Parks Board to be briefed on Lowman Beach sewer-overflow project

| Environment | West Seattle news | West Seattle parks

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.)

Duckitude June 2, 2010 (9:24 pm)

Hi, and thanks for keeping this on the radar screen. Actually, however, the briefing will be an opportunity to make sure the Board knows that altering just about anything about Lowman Beach Park is unacceptable, period. Yes, the underground diesel electrical generator will still need to go in somewhere (which it had been decided it would go under the sidewalk and the street, prior to the recent revelations about CSO “alternatives”).
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What is happening so far, which may be a good sign, and then again, may just be a method for “placating” the upset, is that EnviroIssues has been hired to research and make recommendations for a genuine stakeholders group. Unfortunately, it still smacks of the wrong approach, since they don’t want to “mess” with the plans for the Barton Pump station… that is, the stakeholders group would be narrow, not wide, not “substantially representing the wider West Seattle community” which, as everyone seems to know, but the Fauntleroy Community Association, has a stake in what sloshes into the Sound from Barton clear to Jack Block Park.
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Many of those interviewed by EnviroIssues so far have objected to such a narrow approach to a genuine stakeholders group. It is unfortunate, for many reasons, which I would be happy to note if needed, that the two major community associations the FCA and MOCA see this as separate projects and issues, when, in fact, they are intimately related.
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It is a West Seattle issue, not just an FCA or MOCA issue. Large numbers of WS folks use the Sound in places affected by what takes place at both Barton and Murray pump stations…
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Stay tuned, but don’t expect and don’t even think that the Murray CSO tank is going into the Lowman Beach area. It won’t happen for so many reasons that it would take way too much bandwidth to detail right now.

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