ROXHILL BOG: Resuming the struggle to save a 10,000-year-old ecosystem

| Environment | West Seattle news | West Seattle parks | Westwood

(WSB photo, April 2019)

Just before the pandemic wiped most other concerns off the map for a long time, in February of last year, a “stakeholders meeting” shone the spotlight on endangered Roxhill Bog (part of Roxhill Park). Now the struggle to save it is back on the front burner, and another community meeting is planned. Here’s the announcement/update from the Duwamish Alive Coalition:

The second public meeting for the community led restoration of Roxhill Bog will be held online November 17th from 6:30 to 8:00 pm, to provide an update on the hydrology study of why the wetland has been drying out and possible solutions along with the results of the community survey that was conducted. The online link to the meeting can be accessed by registering through DNDA.org or Duwamishalive.org

Roxhill Bog is one of the last peat wetlands of the historical 26 within Seattle, dating back 10,000 years and home to a unique ecosystem of plants and animals. It’s also the headwaters of Longfellow Creek and an important community asset where the community can experience and learn about nature. Over the last couple decades, it has been drying out, which has significantly degraded its ecosystem – with increased invasive plants, loss of wildlife, and unsuitable usage of the area creating safety concerns.

Community members, alarmed about the loss of this community treasure, created a collaborative partnership with the Delridge Neighborhood Development Association, Duwamish Alive Coalition, Roxhill Champions, and American Rivers to help restore the bog wetland. With help from Seattle Councilmember Lisa Herbold and King County Councilmember Joe McDermott. the partnership was able to acquire funding for the hydrology and soil studies and the community survey, which received over 260 responses, and restoration design.

The November 17th public meeting will review the results of the studies, and community survey and seek input on the restoration design. This is an important opportunity for the community to provide comments about the project and their hopes for the wetlands’ future.

For backstory, see our report on last year’s meeting. There’s also a lot of background on this webpqge assembled by the now-dormant Westwood-Roxhill-Arbor Heights Community Council.

sgs November 5, 2021 (7:12 pm)

THIS: “Roxhill Bog is one of the last peat wetlands of the historical 26 within
Seattle, dating back 10,000 years and home to a unique ecosystem of
plants and animals.”Peat wetlands so precious; hoping for a success story here thanks to the efforts of many.

AmandaK November 5, 2021 (8:55 pm)

Love to see this happening!

Migratory Bird November 5, 2021 (9:20 pm)

Wetlands are amazing and beautiful. The following link is the biggest wetland restoration project in the US: https://scc.ca.gov/napa-sonoma-marsh-restoration-group. I have heard that wetland restoration is an very young science and that the organization I linked is making new discoveries on best-practice frequently. They’ve been at it for over 10 years, and from my understanding, they’ve made and learned from numerous errors in those 10 years. There are very few established methods of wetland restoration.I hope this project gets off of the ground. I emailed this to the DNDA people (the duwasmish website is down), but I thought I would share it here too in case anyone who reads these comments is involved. Wetlands are amazing habitats.

anonyme November 6, 2021 (6:25 am)

This bog encompasses Westwood Village and Daystar Retirement Village, which were built on top of it. The current problems coincided with the construction of the bus layover area. Much as I’d love to see the bog successfully restored, there will be some significant issues to overcome – including human ones.