Bellevue Battles Nature

PROBABLY NOT BELLEVUE

Long ago in internet terms Coal Creek Park belonged to King County. That was before King County was named after MLK. It used to be named after the Vice-President in the Franklin Pierce Administration to curry favor with DC. Pierce County was named after Hawkeye, ironically.

Then in a wave of political correctness they renamed the county after Martin Luther King. Maps could remain the same but all the stationary and business cards had to be changed to subsidize Office Depot or somebody.

Here's a Trail in Coal Creek Park

It all seemed quite reasonable and everyone was happy. Coal Creek Park has several hiking trails and millions of old deciduous trees that are falling to the ground due to natural processes. The longer lived evergreen trees could be seen growing up between all this downed wood. In 100 years it will be an evergreen park.

It turns out there was another problem with Coal Creek. The name is a big hint. A few years ago the county was sued over the coal residue that was still seeping out of the ground and allegedly polluting the creek. King County didn’t have the resources to clean up the creek because it was spending all its money on new stationary.

Creek

The county whined to the judge and here’s the resolution that cracks me up: The judge awarded custody of the park to Bellevue and then ordered Bellevue to clean up the pollution! Is the American legal system great or what?

Bellevue thought it was getting a new park and paid no attention to the cleanup requirement. The judge could have given it to Newcastle, except the judge probably lives there. Newcastle celebrated with all-night fireworks because it dodged that pile of warts.

See, the thing is, Coal Creek runs between Bellevue and Newcastle. It could have gone either way. For one thing part of the seepage probably comes from the fact that a construction landfill and golf course sit above many of the old coal mines. And they’re in Newcastle.

A few years have gone by. Here we are living in Martin Luther King County and Bellevue has been aging gracefully and learning to live with its new park. They just can’t figure out how to get light rail into downtown.

This week Bellevue announced that it is nearing completion of the Coal Creek cleanup project. The purpose of the project is to “reduce erosion and sedimentation, reduce flooding, improve water quality, and enhance fish habitat.” Pretty much my creed.

The last step to be done this summer is to build a sediment pond. Now I have to get in there and do some hikes to see what they did.

And in another park related convolution Bellevue has hired four separate contractors to study various aspects of the light rail route from I-90 into the south end of downtown. That means dealing with Bellefields.

Bellefields is a large natural area of wetlands that used to be under water until 100 or so years ago. When Lake Washington was lowered by the Ship Canal project this area of lake bottom emerged. Mercer Slough runs through it now. It collects runoff and drains into Lake Washington.

That area is also called the Mercer Slough Nature Park. The light rail project is called East Link. Everything has to have a name. Surrey Downs is the name of a neighborhood right south of the downtown business district in Bellevue. They have raised Mt. St. Helens over the idea of running light rail next to their neighborhood.

Plants in Spring

Surrey Downs residents have been practicing for many years. It’s a collection of nice single family homes and the city would love to bulldoze the whole place and allow big tax paying office buildings. So Surrey Downs folks have a lot of experience fighting City Hall so to speak.

In this battle they have the attention of everyone involved. Thus an alternative route was proposed that would run the light rail on the other side of the Bellefields Mercer Slough Nature Park area. This seemed like a decent way to avoid a Surrey Downs melt down. Well, guess what? The folks on the other side of Bellefields don’t want it either.

Small Classic Car Collection

Then somebody got the bright idea to run elevated diagonally across Bellefields to avoid both neighborhoods. But wait! It’s a wetland. You can’t do that. The Audubon Society had a cow. The result is there are three unacceptable alternatives to get light rail from I-90 into downtown Bellevue.

So Bellevue hired four consultants to figure out the best way. Why not five? That way you could have a tie breaker. Oh, why not one? Me. For a few hundred thousand I would be more than happy to solve the whole thing. These guys need some innovative thinking for once. I like cable stay bridges.

Just remember when all the dust settles and Mercer Slough Nature Park is in its pristine Coal Creek Park like natural state and a world class cable stay bridge is carrying commuter trains high above Surrey Downs into Bellevue THAT WAS MY IDEA.

The Wet Season in Coal Creek Park

Al