To: Jon Wagner, Development Review Services
From: Rosemere Neighborhood Association
Re: Application: Burnt Bridge Creek Greenway PRJ2003-01122 which includes the following:
ARC2003-00025, CON2003-00087, ENG2003-00164, FLP2003-00003, GEO2003-00002, GRD2003-00088, PSR2003-00044, SEP2003-00058, SHL2003-00005, TRE2003-00195 and WET2003-00006
These comments on the project have been sent prior to the cutoff date of Monday, February 9, 2004, and are to be incorporated into the staff report.
This correspondence serves as written notice that the officers and board of the Rosemere Neighborhood Association oppose this proposed project, and as outlined herein, believe that the project will create probable significant adverse environmental impacts.
The Burnt Bridge Creek Plan that is currently proposed ($10-12 million for trails, wetland banking, a parking lot and a restroom facility) will not adequately mitigate contamination of the Creek, or Vancouver Lake (a contiguous water body that is adversely impacted by the Creek).
Sewer pipes currently run within Burnt Bridge Creek. Sewer effluent does escape from these sewer pipes because they are constructed without solid seals at pipe junctions. Sewer effluent can (and does) seep through bell-shaped seals at various points along the concrete sewer runs. Furthermore, anaerobic bacteria within such systems can actually eat away at concrete pipes, causing even more sewer waste to escape into the creek water as the pipes degrade.
These outmoded sewer pipes are the same kind that were in place in London, England between 200 and 300 years ago. It is now against the law to use bell-shaped unsealed junctions in sewer systems when they are located within running streams. It is virtually impossible to mitigate the contamination of Burnt Bridge Creek and Vancouver Lake until all such sewer pipes are removed. These leaking pipes are currently violating the Clean Water Act.
New technology has developed sewer pipes that are made of flexible plastic that can be permanently sealed and run under pressure to prevent leakage. Such pressurized pipes can also increase sewer efficiency by transporting greater sewage volume through a smaller pipe, all at less cost. But the old concrete sewer pipes must be removed from the creek flow first. The proposed Burnt Bridge Creek Plan does not address any of these issues. The wetbank mitigations, as proposed, will be completely ineffective because the entire watershed is not being overviewed, and there is no watershed management plan in place that is based on the best management practices or best known science. These wetbank plantings will be a waste of time and money.
Furthermore, according to the approved 208 plan for the EPA Clean Lake Award that was used to clean up Vancouver Lake in the early 1980′s, one of the requirements of this $8.5 million dollar grant award was for the City was to establish a watershed management plan for Burnt Bridge Creek and the City was to implement this plan to clean up the creek in order to avoid further contamination of Vancouver Lake. Obviously, these many years later, this watershed management plan was never adopted, and the required steps were not taken to clean up and maintain the creek. The proposed Burnt Bridge Creek trail project does not satisfy the requirements of the approved 208 plan.
The East side sanitary sewer treatment facility suffered a blowout in 2002, and millions of gallons of treated sewage ended up in the surrounding wetlands. Victor Ehrlich bulldozed the area (without erosion control) to repair the damage to the sewer facilities there, and in the process the affected wetland suffered great losses of trees and was destroyed. The Department of Ecology stepped in and required the City to mitigate and restore this wetland area. I believe that there is a ratio that requires 2 acres to be restored for every one that is ruined. The point is that this east side problem resulted in a requirement for the City to restore between 2 and 3 acres of land. This mitigation work is supposed to be on the Columbia River where the damage occurred, not on Burnt Bridge Creek.
Furthermore, the Army Corps of Engineers has to approve all wetland banking mitigation projects. The Corps has only approved two other wetland banking projects in the state of Washington, and both of those projects were restricted wherein they were located in the same wetland where the original damage took place. The precedent that is set through the establishment of a wetland banking system will contribute to further degradation of the Burnt Bridge Creek watershed. It will increase creek flow, increase turbidity, and increase nutrient loading of the stream, all negative environmental impacts. Wetland banking is not a good idea. The Army Corps of Engineers even considers wetland banking to be a solution of last resort. There are other options that will work far better. The proposed Burnt Bridge Creek plan does not satisfy the Department of Ecology’s restoration requirement of the East Side Sewer Blowout. It is not appropriate to cut and paste mitigation efforts from one wetland to another. That means the original wetland is left without the required mitigation.
The proposed Burnt Bridge Creek trails, restrooms, bridges and parking lots are have nothing to do with mitigation efforts of the creek itself. They are for recreational use only, or public access, and they will all contribute to additional contaminated stormwater runoff issues. Therefore, these elements will have a significant negative impact on the environment. They will only make the contamiant level in Burnt Bridge Creek worse.
What sense does it make to encourage increased public access to water that is not safe for human contact? According to the Department of Ecology, Burnt Bridge Creek and Vancouver Lake are both listed as category 5 contaminated waterbodies, and they are also on the 303(d) list. The creek does not meet water quality standards for temperature, fecal coliform, dissolved oxygen, Ph, or phosphorus. (Possible Total Maximum Daily Load [TMDL] studies of the creek will also include Vancouver Lake as well.) High levels of bacteria, parasites, and pathogens in the water can be attributed the presence of human waste (septic effluent) from failed septic tanks that have leached into the creek flow. Direct human contact with this water can cause immune suppressed disease, progressed neurological complications, enterovirus infections, malignancies, and other serious ailments caused by poor sanitation. Industrial pollutants and contaminated stormwater runoff can also lead to serious adverse health effects. It seems priorities listed in this proposal are out of whack, and they should be rethought to address the contamination first before such public access improvements are made, not the other way around. This is common sense.
How in the world was $10-12 million set aside for this proposed cosmetic project when there are many areas that need sewers to preserve the public health and the environment? Again, it is a question of priorities. As proposed, it appears that the proposed application is nothing short of a marketing ploy, a poor attempt to put clean clothes on a dirty body to make it appear that it is neat and clean, when in fact it is not the “green jewel” of Vancouver, as the City purports it to be. Building these trails without first addressing the contamination will have a significant impact on the environment and the public’s health.
City Staff is to quick to divert concern from the water contamination as noted, claiming that the SKIP program (septic abatement incentive program) adequately addresses the contaminant concerns. Staff reports that 200 septic abatements have been completed. However, this is a mere drop in the bucket when dealing with about 9000 septic tanks in the Burnt Bridge Creek Basin alone. Many of these 200 conversions may not even be in the Burnt Bridge Creek basin — they could have been in the Heights or on the east side. Some people are not even aware they are on a septic tank system, and they find out when it malfunctions and blows raw sewage all over. This is partly due to the fact that septic penalty fees are the exact same price as sewer service fees, and also due to the fact that septic inspection records are not up-to-date. The EPA and Department of Ecology could not obtain accurate septic inspection certificates that were requested from the County Health Department last summer.
The City’s plan for septic abatement in 1992 was to have more than 700 conversions completed within 11 years. The goal was far short of being achieved. The money to help fund these conversions was supposed to come from Septic Penalty Fees and the Burnt Bridge Creek Utility. What happened to all the rest of this money if only 200 conversions have been done to this point, all on the SKIP program? Furthermore, what happens for low income neighborhoods where residents cannot afford the conversion costs, especially in areas where there are no sewer mains to connect to? It does not appear that many people (including absentee landlords) are readily aware of the need for septic inspection, maintenance, and abatement when there are septic malfunctions or damage. Clearly, there need to be more in depth capital improvement plans developed to include installation of sewers and conversions from septic systems, especially for those areas closest to Burnt Bridge Creek.
Proposed improvement plans for the lettuce fields as outlined in the application for the Burnt Bridge Creek project will create additional adverse environmental issues. One of these fields, the Ono field, has been earmarked for the development of a strip mall in a separate development permit application. I understand the project has already been through Development Review Services, and it is already vested. The project has been designed with the access road and parking lots on the waterward side of the parcel. This will greatly increase contaminated runoff outfall directly into the flood plain of the creek. The lettuce fields, at present, cannot sufficiently handle the stormwater runoff from the Van Mall area (they are currently being used for this purpose). There is insufficient filtering going on there, and contaminated stormwater is entering a creek as a result. Developing a strip mall is a far cry from enhancing and enlarging the bio-swale to help alleviate this stormwater runoff problem. The lettuce fields should remain undeveloped in order to contend with the vast amount of stormwater runoff created by the impervious surfaces from the Van Mall area.
City Staff has explained that funding for this proposed project has been generated by the Stormwater Enterprise Fund (predated by the Burnt Bridge Creek Utility Fund). The creation of trails, parking lots, and restroom facilities have absolutely nothing to do with stormwater improvements. This is an inappropriate use of these funds. There are other discrepancies with the Stormwater Enterprise funds. The City is spending $5000 a year to redo the compost pillows that are in an underground vault for the Marshall Center. Why is the stormwater fund being used to fund basic maintenance on a city building, especially when this is not happening with any other city building to my knowledge? The stormwater enterprise fund is also being used for transportation improvements. The 18th street widening in the Burton area, and the ponds associated with that project, as well as the engineers that were doing transportation related work for these projects were all charged to this same stormwater enterprise fund. This fund should not be used for transportation improvement projects. That should come out of the transportation budget. Also, why were full-time engineers being paid out of this fund when there are currently no capital stormwater projects underway or even being designed at this time? This stormwater enterprise fund is clearly a slush fund, and this is not an appropriate use for taxpayer dollars. The recent audit by the Attorney General’s Office showed payroll irregularities in the public works department, and the City had to make corrections and pay the money back. Clearly, the stormwater enterprise fund is being misused.
There are all kinds legitimate stormwater projects that are needed that should be paid for by the stormwater enterprise fund instead of the proposed project in this application. One such project could be dye testing to determine where septic waste is leaking into the storm drains and then being carried directly into Burnt Bridge Creek. This has been substantiated by laboratory water quality tests as well as Victor Ehrlich’s Microbial Source Tracking Study through the University of Washington (October, 1999). This study, and the technical support to conduct this study, cost the taxpayers $176,302 (according to various approved agreements between the City and the Health District) but this information is not being adequately used as a reference for watershed management.
The publishing date of this Microbial Source Tracking Study is very important. The City ceased conducting water quality studies after it received the results of this Microbial Source Tracking study in October of 1999. Once it was turned over to the City, the report was removed from both the City and County Health Deapartment Archives, and the information was never given to the public. All work on Burnt Bridge Creek suddenly stopped. The Rosemere Neighborhood Association discovered a copy of the missing report last summer in the estate of J. Milton Brown, a local union representative and environmental steward.
The absence of current water quality data on Burnt Bridge Creek has greatly hampered the TMDL process on this creek through the Department of Ecology. The lack of data on Burnt Bridge Creek causes the assessment of the creek (and subsequently Vancouver Lake) to be based on historical data rather than current data, and therefore, increases in nutrient loading that could have occurred over the past five years are not indicated. Had the City continued with the water quality monitoring, as it should have, the TMDL assessment could more easily be awarded.
The city has failed to supply the necessary water monitoring test results to ensure that Burnt Bridge Creek is added to the TMDL list. When the Department of Ecology places a stream on the TMDL list, this affords the opportunity for the the stream to receive a much needed clean-up plan, and some of the available funding to achieve this plan. The question remains, why did the City stop water quality monitoring on the creek? Was it to prevent having to help pay for clean up costs when the study revealed that human waste from failed septic tanks was a major cause of contamination to the creek? Human related contamination is increasing over time, and it has surpassed all of the individual wildlife or domestic animal contamination. The septic tank monitoring and abatement plans should have been stepped up, based upon the recommendations of this Microbial Source Tracking Report.
The proposed plans outlined in the City’s Burnt Bridge Creek trail project have not been adequately reviewed in order to ensure that the plans would support clean-up efforts by the Department of Ecology and the Army Corps of Engineers following the TMDL process. Resulting from the City’s negligence in its failure to pursue the TMDL process for a stream under its own jurisdiction, environmental advocates have been forced to seek out the TMDL process independently for Burnt Bridge Creek and Vancouver Lake. Why are volunteer advocates having to take the lead in this environmental issue rather than the responsible municipal authorities? The city is obviously not doing its job, as would be required under a properly functioning environmental policy and required conformance with water quality standards.
The Rosemere Neighborhood Association has identified a particularly problematic stormdrain in Rosemere where waste from failed septic tanks is leaking into Burnt Bridge Creek. This too is a violation of the Clean Water Act. Water quality tests indicate 2400 E.coli per 100 mls where this stormdrain outfalls. The maximum allowed by water quality standards is only 126 E.coli per 100 mls. We have tried for the last nine months to get someone to look at this problem, but so far, no one has taken up the task, even though it has been clearly pointed out. This kind of problem happens elsewhere in Burnt Bridge Creek, as evidenced by E.coli (attributed to human waste from septic effluent) within the creek. Some testing sites downstream in Burnt Bridge Creek show a 20% concentration of human related E.coli.
These issues should be settled in the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Wastewater permit process. The information contained within this correspondence has been forwarded to the Department of Ecology for inclusion in the next NPDES permit cycle. It will also be sent to the Army Corps of Engineers so they can evaluate the wetland banking that is proposed.
