The City of Edmonds announced Monday it has received a $157,331 grant from the State of Washington Recreation and Conservation office’s Salmon Recovery Funding Board to continue work on the Willow Creek “daylighting” project.
According to the city, the grant is part of $18 million given to organizations around the state for projects that restore and protect salmon habitat.
The city will use this grant along with city funds to prepare a preliminary design and permit applications for a daylighted channel from Edmonds Marsh, under BNSF railroad tracks, and across Marina Beach to Puget Sound. Willow Creek currently flows through a system of buried pipes and structures built in the 1960s when the Edmonds Marina was developed. The overall goal is restoration of Edmonds Marsh, which will benefit juvenile Chinook salmon.
Edmonds Marsh is a 32-acre remnant of a historical, more-than -00-acre estuary and marsh complex located a short distance from Edmonds’ downtown core. The creek will be used by Chinook salmon, which are listed as threatened with the risk of extinction under the federal Endangered Species Act. The City of Edmonds will contribute at least $36,160 for this phase of the project.
You can find more information about the grant program here.
This is kind of exciting. I always wondered what the pipe was about!
Dear readers and citizens of Edmonds,
Please note that the currently illustrated and design-intended passage of the Creek under the railroad tracks [green line on the ‘map’] would be totally obviated by design and construction of an envisioned ‘train trench’ along the waterfront.
Very good point. Phil. It would be extremely challenging and likely not possible to have those two projects work together. To clarify, however, the green line on the map shows the current extent of the pipe system and not the proposed new ‘daylighted’ creek alignment. Get involved this spring in the Marina Beach Master Planning process (Parks Dept will be hosting several public meetings as part of the process) to see the creek alignment options identified and how our community can incorporate a new creek for salmon (and people) into a redesigned Marina Beach Park.
are you kidding that money and much more will be blown on studies, how much money has been spent on marsh studies. Get to work and open the creek. who gets all these funds. It will take Edmonds years to figure out how the money will be spent.
My understanding is that Tetra Tech, an engineering firm hired by the city for $10,000, did only the most cursory review to satisfy citizens pushing for an examination of all the possible solutions to increased train traffic. Tetra Tech made some assumptions to come up with a quick ballpark number; the establishment of the southern end of the trench south of the creek came from those assumptions. Assuming a slightly different grade in the trench than that used by Tetra Tech places the start of it a hundred or more feet north of the creek, theoretically not affecting that project.
Tetra Tech was not hired to look at “all the possible solutions to increased train traffic.” They evaluated only the idea of a train trench. The city is seeking funds from the state to do a thorough evaluation of all possible alternatives for eliminating the surface crossings of the train tracks at Dayton and Main streets.
The Marsh will never be cleaned up from the pollution of the Unocal Tank Farm remediation and the continuation of the 100 years of railroad drips that have polluted the soil under the railroad tracks, unless everyone works together to get a complete solution to Edmonds issues that also ends the inflow of pollutants from the train traffic to the Marsh. The Train Trench proposal is the only proposal ever offered that does it all and becomes practically invisible as well. We will spend the same or probably much more after the imminent double or triple tracking by BNSF on a ferry bridge, an emergency bridge, rebuilding the ferry dock to accommodate a bridge or tunnel, etc., etc., and the Marsh will never be cleaned up for salmon without the Train Trench, to say nothing of the rest of the quality of life in Edmonds. We need qualified competitive bid studies on the Trench, which were in the 2015 City Budget. BNSF has indicated that they have looked at the plan and are interested and want further study. A golden invitation to save Edmonds for the future — Will we do our part and have the vision and political will to put together the partnership?
What are the interests of those very few who oppose this, even now, contrary to their predictions, that we know that it is feasible and welcomed by BNSF? How many places get this chance and offer of cooperation instead of a flat “no” from the RR? How about working in the public’s, BNSF, WSF, WSDOT’s and Edmonds citizens’ financial and quality of life interest by solving the problem with one well studied and competitively bid solution that already has encouragement from the only place we will ever get help from the private sector! There is virtually no one, including the salmon, that will not benefit, or suffer if we don’t. The details of combining the daylighting have already been proposed in Tetra Tech’s preliminary study, and there are likely even better ways to combine the two with good engineering. I hope we have the quality of City Government that can get something of this great value done for all of us that care about Edmonds, instead of letting the opportunity slip away, which will actually cost us more public money in the years ahead to get negative value.
If anybody (WSDOT, BNSF, etc) was thinking of the “public’s quality of life interest” , we would not have mile long OPEN coal trains and highly volatile Bakken oil cars streaming through our town and waterfront right now. This is about the financial interest of these big corporations and not about the “public’s quality of life interest”…….This is business as usual for many corporate huge money making entities…….Nothing new here. ………you know something is wrong when talk starts about not letting something slip by, need to make a decision now, money will be saved……they are doing us a favor………..Read all the information out there about small municipalities just like ours, and you will see the consistant pattern……..History repeats itself…….Another very big money making Washington state corporation from the turn of the century comes to mind…….Let’s be in front of this, and not behind as some other towns and cities that do not have the money to fight these just for money entities. We need to have all of the answers and information from our government now…..otherwise, this is just going to continue to happen…….Environment and quality of life last. We are doing things with the values of past generations, not the value of the present and future generations……Don’t be fooled……Lessons learned…..This will affect all human beings for generations to come. There is a reason there are summits all over our world regarding the environment and how important this is for the futures generations.
And for those who say, baloney, WHAT IF you’re wrong?!…….quite a gamble
Chuck,
Could you please back up this claim “…to get a complete solution to Edmonds issues that also ends the inflow of pollutants from the train traffic to the Marsh.” It is my understanding that the railroad would still go over the tidal flow that is described as the daylight of willow creek.
When pollutants get dropped in said trench and sea water and rainwater is also added this water is not going to stay in said trench it will be pumped some place. Will it simply be added to puget sound as it is “rainwater.” This does not seem to be a complete solution but does make the problem more complex. If it is deemed as rainwater then it has the possibility of reentering the marsh. It is not like you are going to get any fluid just to disappear because you have a train trench.
To simply list this as fact, I believe, is to be disrespectful in this discussion and to the environment.
Also could you please explain what all the problems are that makes this the best solution.
Could you please list all the problems that are to be fixed with any solution, so that is very clear what we are fixing.
Please list all of them.
When we make the decision I want to make sure we are making the decision with clear values, in a helpful frame, and looking at creative alternatives.
I was shocked to find a salmon in my creek this November for the first time in 29 years. It was struggling, like all salmons do, to keep on going up hill beyond my area on 7th Ave South. I tried to”give it a helping hand” up stream, only to have it slip through the leaves (that I was clearing out of the stream) and fall backwards into the culvert that goes under the road on 7th Avenue. Culverts are a problem too I am sure, fortunately Edmonds has stricter rules now about allowing them.Are the salmon returning? I really do hope so! I suppose everything we do has a consequence for it’s predecessors.
I informed Fish & Wildlife of the event.
From everything I have read recently there is nothing short of a miracle and maybe 5,000 people standing on the tracks in Seattle that will stop what is coming on all the tracks from dirty, polluting business entities. Businesses that do not have regard for the environment and human beings. I would like to know how it is our government and Mayor (involved in transportation for quite some time) have done nothing until recently in regards to informing the people of all that is coming this way in regards to our environment. There is simply no way this information would not have been known by those in transportation in our state. All this has been known since 2012. I just read this morning that many of the municipalities that have banned fracking are being sued by these huge, corporate entities and many of the cities and towns do not have the big pockets that are equal to the corporations. This train has already left the station, and I believe this is known by many……well, except for the citizens
If Mr. Gold or our Mayor has direct information from BNSF, please step forward with the facts of what BNSF has told anybody. I think it is BNSF that needs to be making statements right now regarding their plans. Why waste precious tax dollars on any rail studies, trench studies, etc. when we have NOTHING concrete from BNSF regarding their rails and traffic on it.
Anything we can do to daylight the marsh and bring back the salmon is better than doing nothing. We made the mess and took away much of the marsh in the past, so the least we can do is at least try to restore some of our environment and correct the errors that some entities made in the past The same entities that ruined this marsh are the same entities that are still moving forward in many areas regardless of devastation to environments, and we cannot do anything about it without having the correct information.
There will be a presentation tonight regarding the Edmonds Marsh and where we are in the design phase and challenges. So, please tune in or come on down to City Hall.
The challenges regarding the “trench” will be reviewed under the alternatives analysis that is part of the CIP and funded in the Council’s budget allocation this year. One issue that I don’t recall ever being discussed was the weight and length of these coal trains and the power needed to handle the grade issues?
But for now, let’s be thankful that we continue the process of obtaining funding to design the very important waterway that will lead to salmon recovery and the restoration of that every important wildlife habitat.
Hope to see you tonight! Thank you Keeley, Jerry and all those that have worked on this process for many years now.