Just back from a media-geared boat tour along the South Park stretch of the Duwamish River with BJ Cummings of the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, immediately after her group released its report on a year-in-the-making community-created vision of the Duwamish’s future. The “vision” – she was careful to caution, it’s a vision, not yet a plan – covers the West Seattle side of the Duwamish Valley as well, and we have maps, drawings, and video to show you; we’ll be adding them to this report over the next hour-plus (the map is available online now, as a 29MB zip file or as a smaller, zoomable image). This is all coming out now as the EPA works on the next stage of the cleanup of the waterway that’s so polluted, it’s a Superfund site. But there’s hope for its future, and in fact, perhaps this was a good omen for the tour: A California sea lion surfaced alongside the boat; Cummings said recent sea lion sightings on that section of the river are the first in a long time, though no one’s sure why they’ve come back. A water-taxi route along the river, from the foot of the West Seattle Bridge southward, and aerial gondolas (like the relatively new tram in Portland), are part of the plan, which you can inspect firsthand during an event at the Duwamish Tribe‘s new Longhouse this afternoon, 4-6 pm. 1:47 PM UPDATE: Maybe a water taxi like this? Here’s the one used for this morning’s tour, with Captain Howie Dickerman at the helm:
He does his biggest business in dive charters. And here’s the clip from our second pass under the South Park Bridge (which needs to be replaced, and now federal stimulus money is the best hope) – listen to the eerie sound of traffic going over, as we pass under:
Click ahead to see Cummings explain what the report is for, and describe its toplines (as we continue to add to this story):
The news conference that preceded the boat tour also featured city, county, federal, and Port of Seattle officials – that’s Port Commissioner John Creighton in the foreground with Cummings, and you likely recognize City Council President Richard Conlin off to the side:
Conlin said he thought it especially fortuitous that this report was coming so close on the heels of the dedication of the long-awaited longhouse just a few miles away (WSB video coverage here). Meantime, back to those envisioned aerial gondolas – this section of the “transportation” portion of the vision map shows a horizontal line marked with diamonds in two spots toward the bottom, over Highland Park and again over Beacon Hill – those are suggested as possible future gondola routes:
Still more to come. 4:51 PM UPDATE: Here’s one of the highlighted spots from the tour – “Slip 4,” across the street from Gateway South Park, an area envisioned for a water-taxi crossing, where neighbors already have worked to reclaim the shoreline:
The report itself is 143 pages so we’re still trying to figure out if we can upload it here somehow. Meanwhile, if you’d like to take a boat tour with DRCC, they’ve got two opportunities coming up March 14th; check out the sidebar information here. ADDED 10:29 PM: Here’s the full report. And one more clip, featuring a couple more sites – and sights – along the way, including the aforementioned sea lion toward the end:
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