— by Gulliver Rankin —
If you have concerns about the quality of our drinking water and streams, property damage from flooding events or development regulations dealing with stormwater, I want to encourage you to attend the September 16th Public Works Open House at the Eastsound Fire Hall. From 11-1 and again from 4-6, the County Stormwater Utility and Herrera Consultants will be answering questions and gathering input to help develop the Phase 2 Basin Planning Document. This is where our voices can shape the projects we will need to pay for.
Stormwater has two components: content (sediment and pollutants); and volume. The Utility has a Pilot Stormwater Monitoring Plan and just completed its second year of testing. As we would expect our water quality is relatively clean. (To see the report, click HERE.)
The new wetland behind the Village Green treats pollutants from some streets in the Village to protect water quality in Fishing Bay. It is being tested to measure its effectiveness and is designed to take twice the water it currently receives. It was only able to be constructed because 80% of the cost came from grants.
What we have all witnessed is the problem with volume, or flow control. The 2005 Long Range Drainage Plan for Eastsound is our adopted plan for conventionally collecting and piping all stormwater into the sea. Created to comply with Growth Management Act requirements for UGA compliance, it was estimated to cost $6 million to install. This is a chance to update the plan and identify opportunities for low cost, low impact solutions.
Street side rain gardens, set to be installed along Alder, Spruce, and Hemlock this fall, are examples of Low Impact Design treatment and flow control used to offset the stormwater created by chip sealing these streets. The new pervious concrete sidewalks along Mt Baker Rd are another example.
The Basin Plan Phase 1 ( Executive summary and plan) characterizes the county watersheds and gives broad suggestions on how to begin addressing our stormwater.
For our rural roads, wider and shallower grassy ditches are recommended to better capture sediment and aid infiltration. I am asking for a design alternative to create a pervious concrete shoulder/bike lane, where appropriate, to accomplish the same and make the roads safer.
Basin Plan Phase 2, being written with input from this meeting, will identify 20 projects county-wide and bring five to 80% design. Five priority basins, which includes Eastsound, will benefit from these plans but funding for any project is currently nonexistent.
What kind of project does the Village need? I am asking that the sidewalks on Prune Alley and Madrona St. be designed with pervious concrete and pocket rain gardens.
The Eastsound Swale is recommended for study to see if additional stormwater may be treated using what remains of this natural system. I believe that capacity, if quantified, should be used to offset projects with community benefits (additional parking, community structures). This study will need broad public and property owner support.
The need for a municipal approach and investment in our stormwater system is past due. Development is being hamstrung by the lack of infrastructure, requiring on-site solutions not appropriate where we agreed to concentrate commerce. I want the necessary storm drains installed to make the existing system work.
I will be attending this meeting to document your opinion; please come.
Gulliver Rankin is Chair, Citizen Stormwater Advisory Committee, and Eastsound Planning and Review Committee Stormwater Liaison
Our water quality is exceptionally clean. There is no basis for an expensive stormwater project, particularly nothing in the no-doubt costly report submitted by the consultants. There is clearly no funding for these projects. Orcas is being asked to pay for projects that have no solid grounding in a scientific determination of need or evidence of success of the proposed approaches. The citizens of the County voted down the stormwater utility yet it was imposed upon us regardless. It’s time to stop and look at the data and the projected costs and ask why we are continuing with it.
These are a lot of fancy plans. What I want to know is how to get public works to clean and maintain the storm drain system we already have in place.
Do we really need a international consulting firm that has headquarters in China?
I should add that I support the work required to prevent the flooding that occurred in Eastsound last year. What caused it? Was it a maintenance issue? If not–and I’ve not seen anything official about this but have heard a number of versions of what occurred–then a focused project to address the problem can be accomplished without a “Basin Plan Phase Two” and 20 projects thought up by consultants–the same consultants that brought us much of the CAO and SMP plans and ideas.
In a quiet Rural community there is much wisdom and grace in the term ” keep it simple stupid “
Gulliver, thank you for your tireless work on this. It is much appreciated. It doesn’t take an engineering degree to know the best way to avoid stormwater problems so this is addressed to Herrerra and Public Works – The simplest low-cost to no-cost plan we can make to address stormwater in the cleanest manner is to STOP cutting down mature filtering trees from the top of the hill all the way down to the bottom of Eastsound basin – or any watershed for that matter, where all the eroded polluted runoff collects. Stop cutting trees. Plant more trees! in Eastsound – in any watershed – native crabapples, scouler willows, etc. Stop saying that parcels are wetlands unto themselves and avoiding looking at contiguity of wetlands as ONE wetland system – that kind of thinking is what ruined Eastsound Swale. Every time the Eastsound Basin is clear-cut, the willows are first to try to rebuild the land. Stop dredging and piping everything. and learn from Nature. Stop re-rerouting streams. Stop cutting trees! Just STOP. Take Stock. Think. Plan for 7 generations. When in doubt, STOP!!!
@Gary Kratochvil -Yikes! is that really true – is Herrera’s HQs really in China?! Incredulous! Why do we need them, when we have local scientific, engineering, and landscaping expertise right here in the islands, who can do things more simply and cheaply and think for the long term? I nominate Michael Budnik for the task. :)
@Peg Manning – I invite you to come live with us here in Eastsound – we could use your advocacy for us.
What Leif said and asked. And Gary Kratochvil.
And I am sorry to say that no matter that is said about the “constructed wetland” behind the Stage on the Green, it is another disaster of mis-managed grant monies. Stop taking grants! That place is disastrous. 250 10 yard dump truck loads of soil that has been here forever were removed to prevent noxious weeds from infiltrating the Mount Property Stormwatwer project. How’s that working out? We now have some brand new noxious weeds including all that were there before. When you keep disturbing natural wetland buffers, this is what happens. You destroy a wetland’s – a watershed’s – natural ability to repel noxious weeds at the edge of a wetland. Please, please no more of these! No more from Herrera!
If most of the runoff problems are in Eastsound, then shouldn’t the residents of Eastsound have some say in what happens to where we are forced to live in our little UGA? Just recently, the Long House was flooded with sewage – fecal matter leaked into the apartments of Seniors! This is unacceptable. Eastsound, and the plan to develop every single parcel while destroying the biggest most important watershed on the Island with serious implications for the salmon population and beneficial wildlife diversity, is a giant fail.
The sooner that the “experts” admit this and humble themselves and get out of our way, the sooner people with common sense and years of observation and experience, boots-on-the-ground, can solve these problems.