||| FROM MIKE CARLSON |||
Dear Cindy,
As you know, I spoke at the 3 minute Citizen Access time at the Orcas Center Council meeting yesterday. I was not as prepared to speak as I should have been and I’m sorry that you had to interrupt me while I was talking and then cut me off abruptly when my 3 minutes expired. I will try to do better next time.
As I mentioned when I spoke, our company was one of the bidders. Therefore I have a very detailed grasp of how that project has been designed and just how difficult it will be for any contractor to build it. In addition, our company built the West Beach Culvert Replacement in 2019. I am quite qualified to offer perspectives that you could benefit from.
- I am so glad we did not “win” this project. I completely empathize with those who will be inconvenienced by the detour. The folks are all making very important arguments. They have made everyone aware that this project should have had some community “vetting” in order to find some better solutions to at least reduce the road closure time if not a better temporary bypass.
- As a taxpayer, and an engaged citizen, I know that this project is one of the first projects to be led by the new SJC Environmental Stewardship Department. I have doubts about the return on habitat investment that spending over a million dollars there will have. I am completely surprised that this particular location even made a “short list” for a restoration project and then came to fruition! I’m surprised because there’s only about 100 feet of stream from the inlet of
the proposed culvert to the next fish blockage. Specifically, just upstream there is a dam for the pond on the Grant property. Can fish swim up the spill way past the dam? With the project cost of at least $1MM that’s $10,000 per lineal ft. of habitat gained. - This particular site is very difficult. The culvert is a split precast concrete box culvert. Our cost was $275K and it was to be delivered in 5 ft. sections weighing around 26,000 lbs. each. It requires a huge crane to set the sections. There are designated wetlands on both sides of the road, steep slopes next to the road and it’s 26 feet from the road surface to the stream bed. There is no room for a bypass to be easily constructed the way the project has been designed. Public Works has no easy options for a better bypass than the Dolphin Bay Road.
Unfortunately, we are in the best time of year for construction and this project is already under contract to be constructed. The county has a contractual obligation with the contractor. I admit I don’t have the “pre-project” engineering, permit or regulatory information. Absent my complete knowledge of those aforementioned aspects I wonder if the scope of the project could possibly be re-evaluated to increase consideration of local residents instead of only the laser focus on a minor fish habitat benefit. My opinion is that simple flat bottom large pipe instead of the currently designed precast box culvert could be used. This option will reduce the road closure duration and it will work for fish passage. It is not uncommon to make scope changes in public works projects. Changes could be made by a change order. That box culvert applied to that crossing on an island like Orcas is not even practical.
This project as planned is a “no win” for SJC Public Works, the contractor, and the affected citizens with only a very minute win for habitat restoration. It looks like a feel good project that lacks common sense.
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For accurate information on the Killebrew Lake culvert replacement project please see the FAQ posted on the County website. https://www.sanjuanco.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1406
Cindy,
No where in that County link does it say anything about the value of the project in terms on habitat recovery which is one of my central criticisms. How is spending well over $1MM to gain another 100 feet of habitat which is the distance from the inlet of the culvert to the end of the spillway of the Grant pond? Also, the newly created SJC Environmental Stewardship Department has failed understand just how difficult, dangerous and time consuming it will be to set the huge, giant and heavy concrete box culvert. The next time they embark on such a project, I highly suggest that the leadership of that department consult with those in the business of building infrastructure to see if their designs are practical for a given site. Sadly as this project developed, the SJC Environmental Stewardship Department have given yourself, SJC Public Works and their own department an unnecessary “black eye” . There are most certainly more efficient and most definitely less expensive ways to accomplish a project of this nature. The laser focus on a questionable return on investment for a short distance of habitat without any real consideration of the human cost is wrong.
In some way, I feel for SJCPW who now has to take it on the chin as now they are in an impossible public relations situation because of a mission that is out of their wheel house….I am confident they would rather be chip sealing, fixing county docks, cleaning drainage ditches and ensuring the traveling public is safe. I also feel for the contractor who has a tough job to do. The really smart people could learn a lot from those who actually build.
Thank you Mr. Carlson for your professional conclusion the road project may need a re evaluation of what is really needed. I’m not a biologist but I can’t imagine with a new culvert in place, fish will magically appear up stream. I live on la Porte road, I wonder what last of the minute plans the county has to fix the dip they left for us to navigate .
This is yet one more project that got rushed just because the money was there. All that inconvenience, mess and expense for 100′ of potential spawning stream? For a run of fish that doesn’t exist and probably never did? I’m all for protecting, preserving and restoring fish habitat but let’s be sensible about it. Salmonids need gravel bottomed streams with continuous cold, clean water flow. None of which is present at that site. Why not put the money to use where it will actually do some good in an actual salmon stream?
Thank you Mike, your insight was most illuminating, however, you made one glaring omission; that being, should said non-existing fish make it through the million dollar plus Box Culvert, for it to progress the additional 100′ or so the non-passable Grant Dam, it would require said fish to have four legs and a weed eater to do so. It would be an understatement to merely say said stream is not-navigable, especially being as it’s dry four plus months of the year. Again, thank you Mike
Thank you, Mr. Carlson, for your informed and articulate comments about this project. I have to say that I was offended, and embarrassed, by Cindy Wolf’s terse and dismissive response which merely referred you to the weak FAQ document on the county website. For crying out loud, even the link to the county Public Works website in that “accurate” FAQ page is broken and useless! I am wondering if the county council and staff will eventually realize what a public relations disaster they have created with their taxpayers.
I would be interested in whatever report, opinion or advice, if any, that emanated from the Environmental Stewardship Department recommending that this work be done. I have too high a regard for that department to believe that we’re seeing the whole story.
Reading between the lines and assuming Mike’s and Bruce’s statements to be true, I would see this as a prelude to breaching Grant Dam or some as yet undisclosed bona fide environmental or safety reason. I would be sorry if the underlying impetus is that the funding is a “spend it or lose it” grant.
Money chasing a problem, wrapped up in an engineering dreamscape.
It’s time that we focus on projects that actually offer improvement to our community and environment. We have so many possibilities to improve the ecology of our islands, but now just $1 million less – not to mention the thousands of miles of unnecessary vehicle trips that are sure to improve the world around us.
My wife & I have a residence on White Beach Rd & will be inconvenienced by this Killebrew Lake Rd. closure, if it even goes through, which we are still hopeful it will not . But that doesn’t bother either of us nearly as much as the persuasive argument made by Michael Carlson (& now others) that the $1 million budget is not only way more than it need be — see is recommendation for an alternative design to the concrete ‘box culvert” — but more importantly that all of that money could be directed toward restoring fish habitat(s) with an actual chance of success. There is still time to reconsider this decision & we would hope that the SJC Environmental Stewardship Department, if not the County Council itself, take a step back & make sure this substantial amount of money is being used in the best way possible to protect &/or restore fish habitat.
It’s one thing to shoot yourself in the foot, it’s another thing to lob a grenade into a group of very angry voters. Guess who must not be re-elected?
From research gathered on Fish Passage Inventories, there is a very interesting and appears to be a very applicable WDOT website:
https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/protecting-environment/fish-passage/fish-passage-maps-data
I am not any kind of an expert, but it appears that the San Juan Islands do not have data mixed in this rather comprehensive and interactive website. If that is truly the case, it appears this culvert project may not be as clear cut as it was presented in the Public Meeting and Council meetings last week and the FAQs from the County.
I would love to understand this better, since there seem to be a lot of conflicting perspectives. Thanks for clarifications from fish biologists regarding this map!
I was part of the team that surveyed this stream for fish and potential fish habitat, under contract to the Army Corps of Engineers, in 2004. At that time, we did bring two adult Coastal Cutthroat to hand at the plunge pool below the first downstream culvert. In our report to USACE, we noted that trout access to hundreds of feet of historical stream habitat along LaPorte Road was blocked by road culverts and the Grants’ dam; and proposed working with landowners to reconnect more of the stream and increase the chances for survival of the trout we had found there. Not long after our report, the dam was rebuilt, and summer instream flows decreased significantly. No trout were subsequently observed in the stream. We received no response from landowners or the county when we reported the loss of this trout run.
As a result of the unexpected loss of the Bayhead Cutthroat stock, they were not available for inclusion in a 2016 genetic analysis of Coastal Cutthroat from Orcas and San Juan Islands by Maureen Small at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which identified two other genetically unique native trout stocks in San Juan County. It is therefore possible, but unlikely that the Bayhead trout were descendants of fish planted by local anglers, who are known to have planted Coho in Orcas streams; or by the state, which planted Coastal Cutthroat in Moran State Park despite the existence of a native stock there.
From a biological conservation perspective, the county should focus on its two native trout populations, which are unique and irreplaceable. The county lost its opportunity to save a third, likely native stock in the Bayhead stream when it failed to protect instream flow a decade ago. Removing barriers to passage now will not bring back the Bayhead Cutthroat population. That is not to say that reconnecting Bayhead with fish-friendly culverts would be without value; a restored stream could be stocked with native trout from another island stream, or left for natural colonization by other salmon and trout. But our surviving native island salmonids should be prioritized.
I am surprised that the county did not consult my lab about its plans for Bayhead, and I am disappointed by the county’s apparent failure to work with the islanders most impacted by this project. In my opinion, effective conservation is almost always built from the ground up.
Thank you for the history and research information, Russel, it does seem a project of this cost and scope should have more public time for input, and that certainly the science is solid for the return of the fish…and really agree with the importance of prioritizing native salmonoids. Things like this never make 100% of the people, happy, but from announcement on May 31st to starting July 10th, hardly leaves time for critical information like this to be a part of the equation, and it devastates the people around the project, if they feel like they don’t have a voice or enough time to prepare their lives for abrupt change.