion dam underconstruction.  The two holes you see in the brick structure divert flow into pipe that ultimately extends the 29 miles to Seattle.

Photo courtesty of Museum of History & Industry, SHS8670, circa 1930

Additional expansion occurred in 1930, further increasing the size of the transmission pipe.  Now that's what I call big pipe, especially for the time!  I wonder if the shift from clay pipe to concrete pipe had occurred about then?

The adverse consequence of this new dam was that it effectively blocked salmon spawning on a prime 17 mile segment of the river further upstream.  Correcting this and providing fish passage upstream has been one of the early priority salmon restoration projects in the Puget Sound region.  Quoting from Seattle Public Utilities:

"The construction of Landsburg fish passage facilities at the dam and aqueduct crossing were completed in 2003. The facilities are comprised of four primary components:

1. A full channel, boulder/chute fishway downstream of the aqueduct crossing to provide easy passage over the aqueduct and improved habitat conditions

2. Fish ladder and sorting facility at the diversion dam,

3. Tip-out downstream passage gate to provide safe passage for downstream migrating fish, and

4. Special screens on the municipal water intake to route downstream migrating fish away from the municipal water intake and safely back into the river.

The numbers of fish passing above the dam have generally increased since construction of the passage facilities. Early monitoring suggests that fish are performing well in this new habitat and recolonization is progressing well."

If you have an opportunity, be sure to visit Landsburg where you can connect with the beginning of the Cedar River Trail that can take you all the way to Renton and Lake Washington.  We have logged many a mile on this trail and consider it one of our funner jogging and biking trails.  The many river crossings also make it a great place to go if you want to observe fall Sockeye salmon runs.  Enjoy.

State Recreation & Conservation Office Grant Funding - Firearms?

I was recently doing some homework about grant funding for 2012 provided by the State Recreation & Conservation Office.  Of particular interest to me was funding provided for Salmon Recovery efforts.  In the process, I learned about some surprising if not disturbing projects that are currently being funded.  Topping the list for me of questionable spending was the category Firearms and Archery Range Recreation.  I'm not a firearms enthusiast but the issue for me was not so much whether firearms and archery qualify as bonafide "recreation" that merit state recreation funding but that the funding was going to private gun clubs.  If you don't belong to any of these clubs or pay a fee to them, you can't use their facilities.  I don't get it.  And consider how are State Parks are now being decimated. 

Following is the full list of funded projects:

Why in the world should the public provide grant funding to upgrade the Clubhouse of the Renton Fish and Game Club or any of these clubs for that matter?   For more detail on these projects and others, follow this link to Recreation and Conservation Office.

I did find that there is quite a lot of funding going directly and indirectly to salmon recovery as the following summary  list illustrates.

I believe that the roughly $540,000 grant awarded to purchase an easement for trails in the Icy Creek area came through the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program.  Hopefully, such acquisition can be completed as this would be a significant asset to our community.

King Conservation District Update

In a post last June, I focused on the King Conservation District (KCD) - A Best Kept Secret.  Their mission is "promoting sustainable uses of natural resources through responsible stewardship".  A great goal.  Based on a recent survey conducted by KCD, it appears that they are doing quite well in the eyes of those they serve.  One of the survey questions that particularly caught my interest related to top priorities for the District.  To my surprise and delight, stormwater topped the list.

Five years ago, I doubt that stormwater would have been in the top 5 priorities, yet may well be the biggest key to long term efforts to save/protect Puget Sound and our fisheries.  Its gratifying to see how widely understood/accepted this priority has now become.

One other note, KCD is having a Native Bareroot Plant Sale. You can pre-order plants on January 27 for early March delivery.  Sounds like a great opportunity.  Follow this KCD link for more info.

Lest There Be Doubt - The Importance Of Getting A Quality Education

Who are the biggest winners and the biggest losers through our recent recession?  Clearly, the greater the level of education the greater the employment opportunities and growth have become.  In times of more full employment, employers are more willing to invest in the training needed for new employees, but less so when times are tight for all.  So the message - get as much education and re-education as you can.  It's the gift that keeps on giving.

The downside, however, is the climbing cost of education today.  Students leaving college with student loan liabilities in the triple digits face a daunting new challenge - how to pay for it.  One more example of the haves and have nots in our country today.  And keep in mind, that declaring bankruptcy will not wipe-out student loan debt obligations.  Any wonder that you see the young 20's crowd leading the Occupy movement?

First Teacher

 

What a wonderful way to educate our children.  Congratulations to Courtney Feeney for such an innovative program.

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.

 

"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.

 

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.

Local Elections & State Fiscal Challenges

I have always loved this picture - a natural storm.  Pretty well sums up what's going on in our community and as the State Legislature faces current fiscal challenges.  Life is not always easy, but for everyone out there, please stay positive and be/remain engaged.  Our future is bright and we can all make a big difference.

State Parks - What Does The Future Hold?

Given Washington State's current fiscal challenges, the future of State Parks is very much in doubt.  Following is a summary of Parks funding originally passed by the Legislature for the mid year 2011 to mid year 2013 biennium.

Unfortunately, there are two big problems.  Discover Pass revenues are coming in well below expectations and may not reach even $20 million over this two year period.  In addition, due to the State's current fiscal crises, further cuts in funding from General Fund sources must be made and will go away altogether in the next biennium.  Fortunately, fees from direct park services such as revenue from camping and $5 license tab donations seem to be holding up reasonably well.

As a result, it would appear that a fundamental restructuring of how State Parks conducts its business is needed.  Recognizing how important it is that we keep all three of our local State Parks open (Flaming Geyser, Nolte and Kanaskat Palmer) and keep them in good operating condition, I have been doing some research re how Parks currently spends it's money and where human resources are now allocated.  Here is some of what I am finding:

For your reference, our area parks are located withing the Northwest Region.  Kanaskat Palmer actually generates revenue exceeding direct park expenditures.

From the chart above, you can see that our parks overall generate quite a bit of revenue for direct services provided, like camping fees, conference center fees etc.  Looking at it this way, keeping all of our parks open with current on the ground staffing levels is not nearly so daunting.  Current levels of income from the Discover Pass (even at today's low levels), parking tab fees and dedicated funds substantially exceed this gap.  So where is all the money being spent?

Well, as you can see, current direct spending on parks is actually less than money now being spent for other things in State Parks - principally overhead.  If you look at current staffing levels and where they are located (thanks to the help of Senator Pam Roach and her staff), this is what we find:

What the above data seem to tell us is that Region and HQ staffing currently eats up what appears to be a substantially disproportionate share of Parks resources compared to most other organizations.  At least intuitively, we might also expect that the average compensation for each HQ employee to substantially exceed that for direct on the ground park employees - Rangers, maintenance personnel and park aides.  In private business - if we have 1 staff/management position for every 8 to 10 on the ground operating personnel, this would be high overhead. In schools, 1 administrator to 5 teachers would seem to be high.  In State Parks, it's currently 1 staff/management position for less than 2 on the ground personnel.  H'mmmmmm!

More on this subject in later posts.

 

The Financial Markets' Casino

What ever happened to investing based on the fundamentals?  We do still have Warren Buffet and a few others of his ilk, but increasingly our financial markets seem to be dominated by the gamblers.  I was at the gym yesterday punishing my body in the battle of flab versus muscle tone and what did they have on the big screen - CNBC reporting on the markets.

The screen was literally alive with numbers, colors and movement that would make any gamer out there proud.  I'm not a TV watcher so I observed the scene for a little while and racked my brain - where have I seen this before?  Ah yes, Las Vegas and the casinos, that's where.  In so many ways, a casino seems to be the perfect metaphor for our financial markets of today.  All of the emphasis seems to on the very short term.  What's happening today.  The only trend charts that you see are daily trade related and maybe span a week at the longest. Breaking news is all of the "pops and drops" - those stocks going up or down the most for the day.  They even have a "halftime report" during the middle of the trading day, as if this is momentous news of great importance.  And then, if you want, you can continue watching at the end of trading and tune into "Mob Money", "Fast Money", "Mad Money" and even "Bonus Buck Answers".   Now if this isn't the closest thing that you'll find to Las Vegas and the casinos, I don't know what is.

Part of my reaction is specific to CNBC and their coverage but I think that it's also very illustrative of the mentality that seems to pervade our markets today.  Those that win this lottery are those whose "bets" on daily and weekly market movements beat other traders' or investors' bets.  If you think the market or particular stocks are going to go down, you place a "bet" - otherwise known as short selling.  This isn't investing, it pure short term wagering.  So, our 401K's can get creamed, but who walks away with money in their pocket. And we see extreme volatility as a result given the herd mentality.  Somehow, I just can't see the "value added" brought to our economy as a result of this speculation.

It will be interesting to see where the Occupy Wall Street movement goes.  There is no question that more and more people are angry.  I will admit to being a child of the 60's and all of the civil rights and anti-war demonstrations and riots.  With economic inequality continuing to increase, are we headed there again?

By the way, still looking for my hippie van.

 

Salmon & Steelhead Releases

Although I promised to not release any more charts and graphs, I found the following data to be of great interest - so I violated my pledge at least for now.

Fewer and fewer releases and catches.  Hmmmmm.  Lots of Pinks returning this year as illustrated in an earlier post re Pink Salmon Are Running In the Green.  Apparently this is a binanneal event.

Our hatcheries remain very busy - but to what end if we are just holding our own and the dollar drain right now is so significant????  How do we get our fisheries on an even/sustainable budgetary framework?  I'm afraid that our fisheries are about to collapse just like our State Parks are now on life support!  Time for us all to get involved.  More re our State Parks in a future post.

CSO's - An Environmental Connundrum or Not?

For those of you looking for a sexy topic, CSO's are not it.  But if you wish to engage in a discussion of environmental regulation and where it does and does not pay dividends, then this is your forum.  Hang on to your seats and let me first describe what a CSO is.  CSO stands for Combined Sewer Overflow and was the popular stormwater and sewer engineering practice in the northwest in the early days - pre 60's.  Following is a graphic that explains the concept and the problem.

In essence, our sewer and stormwater drainage systems were interlinked.  But when we have heavy rainfall exceeding the sewer treatment plant's capacity, which has been a frequent occurance, the combination of raw sewage and stormwater overflowed into our streams and into Puget Sound.  From a public works engineering perspective, this was most efficient.  But from a pollution standpoint, it was horrible.  Pretty ugly.  The result was contaminated beaches (swimming in sewage) and pollution in the sound that killed fish - but it was "engineering efficient".  OK, no more engineer bashing.  To correct these obvious problems, major efforts were initiated in the mid to late 1960's to begin separating stormwater and sewer systems and the results have been very impressive.  Following is a chart that shows the rate of progress in reducing combined sewer overflows and sewer pollution into Puget Sound over the last 50 years. 

As we can see, though there remain some CSO related flows into Puget Sound, current volumes are but a bare trickle of what they once were.  Yet, efforts to get that last trickle out of the system continue.  But at what cost?  Should we spend our scarce rescources here to fully finish the retrofit job or should we redirect these resources (our money) to other efforts that will give us an even bigger bang for the buck?  And this is the simple question that I am now posing.  Guess what the price tag is to wring that last bit of CSO out of the system.  For King County alone, it's $711 million dollars and there is less a problem here than for the City of Seattle.

So, the real question is - should we (King County) spend $711 million, and the City of Seattle even more, to tighten up our current CSO systems to "finish the job" and pay for this through our sewer rates or are there other uses for this money that can yield us even higher returns for preserving Puget Sound and our fisheries?  Unfortunately, this is not the question now being asked by King County - and I sit on the Regional Water Quality Committee.  There seems to be a view that to legally comply, we must remove the last vestiges of CSO's.  But, it's highly unlikely that this money and these expenditures will in the end make a material difference in improving water quality and fisheries within Puget Sound and our region.  There are likely to be expenditures to solve other problems with a much higher return on investment than these CSO's if our end goal is to provide maximum protection/improvement for Puget Sound and our fisheries.

And by means of full disclosure, I am also a member of the South Central Action Area Caucus Group of the Puget Sound Partnership focused on preserving Puget Sound.  In this capacity and in that as a member of the Regional Water Quality Committtee, I have in the past, and will continue to ask this same question - solving what specific water quality problems will give us the biggest return on our investment?  If that means less investment in CSO replacement and more investment in retrofitting other stormwater systems, then the money should be allocated accordingly.  Simple question, but not a simple answer with the multiplicity of government jurisdictions involved with overlapping responsibilities.  It seems to me that this is why the Puget Sound Partnership was created to begin with.  Where is the leadership?

 

WRIA9 - What?

WRIA9 stands for Water Resource Inventory Area 9 - which is our Green/Duwamish River watershed.  For perspective, WRIA8 is the Cedar River watershed to our north and WRIA10 is the Puyallup/White River watershed to our south. Following is a picture of the WRIA9 watershed.

As you can see, WRIA9 extends from the Upper Green River Subwatershed, which is located above the Howard Hanson Dam, through the Middle Green River Watershed from Howard Hanson Dam to below Flaming Geyser State Park and then on into the Lower Green and the Duwamish.  Cleaning up the Duwamish as it enters Puget Sound and all of the EPA Superfund sites along the way remains an important priority.  But, to insure that our fisheries can be maintained/expanded to their original state, requires that the Lower and Middle Green river watersheds are both protected from further degradation and restored to healthy habitat levels.  Common approaches to restoring water quality include the following:

• Restoring riparian habitat
• Controlling stormwater flows
• Treating stormwater
• Removing cross connections
• Fixing failing on-site septic systems
• Business BMP's (Best Management Practices)
• Improved stormwater O&M

I recently had an opportunity to see the return of Pink Salmon into the Green and they were very plentiful.  But from what I am told, current returns of pink, silvers, chinook and steelhead are but a fraction of what they used to be. 

Our Regional Water Quality Committee was recently briefed by staff on the status of restoration efforts within WRIA9.  Stormwater retrofits are an important priority for the future.  Why?

• Most developed areas have no or inadequate controls
• Large storm flows erode streams
• Untreated stormwaters harm fish

Retrofits do improve flow and water quality.

Prior to 1990 there were virtually no stormwater management regulations.  The focus was strictly on "drainage".  If you drive along Lawson during a rain storm event, you will clearly see what I mean.  Water just sheets down the streets, into ditches and then directly into Ginder Creek and Rock Creek located just below.  No storage, no attenuation of flows, no treatment, just drainage.  We know what phosphorus from stormwater can do to Lake Sawyer.  So what is the answer?

Stormwater retrofit planning for WRIA9 is now an important priority.  A $1 million grant has been received from EPA to assess needs and cost effectiveness.  Primary streams being addressed include:

• Newaukum Creek (south of the gorge through the Enumclaw area)
• Soos Creek and Covington Creek (the outfall of Lake Sawyer)
• Crisp Creek
• Mill Creek in Auburn and Kent
• Springbook Creek
• Des Moines Creek and others

The goal is to understand the tradeoffs - cost versus improvement - for making stormwater retrofit changes.  The goal is to also define regional retrofit funding needs, prioritize these needs, provide input to capital project planning and influence future permit requirements. This project is expected to be completed in the 2012 to 2013 time frame.  We look forward to the results.  Stay tuned.