West Seattle, Washington
28 Thursday
Another side note on the Admiral Safeway project: The old house on the southeast corner of the site, 42nd/Lander, had been offered for many months to anybody who would pay to have it moved – but no takers – it’s now set for demolition. We got a tip from area resident Forest that the fencing had come down and some windows were boarded up; went by, and found the banner you see in the photo above. The company named on the banner, Earthwise, salvages what it can from old houses like this and resells the material to both contractors working on projects and homeowners in the throes of DIY work. That’s according to James Klicpera, Earthwise’s acquisitions manager, who, it turns out, is a West Seattleite. He tells WSB they subcontracted with Safeway to salvage whatever would be reusable and have actually finished most of the work, with much of the “recyclable” material coming from inside the house: 400 square feet of fir flooring, some appliances, windows, a few doors, and he mentions, “There was a very nice fireplace front – kind of Art Deco, tile – so we gathered up as many of those tiles as we were able to.” They also salvaged “several pallets” of bricks from the backyard patio as well as the fencing from around the house (as Forest had noticed). They resell the material, James explained, from a warehouse on 4th Avenue South in SODO. He says some of what they’ve salvaged from other sites is incorporated around West Seattle – like the bar top at Beveridge Place Pub, a recycled bowling lane. Safeway’s Sara Corn tells us other material from the house will be reused after demolition, which could happen as soon as next week – or as late as mid-September, when the existing grocery store comes down. (As first reported here last week, the store will close August 21, with the new store to be open next July.)
(EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re one of many small local-news organizations that work with the student journalists of the UW News Lab. One assignment we offered this quarter: “Go tell the story of what the West Seattle-based Nature Consortium is up to in the West Duwamish Greenbelt.” The following video/photos/story comprise the result. P.S. You can see the greenbelt for yourself tomorrow afternoon, 1 pm, in the NC’s next free monthly eco-hike – RSVP to lisa@naturec.org)
Story, video and photos by Sara N. Reardon
University of Washington News Lab
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Early on a recent Thursday morning, a score of middle-school students, retirees, office workers and court-ordered volunteers gathered on an unobtrusive corner in residential eastern West Seattle. Armed with shovels, work gloves and plenty of bug spray, they ventured into the forest on a quest to annihilate the spiny blackberry bushes and other plant species that have invaded the West Duwamish Greenbelt and to replace them with native species.
“It’s been kind of fun, it’s a good opportunity,” said Sarah Hart (above left), a middle school student with the Summer of Service program, one of many organizations that are getting youth involved in environmental issues through participation in the Nature Consortium’s restoration project.
“The sheer number of people coming out to work has snowballed in the past couple of years,” said Nancy Whitlock, Nature Consortium executive director. “It’s amazing how many groups come knock on our door wanting to work for us.”
Six days a week, anywhere from one lonely participant to more than 400 volunteers (last Earth Day) are out pulling out invasive plant species, picking up trash and planting native plants to repopulate the area. “Sometimes it’s like wrangling kittens,” said restoration director Mark “Buphalo” Tomkiewicz.
From tonight’s Delridge District Council meeting (more to come in a separate report), a sneak peek at something that hasn’t been officially announced yet: On October 9th, Delridge will be the locale for what’s being billed as “HP3 – Healthy Parks, Healthy People, Healthy Planet – Seattle’s First Environmental Adventure Race.” According to draft handouts circulated at tonight’s meeting at Youngstown Arts Center, this will be “an environmental adventure race crisscrossing the Delridge community, designed to create awareness and foster action on environmental issues throughout Seattle.” The flyer lists “elite” and “open” divisions – with the former involving no more than 50 two-person teams, limited to people who have completed either a half or full marathon in the preceding year, and the race including multiple events over 16 miles, including “pushing a wheelbarrow full of mulch 1 mile up the Soundway Trail” and “removing 50 pounds of invasive plants at Westcrest Park.” Separate from the race, there also will be an inter-neighborhood competition component involving picking up trash, collecting recyclables, and collecting compostables. This comes from a project that won a $20,000 city “Small and Simple” grant earlier this year.
(Photo by Cliff DesPeaux)
The missing word on those T-shirts is “jobs” – as in, “Got Green Jobs?” For WSB and partner site White Center Now, Cliff DesPeaux covered an event today geared at showing the media – and as a result, you – what’s up with the Got Green? training program, which currently has 14 trainees working on weatherization techniques at a White Center home that will be demolished as part of the future Strength of Place Initiative Village development. See the full story at WCN.
New details today about an event first mentioned at last week’s Fauntleroy Community Association meeting (WSB coverage here). A so-called “green stormwater” project is one of the three combined-sewer-overflow (CSO) reduction proposals for the “basin” feeding the Barton Pump Station by the Fauntleroy ferry terminal. If that option is chosen, it would change the streetscapes in the area of the “basin” outlined with yellow street lines in the map above – which includes areas of Sunrise Heights and Westwood. The county wants to be sure everybody potentially affected gets a chance to have questions answered, and they’ve now chosen a time and place for the previously mentioned August 5th meeting – 6 pm, The Hall at Fauntleroy. In the meantime, if you’re just tuning in to this, here’s more info on the county website. (As for the other CSO project, for the Murray “basin” feeding the station at Lowman Beach Park, citizens’ advisory group meetings continue – calendar here – and discussion is planned at tomorrow night’s Morgan Community Association meeting, 7 pm at The Kenney.)
If your teen’s summer isn’t quite filled out yet – there’s a new weeklong camp next month, offered by the West Seattle-based nonprofit Nature Consortium: Arts in Nature Camp, 10 am-4 pm daily, August 16-20, for ages 12 and up, at Camp Long. It’ll feature “workshops from real local artists” and activities including “challenge course, recycled art, world music, nature games, sound installations, and forest ecology/restoration.” Full details and online registration, here.
(Saturday night Twitpic by @davidgjames)
The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency tells WSB the agency received two complaints over the holiday weekend about the Saturday night emission from Ash Grove Cement that drew attention from West Seattle, and elsewhere (WSB coverage here), as well as an initial “fire in building” response from the Seattle Fire Department. PSCAA spokesperson Amy Warren says the complaints will be reviewed before the agency decides what, if any, action to take. Meantime, Ash Grove has issued a statement saying “finished cement was discharged” from the plant, “as a result of the affected silo being overfilled,” though the amount of “finished cement” was not mentioned. The statement sent by corporate PR rep Jackie Clark also says Ash Grove has “contacted affected neighbors to offer cleanup assistance.”
(WSB photo taken from the South Park Bridge on Wednesday)
One day after kayakers on the Duwamish River witnessed history as the South Park Bridge creaked open one last time, the next round of community kayak tours on the river has been announced by the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, in connection with West Seattle’s Alki Kayak Tours, as well as Camp Long, and other organizations. Read on for the schedule, and how to save your spot:Read More
After getting the word that Marination Mobile won’t be making its usual Saturday stops in West Seattle this weekend and next, we followed up with co-proprietor Kamala Saxton on something we had heard a while back – that the popular food truck was looking for a new West Seattle spot. Kamala replied it’s true, they need to move:
We have been granted an extension from the Seattle Housing Authority to stay at our current location until August, however, after that we will need to find a new WS location. … We are absolutely committed to remaining in W. Seattle on Saturdays and any leads you have would be greatly appreciated.
The 35th/Graham site (map) where they’ve been for a year has long been tabbed for a future development project – so we wondered if maybe the move mandate meant the project was starting up. We checked with Housing Authority media liaison Virginia Felton, and found out something a little different:
A long-planned cleanup is going to put the site out of commission, starting in September. “There’s pretty serious petroleum contamination on the site,” Felton explained, “but we finally got the money trickled down through EPA to the state to King County to do the cleanup.” Even after the cleanup, the site will be fenced, and “it’ll be a big pit for a while,” she said, adding that more specifics about the cleanup will be available by late summer. As for Marination Mobile – SHA hasn’t been able to find anything in High Point that’ll work, according to Felton; Saxton said her entreprise has examined some obvious possibilities like the remaining Huling sites in The Triangle, and Youngstown Arts Center, but nothing has clicked yet – so again, any suggestions, post them here (or contact them through marinationmobile.com). [Photo credits: Top picture courtesy of Daniel, from July 2009; center photo taken by us today]
ORIGINAL 12 PM “HAPPENING NOW” REPORT: On the beach right now – 157 people holding hands as part of “Hands Across the Sand.” It’s part of a nationwide demonstration against offshore oil drilling and for clean-energy development.
More info here; more photos to come. ADDED 1:52 PM: Here’s one courtesy of Cathy, as the participants gathered at Alki Statue of Liberty:
And another of ours:
ADDED 4:14 PM: Two video clips – one as the line formed, and one in which we talked with organizers:
That’s Stacia Jenkins and Rick Harlan.
3 reminders tonight in case you forgot these were happening tomorrow:
ALASKAN WAY VIADUCT CLOSURE (AND HALF THE 1ST AVENUE S. BRIDGE): The Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon closes the Alaskan Way Viaduct for much of tomorrow – both directions from 4 am to 1 pm, according to WSDOT, and the northbound deck stays closed past that, till 4 pm. Also, the northbound side of the 1st Avenue South Bridge will be closed 5 am-11 am tomorrow and Sunday for maintenance.
WEST SEATTLE RESERVOIR (WESTCREST) PARK MEETING: Tomorrow morning is the fourth public meeting to discuss design of the new parkland atop the newly covered reservoir at Westcrest Park in Highland Park. This time, the all-but-final design will be shown. The meeting’s 10 am-noon at Southwest Community Center. (Notes from past meetings, and other project info, can be seen here.)
HANDS ACROSS THE SAND: As first mentioned last weekend, Alki is one of the beaches around the country where people will gather to show opposition to offshore drilling and support for “clean energy.” Gather at the Bathhouse starting at 11; the demonstration starts at noon. Official info at handsacrossthesand.org.
DELRIDGE ALLEY CLEANUP: They’re winning kudos – and fighting a war against trash, overgrowth and neglect. The alley cleanup crew will be back behind Delridge Library tomorrow, 10 am-2 pm. Here’s our story from their last round of work; you’re welcome to join them.
Volunteering can be fun! Jackie from Matson Navigation Company on Harbor Island e-mailed to share news of her office’s environmental-volunteer project – last night, a group of co-workers went to Alki to help stencil storm drains – and in the photo above, they were joined by a young helper they nicknamed the “Storm Drain Trooper.” Here’s a bucketless photo of the group:
Jackie says, “We couldn’t have chosen a nicer evening to be at the beach. The Alki community members were so friendly and thankful as we worked in their neighborhood to help fulfill the city’s goal to stencil every storm drain in Seattle with the ‘Dump No Waste, Drains to Lake, Stream, or Bay’ message.”
Share your news, any time – here’s how.
We’ve talked before about phone books and junk mail, and how to try to opt out of them. The city council’s Public Utilities and Neighborhood Committee (which had a special meeting on another topic here in West Seattle last week – here’s our report) is taking up the topic tomorrow, with several options before them. In case you want to let them know which sounds best to you, here’s the “draft memo” listing the options. They range all the way up to passing a new law that would allow some phone books to be delivered on an “opt-in” basis only. The preferred option, according to the memo, is to contract with a company called Catalog Choice that would provide an online “enhanced opt-out service” for both city and county residents via Web access; the memo says it would cost $30,000 to get that going next year. Tomorrow’s committee meeting is at 2 pm at City Hall downtown; here’s the full agenda.
Anybody else old enough to remember Hands Across America (May 25, 1986)? Next Saturday, Hands Across the Sand is planned nationwide, to show opposition to offshore oil drilling – with on-the-beach handclasping if you are somewhere that happens to have a beach. In our case, Alki is on the list. Gather at 11 am by the bathhouse, demonstrate at noon. (Somewhat spooky to see that there were protests like these in Florida back in February – including along the Gulf of Mexico – months before the BP disaster.)
Though (as reported Tuesday) the county didn’t publicly announce the first meeting of the Citizens Advisory Group it has assembled for the review of how/where to control Combined Sewer Overflows from the Murray Pump Station at Lowman Beach Park – they promised to get out more advance info in the future, and we just received the first installment from King County Wastewater Treatment Division’s Annie Kolb-Nelson, regarding the next CAG meeting, a reminder of this Saturday’s all-day “technical information session” (with optional tours), and more:Read More
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
In the most contentious public meetings so far about the prospect of a big project in the Lowman Beach Park area to reduce “combined sewer overflows” (CSO) at Murray Pump Station (left) – with three options currently under official county consideration, including one that would dig up much of the park – there were repeated calls for the county to make public all the technical information it used to settle on those alternatives while ruling out others.
Though the county project manager’s first response to that demand during April’s Morgan Community Association meeting was to suggest that residents file a public-disclosure request to force the county to give up the data, some information now appears to be coming out without quite that much of an additional fight.
With a “technical information meeting” looming this Saturday in West Seattle, documents are beginning to appear on a Technical Information page that’s part of the Puget Sound CSO Control Projects website – you can see the first round of links here.
This wasn’t announced to news media – nor was the creation of a new group to participate in the feedback process – but they’re both part of the newest developments in this ongoing controversy, as was a discussion we covered at last week’s city Parks Board meeting:
Two notes from West Seattle Nursery – First, today is the deadline to apply to be part of GreenLife at West Seattle Summer Fest, coming up in The Junction July 9-10-11. We first wrote about GreenLife last month; you can get an application form here. NOTE #2: If you’ll be out and about on Father’s Day afternoon this Sunday, how about beer and hot dogs at WS Nursery? They’ve just announced another Beerfest, with beer from White Center’s Big Al Brewing. 1-4 pm. Bring food donations for the West Seattle and White Center Food Banks.
So reports the state Ecology Department, following up on the sheen sighted on the river on May 29th (WSB coverage here) – read on for their followup:Read More
The next meeting of the citywide Parks Board has only two major items – but one is a project that’s drawn a lot of attention in West Seattle: The county’s project to reduce combined-sewer overflows (CSO) at Lowman Beach’s Murray Pump Station. We’ve covered the controversy over the past few months; most recently, the county loosened the tight timetable it had set for itself to make a decision on how to proceed, and instead of announcing a preferred alternative this month (from among these 3), it’s having another public meeting (June 19, based at Gatewood Elementary but including field trips to Murray and Alki pump stations) and has extended the public-comment period TFN. Whatever is decided for Murray, it is likely to have a major effect on Lowman Beach, a city park, and so the board is scheduled to be briefed during its June 10th meeting – special location, Woodland Park Zoo, whose annual report is the only other major item on the agenda. (Briefing items do not involve votes or other actions, but there will be a chance for public comment. Agenda’s not on the Parks Board page yet but we’ve uploaded it from e-mailed PDF.)
With two days to go till Thursday night’s open-house celebration at Fauntleroy Schoolhouse, one of its major tenants, the Fauntleroy Children’s Center, is welcoming some outdoor cleanup help today – a small herd of goats. Four of them were at work on various ivy-and-other-invasive-infected spots around the back parking lot when we stopped by, so no big group shots, but FCC’s Kim Sheridan says, “They should be here for the day, cleaning up our planting beds and miscellaneous greenery that needs their attention.” (The one in our photo was taking a quick break to stare – wistfully? – at the nursery stock on the other side of the fence from his designated ivy patch.)
2:52 PM ORIGINAL REPORT: From the state Department of Ecology, word of an oil spill in the Duwamish River:
The Washington Department of Ecology and U.S. Coast Guard are investigating the source of an oil spill on the Duwamish River about one half mile north of the South Park Bridge.
A sheen and diesel odor were reported to Ecology at 8:30 a.m. today and spill responders found an unknown amount of recoverable diesel oil in an inlet on private property at 7400 Eighth Ave. S. next to Boeing property.
A cleanup contractor called by Ecology and the Coast Guard has arrived at the scene and will begin work on recovering the diesel oil this afternoon. Further information will be released when it becomes available.
Here’s a map of the location, which is roughly across the river from the south end of West Marginal Way.
4:12 PM UPDATE: New information from Dan Partridge of Ecology:
There is no cleanup contractor working on site. A contractor hired by the Coast Guard arrived earlier and was about to begin work when the tide shifted. The diesel spill that was thought to be recoverable no longer was recoverable with the shifting of the tide so the contractor has left the site. There’s 100-by-3 foot sheen visible on the water but it’s expected to dissipate with the shifting of the tide. We still have not determined the source of the spill but Ecology will continue to investigate.
5:36 PM: Ecology estimates the spill at no more than 25 gallons. We went looking for, but didn’t find, any publicly visible sign of it.
The folks at West Seattle Nursery have just announced a new West Seattle Summer Fest event they are co-sponsoring with Sustainable West Seattle: It’s called GreenLife at Summer Fest. GreenLife is a sustainability and gardening expo to be set up in the Diamond lot south of the Chase drive-thru at Edmunds/44th (map) throughout West Seattle Summer Fest’s entire 3-day run (July 9-10-11). As the brand-new info sheet for the event says:
We are looking for local businesses to showcase merchandise, products and services related to the goal of this new special area – to raise awareness and equip our community with tools, knowledge and capabilities to create a more sustainable West Seattle.
There’s also room for organizations to showcase info/demonstrations/products on gardens, composting, permaculture, beekeeping, backyard chicken-raising, community fruit harvesting, and local waterways including Puget Sound and West Seattle’s creeks. Here’s the full info-sheet on the WSN website. Whether you’re a business or nonprofit, the deadline’s coming up fast: You must sign up by June 15th. Get the application here.
That’s Seal Sitters founder Brenda Peterson, showing photos on her iPad at Thursday night’s Alki Community Council meeting. After an overview of the group’s volunteer work protecting (and educating people about) marine mammals, she mentioned they’re looking for more help as spring/summer pup season arrives, continuing through September. (And as reported here, there’s a training session coming up – June 1.) In addition to seeking volunteer Seal Sitters, Peterson also says they’re hoping more Alki-area folks will build rafts for the seals (remember this one?) since those are the safest places for them to haul out and avoid the potential dangers awaiting ashore. Peterson also told the crowd a bit about her best-selling book “I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth,” and mentioned she’s featured in an audio interview you can listen to for free through June 2 – just go here.
Next guest, Dolly Vinal from the West Seattle Wildlife Habitat Project – talking about how to get your yard/home certified by the National Wildlife Federation. Advice: Keep native plants, vary your landscape, make water available for the birds and animals that will find their way in. Ensuring habitat for birds is particularly important, Vinal says, because Seattle is on a flyway, and birds that are “just passing through” can benefit as well as residents. (She also gave thumbs-up to Peterson’s ramp-building request, saying those count as wildlife habitat too.)
Then came Steve Richmond from GardenCycles, with advice about preventing slides via ground-cover choices – he stressed that you want to beat back invasives like ivy and blackberries, since they can choke out the plants that could keep the ground covered and stable. Then, it was on to matters of crime, safety and more – click ahead:Read More
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