West Seattle, Washington
19 Friday
John LaSpina sent that photo this morning — sunrise over the industry-lined Duwamish, with Mount Rainier in the background, hours before today’s Duwamish River Festival began. We saved it, knowing we would drop by the festival this afternoon:
Boat tours were offered, along with kayaking (we spotted the famous Alki Kayak Tours van on the street) from festival home base at Duwamish Waterway Park (map). Though that’s in South Park, the river is West Seattle’s eastern border, and nothing hit that home more than this signboard we spotted in the Environmental Protection Agency booth:
The folks there say that was just made up this week, as part of their public-information campaign about the cleanup, one of many past/present/future along the polluted waterway. The official address of the “Lockheed West Seattle Superfund site” detailed on that board is 3443 West Marginal Way (here’s a map); the timeline on the board displayed today says “construction” as part of the site cleanup is set for 2011. The site was added to the Superfund list about a year and a half ago; it has an official EPA subsite with buckets of information, including the official March 2007 news release that says in part:
Historic industrial practices at this former shipyard released contaminants into the bay, including metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and petroleum products. An NPL listing notifies the public that EPA believes a site requires further study and possible cleanup under EPA’s Superfund program.
The Lockheed West Seattle site is one among several other contaminated sediment sites in the Harbor Island area that require remediation. Successful cleanups have already been completed at the Todd Shipyard facility and another Lockheed shipyard. At these sites, 330,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediments were dredged and removed from the sites, 7800 pilings were removed, and over 5 acres of fish-friendly inter-tidal habitat were created. Sediment cleanup projects like these are a significant part of the EPA’s continuing efforts to the remove toxins from Puget Sound.
In addition to information about Duwamish cleanups, plus the boating and kayaking we mentioned, today’s festival also offered information on everything from “clean car washes” to keeping pollutants away from storm drains to kids’ activities, including a bouncer — sporting the face of, of course, aquatic cartoon star SpongeBob SquarePants. Then as we left the park after browsing the booths, steel drummer Stanley Alleyne launched into a tune that seemed to fit: “Let Your Love Flow.”
Based on this report and the comments that followed, Steve made the map you see above and asked us to share it – it’s open to collaboration (if it happened to you, go here and add your location). Unfortunately, he has extra impetus to see these guys get caught, as he wrote:
I decided to map out the locations of casings and thefts as suggested by the poster “Jana.” In the middle of typing a reply to the post, inviting Jana and other WSB’ers to view the Google map I created, I received a call from home to let me know that we had been hit (Thursday night).
If you aren’t familiar with how to use Google Maps, here’s the user guide. Meantime, we’re sorry to hear about Steve getting ripped off, but grateful for his generosity in making and sharing the map!
It’s been three months since we took that photo on the first ’08 day of operations at Colman Pool in Lincoln Park … and now, a note from Alison wisely advises us it’s time to remind you that Colman Pool is going into its last full week of the summer. Monday 9/1 (Labor Day) is its last weekday of the year; after that, it’ll be open for one “post-season” weekend 9/6-9/7, and then the plexiglass gets boarded up again till May 2009. So soon! Remember, this also means about two months with no city-run swimming facilities open in West Seattle, since Southwest Pool‘s renovations are now expected to last into late October, with 11/1 the target reopening date (latest WSB update here). (The West Seattle YMCA [WSB sponsor] and Allstar Fitness both have pools, however.) One more Seattle Parks and Recreation-related note — if you can’t resist thinking holidays already, the fall “combined brochure” for all West Seattle community centers (plus South Park) is online and it’s even got the dates for the Christmas ship (12/13-12/14).
West Seattle’s biggest community cleanup in a long time is exactly three weeks from today, and if you’re not already signed up, there’s still room for you to prepare to pitch in. We’ve been telling you about this — targeting the “gateway” area at the Fauntleroy end of The Bridge, from Walking on Logs to 35th/Fauntleroy — since the date was set in early June; today, we have the latest information from organizer Nancy Driver of the Fairmount Community Association:
First of all, thanks to the many volunteers who e-mailed since the last update and signed up for the cleanup – the community response has been great so far. Mars Hill Church (West Seattle campus) has joined us as a co-sponsor – they will be recruiting more volunteers, distributing flyers and assisting with other organizational tasks – we are glad to have their help. Dixie Dokken, a former Executive Director of the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce, is now helping us with fundraising, as are Catherine Barker (also recruiting volunteers) and Sharonn Meeks (Fairmount Community Association). We are very glad to have their help because we have a long way to go to pull together all the money to cover the tree work that needs to be done.
We’ve been asked about who will make the decisions on the tree work and who decides which shrubbery might be removed. The cleanup area is a public right-of-way and SDOT (Urban Forestry) has the say so on whether any trees or shrubs are removed. SDOT requires that the tree company be a licensed, certified arborist and will supervise the company that does the tree work.
We are looking for four to five groups and/or businesses that are willing to “adopt†a portion of the clean up area so that it can be maintained in the future. It would be similar to commitment under the “Adopt-A-Street†program. If you are a member of a group or work for a business that might be interested in making this commitment to the community, please contact me at ndriver@quidnunc.net or Stan Lock at Stan.Lock@Seattle.gov
We’ll have another update for everyone next Saturday with all the details about where to meet for the cleanup and details on when and how to check in. Thanks again to everyone in the community who is supporting this effort.
Nancy/Fairmount Community Association
To see the latest version of the official flyer for the September 13th cleanup, click here.
Alki resident Steve Sox is getting the word out about the bike he lost despite a lock, explaining in his e-mail to WSB: “While I am interested in recovery, but don’t have much hope, I am also interested in alerting people to the danger of trusting your expensive bikes to bike rack locks on your vehicles.” Here’s his alert:
My mountain bike was taken from the locked rack on top of my car Thursday night/Friday morning near Alki Beach. They did NOT get the front wheel. So be advised that if you see bike as described below with no front wheel or a mis-matched wheel set that it might well be stolen.
I can positively identify the bike beyond the serial number.
If anyone happens to see the bike for sale at a yard sale, pawn shop, where ever, I would appreciate a phone call. My cellphone number is 206-719-2158.
Gary Fisher Sugar 2+ Full Suspension Mountain Bike
Colors: Black w/ grey and silver
Fox front and rear shocks
Cateye computer
No front wheel or a mis-matched wheel set.Yes, I will offer a reward for information leading to the return of the bike.
Thanks, and please take a lesson from my stupidity. Do not overly trust bike rack locks to protect your property.
This morning’s Great Cross-Sound Race, 7-plus miles round trip from Alki, ended with a three-peat for Evan Jacobs (shown above close to shore post-race): He also finished first last year, solo, and finished first in 2006 with a partner. One thing very different this year compared to a year ago — the weather (as you can see in the photos from our coverage last year) — brilliant sunshine this time around. Full results will eventually be posted on the Sound Rowers website.
That’s the trailer from “Galaxy Quest,” the sci-fi spoof that’s closing out this summer’s West Seattle Movies on the Wall series of Sidewalk Cinema presentations on the big screen next to Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor). The weather looks great tonight; as usual, the show starts at dusk (probably 8:30-ish), and it’s free (the entire six-movie series is brought to you courtesy of West Seattle business sponsors including WSB) — but you’re encouraged to bring nonperishable food for the West Seattle Food Bank, which is also the beneficiary of concessions presented by West Seattle Christian Church. Bring a few $ for fundraising raffle tickets, too – there’ve been cool raffle prizes every single show we’ve been to (we only missed one; see you there tonight!).
We originally posted this at White Center Now, where we’re the news-coverage part of the contributor team, but in case you didn’t see it there, we’re mentioning it here during weekend nursery-going time: Village Green Perennial Nursery (WSB sponsor) proprietor Vera Johnson‘s husband Bill Curtin is back from his latest Alaska fishing trip, and part of the catch is on sale at Village Green. Here’s the full story (with pic of a humongous halibut).
That’s Steve Rice and Big Squeezy, in the last of four outdoor summer concerts at Providence Mount St. Vincent (WSB sponsor) last night. As was the case with the preceding three concerts, this one drew an all-ages crowd, from young-at-heart Mount residents, to young-in-chronology visitors like these:
Thanks to Karen Berge for sharing that photo (and others from the earlier concerts). We’re already looking forward to next year; meantime, if you’re looking for more music – we also shot video last night for White Center Now at the Cafe Rozella (here) and Full Tilt (here) shows – and there’s more music at Full Tilt tonight (more here).
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