Seattle Parks and Recreation 2012 Opportunity Fund Application

Project Narrative: Greenwood Bog Pocket Park

Within the south basin of the Piper’s Creek Watershed between Holman Road and NW 85th St is where the Holy Grail of improved

water quality in Piper’s Creek lies.

Many projects have been studied, planned and implemented in the

watershed areas east of Piper’s Creek including The Broadview Green Grid and S.E.A. Streets, but still the water quality in the creek

has not improved. The relatively urbanized area south of the creek between Greenwood Ave NW and 8th Ave NW is where one of North

America’s biggest peat bogs is located. It’s a glacially carved

diagonal swath of a depression which filled with moss and vegetation that later became peat over geological eons.

That peat area – essentially a giant sponge of a formation that slows

groundwater flows to the creek and acts as an essential summer

source of water for the creek, was considered at best an inconvenience and at worst a health hazard until eventually in the

70s the groundwater table in the basin was mechanically lowered by a Forward Thrust-funded project called North Greenwood West. The effects of lowering the groundwater so as to be “invisible” below the

surface, continues to substantially alter and degrade the natural systems functioning of the bog by permanently dewatering essential groundwater that should be flowing through the peat formation to the

creek, but which is instead intercepted, piped and dumped in Carkeek Park at the smelly outfall that we

have come to call “The Twin Pipes”. Additionally, many residences + businesses in the environs permanently and constantly dewater which exacerbates the flow problem and causes settlement and

damage of public and private property. Repair of the bog functioning is within our grasp in the long term if we commit to the incremental steps to get us there.

Greenwood Headwaters Conservancy efforts by Greening Greenwood has been evolving over the last decade. Progress to-date includes legislative remapping of the area by DPD as a Peat Settlement Prone

area which cleared the way for reducing permanent dewatering practices as new buildings go up in the area. That leaves more groundwater to flow through the bog to the creek and keeps it out of “The Twin

Pipes”. From an open space and planning perspective, strategies for making progress to “re-bog the

bog” were outlined at Open Space 2100, a citywide open space visioning charette held in 2004. Those strategies included a parcel by parcel restoration of natural systems functioning that when aggregated

will make significant improvement in restoring the bog ecology and managing storm – all good things for the creek.

As an initiating gestures to “Re-bog the Bog”, a contract rezone was completed to get a piece of open

space for future public ownership in a trade for an upzone of a nearby Greenwood Shopping Center

parcel from Neighborhood Commercial 40 Feet to Neighborhood Commercial 65 Feet -65at the corner of 1st Ave NW and NW 87th between Fred Meyer, The Sedges and Greenwood Towers. Pegged as a place

to demonstrate what we can all be doing to repair the ecology in the environs and manage stormwater. We created a future vision of it being a place for restoration, conservancy and also communication to the

community of the Greenwood Peat Bog ecology, the importance of green stormwater infrastructure to

manage stormwater and how people can get on board on their own property and that of the community by making positive contributions to make improvements.

A number of years ago, in anticipation of the future park development Greenwood Shopping Center

"roughed-in" the bones of the plan when they were developing The Sedges, a mixed use development just south of the site. All of the water not immediately absorbed below the permeable asphalt parking lot

at the Sedges was planned to drain to an infiltration pond on this site. Additionally a second pond was

dug which illustrates the seasonal groundwater table (at time just below the surface) and also works for overflow of the first pond.

Well, what we found is that if you build it (or even rough it in) they will come. There is a Blue Heron

(photo above) frequenting the site who munches on yellow perch there and a family of ducks. Cattails,

sedges, rush and many more bog plants have found their way there as well.

What we need now and what we are proposing to do with funding from Parks Opportunity Fund money or KCD money or both is to take the next step and go beyond making this just a great drainage

demonstration by making it a place that welcomes and invites humans so that they can enjoy the bog environment, its history and its future. A place where people can see and talk about the role they can

each play. As well through this process, we can move this property into public ownership which is ready

to happen now for no cost because of the contract rezone some years ago.

The idea is to continue developing the site to its full interpretive potential so people can get in there for some up close habitat visitation (a boardwalk or something like that) and focus on plantings and some

other light improvements to the habitat and create interpretive opportunities that we can spread

throughout the Greenwood Basin area.

We would like to collaborate with Seattle Public Utilities in this process and develop a shared maintenance agreement between Parks, SPU, Greening Greenwood and Greenwood Shopping Cener Inc.

once the park is built. The next step to get to that point, is to submit for this cycle of the Seattle Parks Opportunity Fund, which is part of the Parks levy we passed in 2008.

An important part of that application is 2 support letters. I am asking Greenwood Community Council and CWCAP (Carkeek Watershed Community Action Project) to please write letters of support for this

application. I would appreciate it if you send it to me electronically by this Friday, September 15, 2012.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Kate Martin

kate@katemartindesign.com 206-579-3703