Little Swamp Creek

What If....

2012-01-18T10:10:00.000-08:00

Freedom of speech on the Internet must be protected.

....someone didn't like what I have to say?

Never-ending Frustration With the Impact of Traditional Building Practices on a Watershed

2012-01-04T19:10:00.000-08:00

Turbidity in Little Swamp Creek caused by stormwater runoff from a construction site upstream

It was certainly predictable. A development project with a stream running through it is cleared of at least a couple acres of trees. That area is essentially left as bare dirt just in time for the rainy season. Think it's going to have a negative impact on the stream? I think at this point that an elementary school student would correctly predict "Yes!", but how about the adults in charge?

The West Creek Village project on the west side of 80th here in Kenmore (Click here to view the West Creek Village plat map) has been in the system for several years. For the last couple of years the property was owned by a bank, until it was sold this summer. We realized something was actually happening with the property only when big equipment suddenly started working there. Hundreds of loads of dirt were stockpiled in a HUGE pile on the lot (see my 10/23/2011 post about that here) . We were told that they were stockpiling the dirt to use when work started in the spring. But just in time for the salmon spawning/rainy season, they decided to keep working this fall instead.

This is what the stretch of stream in our yard looked like all afternoon yesterday, January 3rd, despite the fact that it hadn't rained all day -

Both the lack of rain and the light color of the turbidity pointed to something wrong upstream. Here's what the stream looked like immediately north of the construction -

Hmmmm. Clear. The contact at the city of Kenmore, who for the record is always very polite and helpful, suggested that the turbidity had something to do with the new stormwater retention tank on site and told me that he would talk to them about moving the outflow.

Unfortunately, this is what the stream looked like this afternoon -

Worse. It was rather hard to miss. Yes, it had been raining hard today, but as I just mentioned, turbidity due only to heavy rainfall is darker than this. Believe me, you get good at reading the stream when you see it every day.

And here is a photo of the stream this afternoon just to the north of the West Creek Village project -

A bit turbid but definitely not to the same degree as the stretch downstream from the project.

A look into the project, as viewed from the street -

You can see what is probably the top of a stormwater retention vault straight ahead.

And a shot of the stream in our yard later in the afternoon -

A little bit better.

There it is, an unfortunate day in the life of an abused suburban stream. It would sure make a lot of sense to require methods of Low Impact Development (LID) to be used on projects so close to a stream like this project is. Until then, we will continue to contact the city, file reports with the state Department of Ecology, and record events here for all to see. Hopefully someday enough people will become aware of the impact that development is having on their watersheds that there will be a wholesale shift to Low Impact Development. If you would like to learn more about LID, here is a website with lots of links - epa.gov/owow/NPS/lid/.

Oh, and to add insult to injury, here's a blurry picture of some litter that floated by as I was taking a picture of the stream in our yard later this afternoon -

So sad!!

Come See High School Students Report on the Health of Our Watershed

2011-11-15T11:00:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the late notice, but please consider attending tomorrow night's meeting of the Sno-King Watershed Council. The evening will include a very impressive presentation by area high school students called "The Watershed Report". Read on for more information --

Join us at the next meeting of the Sno-King Watershed Council -

Wednesday, November 16, 7 pm
Northwest Stream Center
700 – 128 St SE, Everett 98208

Featuring:
The Watershed Report – Students will present a report on watershed health, produced by high school students and the Friends of the Cedar River Watershed. Through the Watershed Report, students become local experts on watershed issues and promote sustainability in local cities, schools and organizations. www.cedarriver.org/programs/watershed-report
Clean Water and Green Infrastructure – Kerri Cechovic of the Washington Environmental Council will tell you about current opportunities for you to protect your local watershed. http://wecprotects.org/issues-campaigns/clean-water-green-infrastructure
Preventing lead pollution in lakes and rivers – An estimated 80,000 pounds of lead is lost annually in streams, rivers and lakes. Bill Lider of the Sierra Club will describe proposed legislation to ban the sale of small lead sinkers.
Current initiatives by SKWC – Eric Adman of the Sno-King Watershed Council will describe an upcoming advocacy project, incorporation, and actions to strengthen our advocacy network
Sponsored by:

The Adopt-A-Stream Foundation www.streamkeeper.org
Friends of the Cedar River Watershed http://www.cedarriver.org/
Sno-King Watershed Council http://www.snokingwatershedcouncil.org/

To RSVP or for more information, contact
Eric Adman
Sno-King Watershed Council
425-780-9731
snokingwatershedcouncil@gmail.com

Streamside Planting Update

2011-11-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

Here is a loooong overdue update of how the planting in the stream buffer behind our fence is doing. Our friends at Adopt-A-Stream gave us some biodegradable surveying tape to mark the plants so they show up a little better in photos. I marked everything I could find that is still alive, so here you go ---

Before - 11/2010

11/2011, a year after planting

These next three shots are basically a panorama, starting with looking south across the large area next to the stream and ending up looking west toward the stream, which you can't see, but it is on the other side of the group of trees in the middle of the third shot -

Here is a view of this same area but looking northeast, right after planting last year -

...and here it is now -

The reed canary grass is obviously still here, and the plan for our neighbor to mow between the beds to keep it down didn't pan out, mostly because it is so sloppy wet in this area. Eric went back there with a string trimmer periodically, and I pulled grass runners out of the beds this fall.

Here are shots of various planting beds. Unfortunately the live stakes are loosing their leaves due to fall and a bunch of the willow leaves have been nibbled by deer, so it will be hard for you to tell how well they are doing. Keep in mind that everything marked with orange tape is living -

Here's an example of what these beds started out looking like a year ago -

Here are some of the live stakes that were poked in along the stream bank. And a peak-a-boo shot of the stream -

This is looking toward the southern boundary of the planted area. There are a lot of surviving live stakes here -

Here is the view standing uphill and looking west. I'm concerned about the blackberry vines from the neighboring property overwhelming this area -

Same area right after planting

Poor little Douglas Fir being surrounded by blackberries

These next three shots are of the part of the project that is the furthest away from the stream -

Right after planting

The blackberries are definitely returning to this area, too, which is the only bummer I see back there behind the fence. I know from the way the new plants have grown along the stream in our yard that this project is going to look incredible in another year or two.

And speaking of which, I have a bunch of pictures to share of how amazing the stream-side restoration in our yard looks now. I will share those in a separate post. Soon!

Deer

2011-10-27T15:41:00.000-07:00

I have been intending for a long time to do an update on the growth of the stream-side restoration projects in both our yard and the yard behind us. As I was taking pictures outside yesterday to do so, I ran into this fella -

I almost, but not quite, literally ran into him. This is the biggest deer that I've seen in our neighborhood. Take a look at those antlers -

Three branches/points.

Whereas on Monday this guy caught my eye out of the kitchen window -

He was relaxing in the sun behind our fence. He is also in the picture at the beginning of this post. Two prongs to his antlers.

Then this morning, four deer back there. This doe, the 2-prong, and two smaller deer, who are probably the same two that I took pictures of earlier this year when they still had spots -

I continue to feel that it is amazing to live in a place where there are deer running around. And I'm much happier to see the deer this year since we were quite successful in keeping them out of our vegetable garden, with a little extra fencing.

Upstream Development

2011-10-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

One of the most disappointing sounds to hear as a person who cares about the well being of a stream is the sound of earth-moving equipment working in the vicinity of the stream. Unfortunately for Little Swamp Creek and for the peace and quiet of our neighborhood, a long-dormant proposed development named West Creek Village on 80th north of 192nd evidently was picked up by someone new and is moving full speed ahead.

At first there wasn't even a Notice of Construction Activity sign on the property. It's disconcerting what requirements just might not happen until someone points out that they are missing. THAT is as good a reason as any why people need to speak up. About anything. After it was pointed out to the city, the sign showed up right away...

First clue that something was up? Hundreds of these dump trucks with trailers dumping loads of dirt on the site all day long for days. By the way, the large trees on either side of this driveway are now gone...

I call the mound of dirt that they brought in "The Kenmore Matterhorn". I was pretty excited to see a chance for a photo with a person on the pile for scale. See him? It's unbelievable that all of that dirt is really going to be used here.

When I went down to the city to see what was going on and point out the lack of an information sign, they were kind enough to give me a map of the project and mark on it where silt fencing should be. The silt fencing is supposed to keep muddy runoff from flowing right into the stream. I have to say that so far it seems to be doing an excellent job.

But on October 3rd we just happened to notice that the stream looked like this in our yard -

There was an excavator and other equipment working where the stream flows through the project property (see them behind the trucks on the right) -

and the stream immediately upstream from this project was sparkly clean -

Luckily the city contact person has been excellent in getting right back to us when we have had concerns, and that day he whipped right out to the site to check it out. Evidently the project required a temporary diversion of the stream to build a new stream-crossing, and it was all done with the proper permits. I'm not sure why this is OK at the time of year when salmon are returning....seems like it should have been done in the summer. A few days later the city contacted us to warn us that the project was going to take the stream out of the diversion and that there might be silt in the water again. We appreciated the warning.

This is a picture taken today. You'll notice that the massive dirt pile has shrunk. Some of it must have been used to raise up the grade of the entry road, since that has now less of a dip. The cement walls are evidently where the stream runs under the access road. Someday I'll walk down there to take pictures of the stream, but surprisingly enough there was someone riding around the property on a golf cart today, so I stuck to the street....

What is going on upstream?!

2011-10-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

Summer Animals of Little Swamp Creek

2011-08-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

Fawn siblings looking to their mom who jumped the fence

The most exciting creatures that we've seen in our yard so far this summer were probably these two sweet fawns passing through with their mother. I couldn't believe my eyes. Deer always seem to appear on drizzly, dark days (so unfortunately my photos of them are always a bit blurry). They eventually headed north into the protection of the stream buffer across the street.

Mom and babies grazing in the stream-side native plantings

We've been seeing more rabbits than ever this year. In fact, just this weekend our neighbors discovered a rabbit burrow complete with babies in the middle of their backyard lawn. Here's the cute little guy that was in our front yard earlier this summer -

I'm still wondering if the rabbit population has increased since the coyotes aren't around like they used to be.

Oh, and they are "cute" as long as they aren't in our vegetable garden...

This song sparrow -

which had been singing to me all winter and spring from this tree, had babies. It was hard to miss the presence of the young ones because they made such a racket, especially in the late afternoons. They would hang out under the parent's favorite little tree and squawk. I can't believe I managed to sneak out the door and get a photo of the parent feeding the juveniles, though it is a rather blurry shot...

Yes, the juveniles are bigger than the parent!

Every year we have a new robin's nest on either our grape or wisteria arbor. Here's a parent sitting on this year's nest (this year it's the wisteria) -

I love the brilliant head feathers of these sapsuckers. I think there are matrices of their little pecked holes on ALL of our willow trees.

This is one of the Red-tailed hawks that inhabited the nest in a cottonwood in the wetland behind us. I'm so disappointed that I can't take pictures of what happens in the nest once the leaves come out and block my view.

Sitting in the Douglas fir across the field

This, I believe, is one of the adults flying on a maiden voyage with it's fledgling in early July -

Adult and juvenile Red-tailed hawk?

They were circling above our yard and one of them was making the screeching sounds that the young do in the nest. The young one is like a dark shadow in all of my pictures -

Then just a few days ago I realized that the juvenile hawk was sitting in the big fir tree across the field -

Right after I took that picture it disappeared. Only to reappear flying RIGHT over me (and the chicken run, which I'm sure was it's target). My picture of it flying over the stream through the trees in our yard is just a blur, but you get the idea. That was crazy.

OK, one last baby picture -

Wads of tiny garden spiders were all over the place by the end of May. Now I'm walking through their spider webs everywhere!

Next post -- focusing on the stream.

Beach Report Card

2011-07-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

We recently caught a great interview on KSER that explained the Beach Report Card, an interesting resource on the website of Heal the Bay. Heal the Bay is an organization that has been working since 1985 to make the waters along the southern California coast safer and healthier. Their Beach Report Card lets you search for coastal beach reports (they include Puget Sound beaches) by county in Washington, Oregon and California. Beaches are given two letter grades, one for "wet" (after rain) and one for "dry". Heal the Bay compiles information from county health departments in order to come up with their grades, which are updated weekly.

The Beach Report Card gives information about salt water beaches in our area. But if you want information about the water quality at some swimming beaches on lakes in King County, the county has a map on its website -

http://green.kingcounty.gov/swimbeach/

I'm sorry to see that there is no water quality testing data for the swimming beach at Logboom park at the north end of Lake Washington, and the only archived data available for that location is from 2005. Unfortunately I did not find a similar resource for the current water quality of fresh water swimming beaches in Snohomish County.

The city of Kenmore has been taking water samples from Little Swamp Creek in our yard periodically to monitor its water quality, and maybe at some point we can get that information and share it. "North Creek and Little Swamp Creek Sample Results 2010 Fecal Coliform Bacteria Total Maximum Daily Loads" is a water quality monitoring annual summary report by the City of Bothell that includes an explanation of how the fecal coliform levels in Little Swamp Creek in Bothell were improving after the owner of a shopping area with a duck pond began discouraging the feeding of the ducks. I think most people around here know the shopping area that the report is referring to. That duck pond is near/part of the headwaters of Little Swamp Creek, so we definitely appreciate those efforts!

Streamside planting update

2011-05-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

It has been two years since the east side of the stretch of Little Swamp Creek that flows through our yard was re-planted with a riparian zone of native streamside plants, and one year since the west side was planted. It's about time for some before and after photos to show off the success.

Here's what's happened on the east side of the stream -

The south half of the eastern bank, right after planting in 2009

The south half of the eastern bank, two years later

Looking in from outside the front fence in 2009

Looking in from outside the front fence now

Looking north from mid-yard in 2009

Looking north from mid-yard today

The back corner in 2009

The back corner in 2011

And the west side of the stream -

Looking north right after planing in 2010

Looking north in 2011

Looking south in 2009

Looking south today

Northwest section right after planting

Northwest section now

We added some new mulch on the west side of the stream earlier this spring, both because it was a little thinner over there and because we lost some mulch in one particularly dramatic flooding event this winter.

Some of the plants are starting to spread out via runners -

Thimbleberry runners

Salmonberry runners

Unfortunately the deer that periodically pass through like to nibble on the red-flowering current and the red twig dogwood plants, but they haven't done too much damage -

Thanks again to the Adopt A Stream Foundation and the LEAF School at Edmonds Community College for this amazing project!

Spring Fauna

2011-04-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

Crow vs. neighborhood hawk

Time for a visual update on what's going on along our stretch of Little Swamp Creek. This post is all fauna. I'll blog about the flora soon.

Neighborhood Red-tailed hawk

Red-tailed Hawk sitting it their nest.

Heron hunting again in the field behind our yard.

Deer in the field. There were four, including a young one.

A Long-toed Salamander that was hiding under a wood pile.

This song sparrow appears to have claimed a particular area of our yard as his. I frequently see him in this western hazelnut or the Indian plum right next to it -

Varied Thrush

Living here I get to see birds that I always used to think of as a "forest" birds (birds that I would only hear and see when hiking or camping) right in our yard. This varied thrush is a great example.

This poor Golden-crowned Kinglet ran into our window. Luckily he recovered and flew away.

Here's the greatest development of all - Black-capped chickadees have moved into this nesting box near our front door -

Earth Festival 2011 - April 30th in Kenmore WA

2011-04-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

Spring!

2011-03-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

It is so good to see the native plants in the new buffer along the stream starting to leaf out. Indian plum was first, and now the red flowering currant (above), twin flower and wild roses are starting to show some green.

I heard it noted once that hummingbirds in our area used to migrate south in the winter and return north with the blooming of the native currants, but that now they overwinter here. We certainly hear them all year long. This little guy was fussing at me in our yard back in February -

I've never seen heron in the field behind our yard as much as I have this spring. This one stood in this spot for a couple of hours -

The most exciting news right now is that I am convinced that the neighborhood hawks have eggs in their nest. A hawk has been sitting in the nest most of the day lately. Here is a picture with the hawk hunkered down and facing to the left -

When I took this picture the hawk was doing a little housekeeping, so it's tail was sticking up toward me -

According to what I read on the Seattle Audubon webpage about Red-tailed hawks, these hawks are monogamous, both the females and the males build the nest and incubate the eggs, the eggs take around 30 days to hatch, and the female takes care of the babies for the first month or so after they hatch while the male brings them food. We will probably know when the eggs hatch because in the past we would hear the calls of those little birds all day long for quite a while. Unfortunately I will lose my ability to take pictures pretty soon when the trees I'm shooting through leaf out.

Back on March 14th we started to get a little worried about stream flooding, but luckily the water receded a few inches shy of excitement. As you can see here, the culvert under the street was basically maxed out -

Here's a shot looking downstream from the front of our yard -

After THIS deluge I noticed that most of the sediment that had built up on the bottom of the stream all winter seems to have been washed away. This picture was taken today off the south side of the foot bridge -

It's going to be interesting to see how quickly sediment comes back. I've felt like the stream has been a bit muddier than usual when it has rained recently. I'm thinking there might be some muddy runoff from a development upstream, but we have yet to investigate when it's really raining.

Oh, and we are hearing frogs in the distance in the evening, and the crows are not noisily passing through at dusk like they had been.

The Kenmore Herd is Back Again

2011-03-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

I looked out the window this morning and saw this -

I took pictures of five deer, including this young one (on the left) -

(I'm super disappointed in how blurry the photos are, but it is a gloomy morning and I was using my longer lens....)

After they all sauntered out the front gate, another one bounded through to catch up. SIX deer this year.

Oh, and obviously deer like primrose blossoms. That's what this one is eating on it's way through.

Indian Plum

2011-03-07T17:19:00.000-08:00

Indian Plum is possibly my favorite native plant, mostly because its leaves and blossoms emerge so early in the year.

It is my reassurance that spring really is coming.

Here was the situation just a week and a half ago -

Indian plum handles the "late" snow without a problem. We'll see if our almost-blooming forsythia does as well.

The snow definitely makes the stream look more dramatic.

Chickadee in an alder tree.

Counting Birds This Weekend

2011-02-17T18:49:00.000-08:00

From the website of the Great Backyard Bird Count:

"The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event. It’s free, fun, and easy—and it helps the birds. We'll be adding updated GBBC materials for the next count as they become available."

This is a bird counting opportunity that I was not familiar with, but since I've been happily noting all of the birds around here lately, I'm glad to be able to put my bird watching to good use! If you are interested in participating too, go the website www.birdsource.org/gbbc for details.

Hawk

2011-02-12T13:40:00.000-08:00

I caught the neighborhood hawk sitting in the alder trees scoping out the field behind our house this morning.

I couldn't see what it caught, or if it actually was successful. But it flew up to the nest, verifying for me once and for all that it/they are occupying that nest again this year -

Not long after that if flew to the Douglas fir across the field and posed for me. Unfortunately the second picture is blurry, because it looks like the hawk was looking right at me....

Shifting Towards Spring?

2011-01-28T18:14:00.000-08:00

This looks like it is becoming a "Heron" blog, but I couldn't resist posting this picture. We came home and accidentally scared this heron out of the stream and onto the top of our 15ft+ tall cottonwood snag. Nice stream viewpoint for a heron.

It seems like something happened this week. Suddenly a bunch of creatures are returning, making me feel like it's going to be spring already.

Red-tailed Hawk in upper left, nest in lower right

The Red-Tailed hawk has returned to its nest in the cottonwood tree in the wetland behind our yard. I just missed getting a picture of it in its nest -

Besides the return of the herons to the Kenmore rookery and this hawk to this nest, we've heard

Red-winged Blackbirds suddenly in full force in the wetland
A frog/toad? was loudly calling out from our veggie garden
What I think is a Western Screech Owl in our backyard. It's "hooting" woke me up two different nights in the past week. Here's a link to the .mp3 on The Owl Pages of what I think I heard - http://www.owlpages.com/sounds/Megascops-kennicottii-2.mp3. It definitely wasn't a Great Horned Owl, though we do hear them sometimes...

Heron return to the Kenmore rookery

2011-01-24T17:33:00.000-08:00

View of the rookery from the Kenmore Park & Ride

Driving east on 181st toward 73rd this morning it was hard to miss the fact that herons are most definitely back. Luckily there was literally ONE parking spot left in the Kenmore P&R, so I was able to take a few pictures of the birds. Too bad it was such a dark, gloomy day.

Taking pictures of nests and bare branches reminded me of the art by Susan Zoccola that is permanently installed in the new Kenmore city hall. Here are a few pictures of that artwork, in case you haven't seen it for yourself. I love how Susan was influenced by the trees and heron nests that she saw when exploring Kenmore for inspiration. I'm afraid that my pictures don't do the artwork justice, so go see it for yourself if you can.

A Heron, A Deer, and Snowmelt

2011-01-18T17:19:00.000-08:00

This was the first time I had seen a heron in our yard in quite a while. This one glared at me and tolerated being photographed for a bit but slowly made its way downstream.

Yesterday a single deer contemplated coming into our yard from the field behind us -

It ate some rose hips and walked away after it saw me.

While I'm at it with a post, here is what the stream looked like at its highest level as the snow that fell on 1/11-1/12 melted -

The ground was so saturated with water, it was crazy. That is a picture of the remainders of a mole hill. It's a little tricky on the eyes, but you can see that the water table was about an inch or two under the surface.

Here is a former mole hill that was a mini geyser -

Winter Birds

2011-01-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

I was completely and utterly distracted for a while today by the birds outside of my window. At first I noticed them because they were leering in at me and giving me the stink eye since our bird feeder was empty.

I present to you, for the record --- the birds that showed up at the newly re-filled bird feeder, plus those hanging around on nearby trees -

Rufous-sided Towhee

Northern Flicker. (There was a male and a female, actually.)

Stellar's Jay

Is that a Winter Wren?

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

This Junco photo made me laugh...he was looking up the tree...

Female Junco

Male Junco

Black-capped Chickadee

Downy Woodpecker, I think, and a Flicker

I'm hoping to get pictures of the other birds that turn up along Little Swamp Creek as the seasons change. I'm thinking that would be a good thing to document.

By the way, I'm starting to keep my eye on this Red-Tailed Hawk's nest in the wetland behind our yard. We usually start seeing action there by mid-winter or so...

The Crows

2011-01-11T13:42:00.000-08:00

If you say "Birds!" right now to anyone who lives in Kenmore, I'll bet you they will say "Crows!". Every day as dusk approaches the crows rendezvous in our neighborhood in HUGE numbers. You can see them approach Kenmore in unbelievable "swarms". And in the morning before dawn I've seen them spreading out again, leaving for the day.

How timely that our local PBS station just recently ran Nature - A Murder of Crows. (You can click on that link to watch the whole show.)

Although I am no videographer, and this video is definitely of poor visual quality, I recorded this to try to capture the ruckus that the crows make in our yard every evening:

My fear with all of these crows around was that our heron and songbird populations would be decimated. But the crows seem to leave when the herons return to the Kenmore rookery to nest in the spring. As you will see in my next post, other birds are definitely still around.

"Pineapple Express" vs. Little Swamp Creek

2010-12-16T12:56:00.000-08:00

We knew this weather system dubbed a "pineapple express" was coming, and it was predicted to hit us with a bunch of rain starting on Saturday the 11th. But for some reason the threat posed by Little Swamp Creek flooding our yard and crawlspace had faded recently since the stream has basically stayed within it's banks for the last few years. Unfortunately, this was what we woke up to on December 12th -

The flooded stream was up just even with the top of the threshold of the door into our crawlspace. Which means that water had already been coming up through the silly floor drains (they never have drained, only flooded, the crawlspace) and was flowing out of the ground from the unfinished part of the crawlspace and into the "finished" (barely) storage area down there. We owe our amazing neighbors Carol and Matt a HUGE thank you for helping us schlep stuff out of there. Thanks so much, you two!

Going back a few days earlier, I took a couple of pictures of the stream because it was running at a level higher that I think I had seen it since all of the streambank planting was completed. These pictures were taken on December 8th. The water had gotten high enough to go around/behind the large woody debris placed just south of the foot bridge -

And the stream was getting close to completely filling up the culvert that the stream flows through under 192nd -

The stream looked like it was about to flow out of its banks back behind the fence -

But, in fact, this is what it looked like behind the fence on Sunday morning when the area was flooded -

We've seen the water go over the street a handful of times in our 12 years here, the last time being in 2007. It's an intimidating thing, even if it is only a few inches deep on the pavement on this side of the street -

People in trucks didn't hesitate to drive right past the barriers. I watched one truck go around this barrier on the shoulder, and I'm sure they had no idea how close they were to driving their wheels right off the edge and laying their truck over into the space where the north end of the culvert is

More shots from the flooding on December 12th -

Late the night of the 12th some guys driving by discovered a beaver in the middle of the road in front of our yard. It seemed that someone must have hit it with their car. They moved it to a safer spot in our yard so that it could hopefully recover, but it didn't make it through the night. I'm always amazed at how huge beavers are, actually. This is the second beaver road casualty that I've seen in our general area in the past several years.

How's that for before and after shots?! The 12th vs. today, the 16th. Though there is still a lot of water in the stream, it's getting back to normal.

Here's what the newly planted area looks like behind the fence today -

Everything stayed put!

Looks like the high water washed away the leaves from the willow tree that we just let be, plus some mulch was scoured away -

The downstream end of the culvert is a bit worse for wear, and the outflow of the little culvert that runs under our driveway in the ditch is basically blocked -

But we sure can't complain, considering the flooding that other people in our community experienced. Here's a link to an article in the Seattle Times the next day that featured a picture of a house/business nearby that was flooded by the waters of Swamp Creek - Rivers recede as residents deal with the mess

When Heavy Equipment Working next to the Stream is a GOOD Thing

2010-11-19T07:56:00.000-08:00

The Adopt-A-Stream Foundation has been back on the banks of Little Swamp Creek, working all week long in an area behind our property that has been overwhelmed by reed canary grass. The LEAF School from Edmonds Community College will be spending the day today working with AASF to plant native wetland plants in the prepared area.

Here's the actual plan -

This section of the stream has been completely overgrown with reed canary grass and blackberries. The grass is so thick and tall that in the summer it was almost impossible to even see the stream because the grass was practically creating a tunnel over it. By this time of year the grass has fallen down enough that it is possible to walk through there again and see the stream-

These are shots looking south and north in the section that will be replanted today -

The plan is to shade out the canary grass by thickly planting 21 hummocks with native vegetation (the hummocks are the rectangles with the diamond pattern in the plans above). In addition, 660 square feet of stream bank will be planted with livestakes, and 3,900 square feet of blackberry bushes were removed to be replaced with scattered native plants.

Access to the area was much easier from our yard, so the dirt for building up the hummocks was dumped in our driveway -

and carried to the area behind our fence by wheelbarrow -

The hummocks were scraped/dug out a bit with a small excavator and this new soil was added-

Plants and livestakes are staged back there, too, ready for planting -

I was struck by the fact that this particular project includes what I think is a huge side benefit to the property owner. When we first moved into the neighborhood a dozen years ago our neighbor behind us was easily able to walk down to the stream. But over the past several years the blackberry bushes have grown up and made an impossible barrier for him. It is fabulous that he will be able to get down there and enjoy checking out the stream again. We appreciate that he was willing to work with the Adopt-a-Stream Foundation to continue to restore the banks of Little Swamp Creek, and I'm glad he benefits from allowing them the access!

Little Swamp Creek Wildlife - Summer Recap

2010-11-15T16:32:00.000-08:00

Baby rabbit munching on horsetail next to Little Swamp Creek

Our friends from the Adopt-A-Stream Foundation are back on the banks of Little Swamp Creek, this time preparing to do some stream-side restoration work on the property behind us. So as they are out there working hard in the rain cutting down blackberries and staging plants, I will, with much guilt, start catching up on the blog that they inspired me to start.

This summer our yard and those of our immediate neighbors were regularly ~~visited~~, ~~raided~~, eaten by rabbits and deer. I have never seen deer or rabbits in our yard like we did this year. I'm wondering if the rabbit population in particular has risen due to the fact that the coyotes don't seem to be around like they were when we moved in 12 years ago.

This baby rabbit could have easily fit in the palm of my hand

Adult rabbit raiding our vegetable garden

Another shot of the rabbit raiding our garden

You would think from the number of times that the deer were in our yard/garden this spring and summer that I would have more pictures of them. This one shot is pretty funny -

A deer munching on our raspberries

The deer wiped out our initial crop of raspberries by eating them, cane and all. And they ate the top half of all of our tomato plants. They've obviously really enjoyed the red osier dogwood bushes in our yard and behind the fence, which is just fine with me as they hold up well to the nibbling and we have lots of them. We were seeing up to four deer at a time around here during the summer. Just a few days ago a solitary deer was nibbling on plants at the side of the road when I drove away. We knew that at least one was still secretly visiting our yard because it/they leave presents for us in the garden....

This amazing caterpillar showed up on the deck railing one day -

- I'd love to know what it turned into.

We didn't notice any salmon returning to spawn in our stretch of Little Swamp Creek this year, but I would periodically see fish several inches long zooming around in the stream throughout the summer. There was a fish that seemed to station itself under the bridge all summer long and would swim away when it felt me approaching, so I never captured it on film. Here's one fish that I did manage to get a shot of -

4-inch fish at the upstream end of the stream in our yard

Oh, and for the record I would like it to be known that I did see salmon returning to Swamp Creek this fall, which I figured would happen on the year that I skipped out on being an official Salmon Watcher. I spied two sockeye and one coho, all on different days, down where Bothell Way crosses over Swamp Creek at 80th. I believe that it has been several years since I saw and recorded any there during my official "Watching".

Birds are the wildlife that we notice more that anything else in our yard. I've always been amazed by the variety of birds that we are lucky to see. My favorite are the Swainson's Thrushes that we hear pass through our area every summer, though I can only identify them by their song, not by sight. We used to see Kenmore's official bird, the Great Blue Heron, in our yard fairly often, but we rarely see them now.

Every year a robin makes a nest on either the wisteria or grape arbors off of our back deck, but this year the nest ended up on a grape arbor that is directly below our window. We were able to watch as four eggs were laid and four eggs were hatched. Amazingly enough, they were never discovered by predators. Here is a shot (taken through the window screen) after the first of the eggs hatched -

A pair of Stellar's Jays were making a huge a racket on our back deck one day last summer. I realized why when I saw this cute-but-crabby-looking baby jay under our barbecue -

I've mentioned before that there is a hawk nest in a cottonwood tree in the wetland behind us. It is incredible to see that nest used year after year, and I would love to know whether the same hawks lay their eggs there each spring or if the next generation comes back to use the nest. Or if a new pair finds and uses it. Here's one of the resident hawks watching over the field-

Hawk in the fir tree across the field behind us

This group of four hawks were circling above our yard on a beautiful day last week -

A beautiful pileated woodpecker was on a snag across the street when I left on a walk, camera-less, last week. You'll have to settle for a picture of some visitors to the cottonwood snag in our backyard last spring -

All of my pictures of these two Canada geese that landed on the top of the snag are blurry, and I think it is because I was laughing too hard to hold the camera still. I seriously wondered if they were going to try to build a nest there, but they didn't.

And finally, evidence of a more troubling visitor to our neighborhood -

The Adopt-A-Stream guys pointed this out to me behind our fence. This tree was 6+ inches in diameter where it was "chopped" down, and I couldn't figure out where the rest of it ended up! I've blogged about the stream-side black pussy willow bush that we lost to beaver/mountain beaver/? a while back, but that trunk was a lot smaller than this. This is a bit more disconcerting.

Stormwater vault pumping, day 2

2010-05-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

Little Swamp Creek at noon today

Today the good news was that I went to City Hall to get some contact information and ended up talking in person to a city engineer and the surface water program specialist about what was going on in the stream. They explained the changes that they were requiring when the pumping of the stormwater retention vault upstream resumed today. Unfortunately, the bad news was that when I got home from talking to them I could tell that the pumping had started up because the stream was a bit cloudy. But not as bad as yesterday. That was at about 9:30. But when I came home at noon and looked at the stream, the picture above shows you what I saw. Worse than yesterday. I went up to the vault to see what they were doing, but they were all done. Thank goodness is all that I could say.

Here's what the stream looked like by about 1pm -

And at about 2pm -

Finally, back to normal clarity by 4pm -

(a note on the photos: I really hope to be using a camera with a polarizing lens soon!)

There are a lot of developments with these stormwater retention vaults upstream from us, but this is the first time we've noticed something like this happening. We need to find out if these vault inspections that require the emptying out of the vaults are required at regular intervals or what. The turbidity of the water coming out of the vault may have been fine (as far as the DOE threshold is concerned) when the guys pumping the water tested it today at the hose, but the stream sure wasn't OK down here. (Personally, I think a third party needs to do the testing, anyway.) I hate to think of the lovely concentration of chemicals off of the streets and lawns that ended up coming down here all at once today, especially, as they got down towards the sludgy bottom of the vault today.

Once again I can't believe how much I have learned from living with a stream passing through our yard. I guess everyone lives in a watershed, right? We just happen to experience the good and the bad of our watershed very up-close and personally.

What happens when a 400,000-gallon stormwater detention vault gets emptied into a wetland?

2010-05-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

Well, this is what it looked like in our yard, eight-blocks downstream.

Eric was went outside this afternoon and was surprised to see that the stream was silty and running higher than normal. As if we had just had a rainstorm. But we hadn't. I wondered if there was a problem at the Brightwater tunneling/portal site, since their groundwater drains to the stream, so I grabbed the camera and went over there to check it out.

But the silty water was coming from further upstream. Continuing up 80th, I could see a lot of water flowing down the west side of 80th and into the stream at the point where the stream pops out from flowing under 80th from the east. This cross-under happens just a little ways south of the entrance to the Kenmore Estates development at 198th and 80th.

Here is a picture that I took looking south while standing at 198th -

The water is flowing south out of a culvert that goes under 198th. It is flowing down the ditch and in the street. (The place in the distance where it stops is the point where the stream pops out from passing under the street from the east)

This is looking north -

The water that enters that stormwater drain comes out on the other side of 198th. The flow in the previous picture.

Continuing to walk up 80th -

Once again, flowing in the ditch and in the street...

This is where the water was flowing out of the small wetland/natural growth protection area that is between this other development and 80th. This water isn't flowing in a ditch. It's flowing through the underbrush -

This is where I could finally see what was going on. The light area in the middle of the colored portion of this picture is a 2-3 foot-wide stream of water that was being pumped out of a hose that had to be about 6-inches in diameter -

This is when I realize that I would be a TERRIBLE investigative reporter, because I started to freak out a little bit and no longer took good pictures! I know where the water is in that shot, but I'm sure you can't tell!

I'm such a chicken! Here is as good of an action shot as I got -

I blasted up to where these guys were working. They were pumping out this underground retention vault. I explained to them what effect they were having on the stream, but they insisted that the water they were pumping out was clean and that they had a permit to pump the tank out for an inspection. They didn't realize that the water was flowing into a stream, but still insisted that it was clean ground water, so it doesn't matter. They apparently weren't going to stop just because a crazy woman was telling them that they needed to. It may have been "clean" ground water, but the rate at which it was flowing was sure stirring up a LOT of sediment in the stream. I figured that my first call would be to the city of Kenmore, and then the Department of Ecology.

Here's another picture that I took walking back home down 80th, grumbling to myself -

Luckily I got a hold of someone at the city who verified that these guys do have a permit to pump into a vegetated area, IF the area can take the flow. He drove up to check it out in person. But what do you know! they had stopped for the day. How handy. Lucky for the stream, he took my word for it and told them that when they finish the job tomorrow they will need to use smaller pumps and pump into a different part of the wetland area or pump into the sanitary sewer.

Meanwhile I did go back up there with Eric and a friend of ours and talked to the guys. I was ready to show them pictures of the turbidity of the stream in our yard. They seemed to understand the need to slow down the flow rate tomorrow, though it sounds like there's not much left to pump out.

In the end, I believe that there are a few things that need to change so this doesn't happen in all of the developments around here. First of all, if these retention vaults need to be pumped out periodically in order to be inspected, then there obviously needs to be a little regulation of the rate of outflow as part of the permitting process! It is amazing to see the impact that this flow had on the stream, not only in turbidity but also in that it raised the stream level by a couple of inches. The second frustrating issue is the fact that not many people realize that Little Swamp Creek flows along 80th between approximately 198th and halfway between 195th and 192nd. It is hidden in the reed canary grass. There used to be a sign along there somewhere that said "This stream is in your care", but it was knocked down and never replaced. We'll have to see what we can do about that.

These pictures were taken in our yard after we returned from talking to the guys at the vault -

They had stopped there pumping at least 45 minutes earlier.

The Annual Return of Our Neighborhood Red-Tailed Hawks

2010-04-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

Ever have the feeling that you are being watched?

This is what I saw when I looked up from the computer for much of March and April. Just about every morning there was a red-tailed hawk sitting there in the top of the fir tree in the field behind our house.

Here it is sitting on its second-favorite perch. The hawk is facing left in the middle of the picture.

The nest that hawks use year after year is located in a large cottonwood tree in the large wetland that begins just southwest of our yard. Here are pictures taken from our back deck -

The arrow that I added to this picture is to point out that you can see the hawk sitting in the nest.

This is a view from the east. I couldn't believe how huge the nest looks from this direction.

Every year starting in January we see the hawks fly by carrying twigs/branches to the nest. On March 1 I actually saw the pair, uh, mate in that large fir tree. I took a couple of pictures, but they are both very poor-quality shots. For what it's worth, here they are....

Right now I can look over at the nest through binoculars and see the head of a hawk sitting in there. It's getting harder to see the nest from here now that the trees are leafing out. It should become pretty obvious when the eggs hatch, though, because the hawks become pretty noisy. All day long. I'll post updates.

Stream-side Planting - Done!

2010-04-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

We had a beautiful day for phase two of the planting of the section of Little Swamp Creek that passes through our yard. This planting event took place in the area all along the west side of the creek.

The majority of the plants for the project were dropped of early in the morning on planting day. The plants are all Northwest natives that came from Bush's Nursery outside of Arlington. Adopt-A-Stream provided some plants from their own supply, too. The plants from Bush's Nursery and the mulch for this project were purchased with money from a 2-year grant awarded by the Washington Department of Ecology and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to improve the quality of Swamp Creek. The boxes and burlap bags used as weed barrier under the mulch were donated by Cascade Coffee. I can tell you from our experience with the planting done on the east side of the stream last spring that this combination of cardboard, burlap bags and several inches of wood chips does an excellent job of covering up/getting rid of the lawn.

I don't know how this job could have happened without the amazing work of the students from the L.E.A.F. School at Edmonds Community College. We are very grateful that they were willing and able to spend the day on this project! (See a link to their program on the side bar) Here they are at the beginning of the day doing a little plant identification before getting started with the planting -

THE PLANT LIST - West side of the stream

Western Red Cedar
Vine Maple
Bigleaf Maple
Douglas Fir
Grand Fir
Sitka Spruce
Cascara
Pacific Crabapple
Black Hawthorn
Pacific Willow
Scouler Willow
Red Osier Dogwood
Twinberry
Pacific Ninebark
Nootka and other roses
Spiraea/Harkhack
Snowberry
Indian Plum
Salmonberry
Twinflower
Swordfern

Everyone helped carry over and arrange the plants in the planting area, and then the hard work began.

Unfortunately, at one point I put the camera down and didn't pick it up again until all of the planting was done and the mulch was spread and the work was done. I did not get pictures this time of the cardboard or burlap bag layers, darn it! (If you want to see what that looks like, you can look back to my April 10, 2009 post of the planting event on the east side of the stream.)

And although we could see small fish swimming in the stream, and a bunch of the group saw a little frog or two at the end of the day, the three catch-and-release traps that the the Adopt-A-Stream guys put in the stream the day prior to the event did not have a thing in them. That was disappointing. It is the time of the year when we can see caddisfly lavaea and "water skeeters", so at least we are seeing the things that we normally see in the stream. Otherwise I would have been really alarmed by the empty traps, considering the critters that were in them last summer...

Here is a picture of some of the L.E.A.F. School group during the wrap-up discussion at the end of the day -

And the finished project -

This is looking north towards the street

This is looking to the south/downstream

All of this new planting blends into what we called "the wetland" area of our yard previously, a small section of our yard that we had planted several years ago with some cedars and other smaller native plants -

Thank you sooo much to everyone who worked on this project! It is was an amazing thing to be involved in, and we are so lucky to have been able to take part in this kind of restoration in our very own yard. I'm happy that we will be able to share the growth and evolution of the restored area on this blog.

Happy Earth Day!

2010-04-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

First of all, if you haven't watched it yet, American Experience: Earth Days is a fabulous documentary that is available on disc or to "watch instantly" on Netflix. I highly recommend it.

In honor of Earth Day , I would like to share with you the organic fertilizer formula from Steve Solomon's book "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades". (My parents gave me this book in 1990, and I would say that it has been my most important organic gardening book.) I read that this formula used to be published in the Territorial Seed Company catalog but is no longer shared there.

I mix a batch of this complete fertilizer in a 5-gallon bucket so there is room to stir it all up. I store it in used peanut butter jars or whatever handy container I can find. Because this formula is by volume, you can make an amount that is convenient to you.

Steve Solomon's Not-So-Secret Fertilizer Formula

4 parts seed meal or fish meal

1 part dolomite lime

1 part rock phosphate ore 1/2 part bone meal

1 part kelp meal

Steve suggests replacing one part of the seed meal with blood meal in the early spring when the soils are cold, which is what I do. When I'm planting seeds in the vegetable garden, I sprinkle a little fertilizer in the bottom of the furrows and mix it in with the dirt a bit before I sow the seeds.

If you live west of the Cascades and grow or want to grow veggies, I suggest that you check out this book.

Happy organic gardening!

Planting Day Tomorrow!

2010-04-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

A banner is up...

.....and some plants are staged, with many more to be delivered tomorrow morning.

When the guys from Adopt-A-Stream dropped off the plants and tools, they placed three catch-and-release traps in the stream to see what critters are living in there. The traps are baited with cans of cat food. I can't wait to see what we see in them tomorrow. In case you wondered, you need to have a permit to do this trapping in a stream....

Here's a closer shot of that trap -

The traps were placed on the upstream side of each of the three large woody debris spots, which were placed in the stream by Adopt-A-Stream with the help of the LEAF School class last July.

This cylindrical one is hard to see. It is the smallest and the furthest downstream -

I LOVE the educational aspect of these projects. To see all of the things that I never knew were living in the stream was so amazing when they did this last July. I'm curious to see how tomorrow's "catch" will compare. I'm sure that we'll have lots of pictures to post!

Stream-side Planting - Phase Two - Coming Friday!

2010-04-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Big piles of empty burlap coffee bags staged in our yard means one thing - we are about to take part in another amazing Adopt-A-Stream planting project in our yard, with the help of the students of the L.E.A.F. School from Edmonds Community College. We will be getting rid of a bunch of lawn on the west side of the stream this time, planting native trees and bushes and mulching/covering the lawn in between the plants with the coffee bags and cardboard (recycled, of course).

Here is a picture from the planting day last spring that shows the side of the stream that will be taken care of this time -

And here is a shot of some the the plants from the planting last spring. Most are leafing out now and look much more impressive in person! I am amazed - I don't think we have lost ANY of the plants. M-U-L-C-H!! Well, and we watered them through the summer....

And hey, I just realized that this blog has been around for a year now. I started with the first Adopt-A-Stream-coordinated planting project last year. Nice!

Just a warning - you can expect a flurry of posting for a little while here. I am going to have a lot to share.

Eagles in North Kenmore

2010-04-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I went for a walk in the morning and just happened to notice that there was an eagle sitting in a tree behind the condo complex just north of the Kenmore library. Just north of the heron rookery. I only had my cell phone camera, so the pictures aren't the best, but hopefully you can see an eagle in the middle of the picture above. When I walked closer, I was very surprised to see that there were actually two eagles in the tree, but you can't see the second one in my photo.

I continued my walk north up 73rd, and when I reached the bridge over Swamp Creek I saw two eagles in a tree in the floodplain on the west side of the street there! This is a terribly fuzzy photo (I need to just carry the regular camera on my walks), but I circled where the eagles were in the tree -

Turns out these must have been the same ones I had just seen by the library, because a neighbor out watching them had just seen the pair arrive. But the AMAZING thing was that there were two juvenile eagles in nearby trees!

Can you see that dark spot in the left side of the large cottonwood tree?

And the dark spot in the cottonwood in the middle of this picture?

I thought this was pretty exciting.

Then on March 27th the Seattle Times ran a front-page article about the effect that bald eagles have on herons. Here is a link to the article -

Eagle vs. Heron

The Kenmore heron rookery isn't mentioned in the article, but I understand that the nests there have been raided by eagles, also. So in retrospect, I wonder what the eagles were up to down by the rookery that morning.

Here are a couple of shots I took earlier this spring of herons in the rookery just north of the Kenmore park-and-ride -

Heel in the stream

2010-03-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

Something in the stream caught my eye a few days ago. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be....

....a heel. Without its shoe. Kind of strange.

We do see a bit of garbage in the stream. Any floating garbage that makes it through all of the brambles immediately upstream from us seems to usually get caught by the fence at the front of our yard (the fence stops just under the surface of the water). Bottle necks from old glass bottles show up periodically in a section of the stream bed about even with our house. We've heard tales of the parties that were held here decades ago, and how bottles were flung off the deck and into the stream. I think we're seeing the evidence!

The other crazy thing of note in the pictures that I took of the heel is how low the stream was, up to a couple of days ago that is. It was low as it was by mid- to late-summer last year. An indicator of a fairly dry spring so far? I'm not sure. But here is a picture of the same area of the stream today, following an afternoon of periodic heavy rain showers passing through --

Most definitely running higher, and muddier, though I don't think you can see the turbidity (muddiness) from my picture.

A Kenmore Herd?!?

2010-03-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

I was surprised enough to look out the window this evening see this deer in the field behind our yard -

Then, in the time that it took me to find the camera, four of them were there! That was a rather surreal sight, actually.

It would be SO interesting to know where these deer wander throughout a day. The 90+ acre wetland behind us provides a lot of room to roam, but to move from there to another greenbelt would require crossing a fairly busy street no matter which way they go. One of the streets being Bothell Way/SR522. Unless they go under Bothell Way by wading in Swamp Creek. That connects to lots of undeveloped land that is for now called Swamp Creek Park.

Four deer wandering around together are going to be hard for people to miss!

Running a bulldozer through a wetland for what?!

2010-01-30T21:25:00.000-08:00

We received an e-mail the other day from a Little Swamp Creek watershed neighbor alerting us to the fact that the city of Kenmore, evidently, had been running a bulldozer into the Native Growth Protection Area that backs up to his cul-de-sac. I know how disturbing it is to hear heavy equipment working in an area that is supposed to be protected and undisturbed. We had that happen behind us about 10 years ago.

In order to get the equipment back into this wetland south of 195th, the powers-that-be had to cut down a decent-sized tree -

And cut the lower branches off of a cedar -

This is looking back up to the area of damage pictured above, and the street.

This shot was taken from basically the same spot as the previous photo. I just turned around and headed further south into the wetland area.

This is a little further down that muddy track. You can start to see a new mud puddle formed where the equipment was working.

Mud wallow where they scraped the surface leaves, etc. out of the way for some reason.

A better shot of the dozer scrapes.

And apparently all this was done to get to THIS little culvert that is the drainage from a storm water retention pond right nearby -

...the retention pond being a mere 20 or 30 feet away from this pipe end. If this is truly the only reason that they ran a bulldozer all the way back here, then I am flabbergasted at how ridiculous that was. A bit of overkill. I could have carried a garden shovel and/or a rake back there and cleared it out in a much gentler and appropriately scaled way! Actually, what really needed to be cleared out isn't obvious - the only apparent "work" is the dirt and leaves scraped around.

So it really makes you think. First of all, if we are going to have storm water retention ponds which require maintenance, lets make whatever needs to be maintained easily accessible without ruining part of the wetland that we are trying to protect. Secondly, if the city or county have to run heavy equipment into the wetland and/or buffer that is part of a neighborhood, how about passing out fliers ahead of time or figuring out some other way to let the neighbors know what is going to happen!

By the way, the remediation for disturbing this area was a sprinkling of grass seed.

There is one good thing that came as a result of this craziness. We made a new great connection with someone concerned about our watershed. We look forward to working together with him in the future. There is an amazing wetland buffer on his street in serious need of an invasive weed removal party. Volunteers?

Why Erosion Control Rules Should Actually Be Enforced

2010-01-11T11:25:00.001-08:00

We've had a lot of rain overnight and all morning and as you can see, the stream is running fairly high.

All of this rain makes it painfully obvious that the construction project down the street still doesn't have adequate erosion control, and muddy runoff is going into the nearby street drains that empty into the wetland across the street. There are regulations in place that should be enforced that would easily keep this from happening. According to the city's own information, a minimum of 2-inches of mulch should be used, not the ridiculously thin scattering that was applied at this location. Also maybe silt fencing. Whatever is needed to keep the soil on site. Once again, here is a link to a pdf version of the City of Kenmore's Erosion Control Requirements.

The houses being built here must have to pass periodic inspections, so the question is why the building inspector doesn't enforce the runoff regulations.

Here's my visual tour for you...

The sad attempt at erosion control.

These decorative bricks are not stopping the muddy runoff....

...especially when it is trying to hold back a little stream running off the slope.

Muddy runoff flowing across the sidewalk further west.

A lot more straw and a silt fence along the edge of the sidewalk seems like it would be a good plan to me.

Muddy runoff down the internal road.

Muddy gutters heading east on 192nd from the cul de sac.

Muddy water heading west from the cul de sac.

This is a big drain that directs water under the street and into Wetland #3, which stretches from 192nd to nearly Bothell Way and includes Swamp and Little Swamp Creeks.

The muddy puddle next to that large storm drain. Love the litter, too.

Cold Weather, Followed By A Good Rain

2009-12-27T16:15:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month we had record-breaking cold temperatures. Near the end of that cold spell I happened to notice something I had never seen on the stream before - ice on the surface. It was just a small patch along the edge of the stream, but surprising nonetheless.

Here's a closer shot -

The stream looked like it was steaming on those really cold days, which was amazing to see. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture that well in a picture.

I was quite surprised to see that the water level of the stream was down as far as it ever gets in the summer. Can you see the patch of pebbles in the stream bed that were dry? I don't think that this low water level was caused by a lack of rain, I think it was because the ground was frozen. It had been seriously cold for a while by then.

Several days after I took those pictures we had a downpour. Here's the stream in the beginning -

And here are shots from several hours later -

Yuck! It is amazing how dirty that runoff water is. One of these days I'll take a walk upstream with my camera and see what the quality is like at different points along the way when we have a good, strong rain. I suspect that runoff from surface of 80th NE causes a lot of this, since the stream takes the runoff from a good stretch of it, but I could be wrong.... One good thing about the Brightwater project near our house being at a standstill for a while is that there haven't been dump trucks dripping mud all the way up 80th as they head to the freeway with dirt from the tunneling project.

Large Bird Sightings

2009-12-23T21:30:00.000-08:00

Can you find the beautiful bird in this photo? It caught my eye yesterday as it was hanging out on the side of the stream behind our fence...

Give up? It's in the center of the picture, above the roof of the woodshed. Here is a closer shot. A beautiful Great Blue Heron -

It seemed to be nervous about me being out on the deck. Contrary to what a city council member once told me when they were discussing removing the 50-foot Heron Habitat Buffer from Little Swamp Creek, I have found the heron to be very shy and very cautious of people. At least the herons that visit our yard are.

When we first moved into this house 11 years ago, we saw herons on a regular basis in our own yard and behind the fence. Now we rarely do. Luckily we still see them return to the rookery down by the Park and Ride every spring, so I know they are still living in the area.

While I was marveling at the heron, something big in a nearby cottonwood caught my eye -

I'm not sure, but I would guess that this is one of our neighborhood Red-tailed Hawks. There is a large nest that they use every spring just a little ways further into the wetland to the southwest of us. It sat there preening for quite a while. I have a feeling it was actually there to eyeball our chickens....

More Evidence of Beavers in our 'hood

2009-12-17T10:15:00.000-08:00

Part of a tree that is behind our back fence blew down a while back. Recently a fresh pile of wood chips on the ground below it caught my eye. I hopped the fence and discovered....

....that a beaver had been working on it.

Here's my hand in the picture for scale.

This piece looks a bit sculptural, with a slightly spiraled look to the core.

Strangely enough, there is a scattering of pieces of small branches approximately one foot long stretching from the downed tree along the side of the stream to that little bridge. But no evidence of a dam built nearby.

I am now seriously keeping my eye out for any beaver damage to other live trees. Luckily so far it has just chewed on this downed tree and taken out my Black Willow bush that is on the stream edge, but I'm slightly nervous about what's next!

White Rock Experiment Update

2009-12-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

I think it's about time for another visual update of my white rock experiment. First a little review...

This is the original circle of white marble chips placed in the stream bed on June 4th of this year. It's about 18" in diameter. My plan was to get this white rock circle set up before we had a good, hard rain. My motive was to be able to show how much silt is carried downstream/deposited in the stream bed by all of the runoff from a good rain. I was also curious to see whether the speed of the increased water flow from a rainstorm would move the white rocks downstream.

18 hours later (My biggest shock of the experiment was how much silt had been deposited on the rocks after 18 hours of just sitting there without the forecasted rainfall)

8 days later

25 days later

3 months later, after a good Fall rain

nearly 6th months later

Here is a close-up of the situation after nearly 6 months. The white rocks have been partly buried by pebbles and sand. The evening of Nov. 25th we had a lot of rain, and the next morning the stream level was as high as I've seen it since last winter. And this afternoon I noticed that some of the white rocks had finally actually been pushed a foot or two downstream. Interesting....

(the stream flows from left to right in this shot. You may barely be able to make out the fact that the white rocks have spread downstream a bit)

Thanksgiving Day Stream Flow Surprise

2009-11-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

I was half-aware that the rain really seemed to be really coming down Wednesday evening, but despite that fact, I was very surprised to see how high the stream was flowing on Thanksgiving morning.

Looking downstream from the east side of the stream

Looking upstream. Can't even see the (ahem....inadequately sized...) culvert that carries the stream under the street.

Looking downstream again, this time from the west side of the stream. You can see the live stakes sticking up on the western bank of the stream.

And back to normal on the beautiful, sunny day after Thanksgiving -

Beavers?!

2009-11-22T11:54:00.000-08:00

Walking around the yard a week or so ago I was very surprised to see that a critter had been doing a little pruning on a Black Pussy Willow perched on the western bank of the stream. Here is a closer shot of the tooth marks -

Then a couple days ago, I found this -

Mission accomplished, I guess. Unfortunately for the beaver if it was trying to start a dam right here, the heavy flows from all of the rain lately swept the branches that made it into the water downstream.

It was interesting to see that the critter tried to "cut" up this large branch into smaller sections.

This is not the first time that we have suffered some minor damage from a beaver or the like. Several years ago I was shocked to find that something had done a number on some of the Western Red Cedars that are planted in a row outside of our front fence.

It tore/gnawed the bark off of a couple of the trees, like this -

...and cut off the tree closest to the stream -

This tree is obviously making a valient effort to recover!

I'm not bothered by the "pruning" of the pussy willow. It will recover nicely, I'm sure. And it isn't a native, anyway. I'm just a little nervous about the large trees along the stream in our yard that could be a much more dramatic loss! I know that large trees have been felled by beaver deep in Wetland #3 behind us. I'll definitely post an update if we see more evidence!

Adequate Erosion Control? I Don't Think So...

2009-11-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

"Federal, state, and local regulations prohibit sediment-laden water from leaving a construction site or from entering drainage systems, surface water, or ground water"

- from the City of Kenmore "Erosion Control Posting Notice"

It is so frustrating to see a blatant disregard for the erosion control measures that are required on construction sites. There is a perfect example of this right down the street from where Little Swamp Creek passes under 192nd street -

This site does not drain directly into Little Swamp Creek, but it does drain directly into Wetland #3 (the large wetland roughly bordered by 192nd, 73rd, Bothell Way and 80th) which Swamp Creek and Little Swamp Creek run through. And by that I mean that the muddy runoff from this construction site is draining into storm drains in the street that directly connect to the wetland across the street from the site.

At one spot, runoff flows off the front of the site and onto the sidewalk...

...off the sidewalk and into the street to a gutter drain.

At this point I would like to point out that the minimum requirement for mulch is a thickness of 2" at any spot. This site has a ridiculously light sprinkling of straw mulch, as seen in the photo above, and some plastic tarps on dirt piles. The tarps were blown half off the piles by recent winds.

Muddy runoff also flows down the cul de sac road and onto 192nd...

....where it drains right into this storm drain that goes under the street and into the northern boarder of Wetland #3.

To make this situation even more frustrating, this is what it looked like over a year ago. Obviously nothing has improved -

Now, it is not like there aren't regulations in place in the city of Kenmore that are supposed to prevent this situation. Here is a link to a PDF version of Kenmore's regulations - Erosion Control Posting Notice. (In fact, this notice is supposed to be posted at the construction site) This particular construction site is not tucked up some dead-end road somewhere. It is located on a fairly major east-west road in northern Kenmore that I'm sure the city building inspector has to drive down at least occasionally. As further evidence that the inspector must have seen this situation, for a time a red "Stop Work" notice was posted on the single new house that is under construction so far on the site, so obviously the building inspector has visited. I would love to know why in the world does he not enforce the erosion control requirements.

I wonder why there isn't even a white construction notice board on the site?

About a year and a half ago Little Swamp Creek was impacted by inadequate erosion control measures and inadequate storm water collection from a couple of construction sites well upstream, within the city of Bothell. This is what the stream looked like all of the time for days in our yard -

Usually the water is silty after a good rain, but that clears up fairly soon. Not only was the water not clearing up, it was a strange, lighter silty color.

A little detective work led to the discovery of this pipe draining muddy water off of a construction site on 3rd Avenue SE -

There were two large construction sites with large, muddy expanses that (obviously) drain towards Little Swamp Creek.

Evidently the storm water collection vaults were overwhelmed and not functioning properly. Maybe due to the lack of erosion control?!! (This hay had obviously been spread VERY recently) Work was stopped on at least one of the projects and it's vault needed to be pumped out immediately. We were thankful to the City of Bothell for responding to the problem right away.

Here is a recent picture of a very large construction site in Bothell that has been sitting for quite a while without any action. It looks to me like it is a good example of proper mulch application, with a nice thick layer of straw covering all of the dirt. Once again, it looks like the city of Bothell deserves special recognition for actually enforcing the regulations that are in place to protect the quality of our waterways.

Drainage Ditch Contrast

2009-10-24T13:17:00.001-07:00

I was walking along 80th today and happened upon an interesting contrast in drainage ditch designs, conveniently located on either side of a fence.

The one on the left side of the fence must have been part of the surface water management plan when this little cul de sac was built. Can you see the mounds of rock placed perpendicularly periodically along the ditch? I would imagine those are for slowing down the flow of the runoff a bit and helping silt to settle out behind the mounds. That ditch also appears to be gravel-lined.

The ditch on the right is an interesting contrast. Just a steep-walled dirt ditch leading out to the ditch in the street.

The differences between these ditches remind me a bit of the stretch of Little Swamp Creek going through our yard. For the most part it is contained in a fairly narrow, deep channel. Over time the base of some of the steep bank areas become eroded enough that chunks fall into the stream, sending more silt downstream. Here's a good example of a chunk of bank that fell after the heavy rains last week -

The bank is only a foot or so high, but still... Ideally, we would love to create a gradually sloping bank along this stretch of the stream (on the side away from our house). The Adopt-A-Stream Foundation came up with a plan and received a permit to do the work, but the grant funding ran out. Stay tuned - I won't give up hope yet. Meanwhile, we have the great large woody debris that was installed this summer with the help of The L.E.A.F. School, which will help stabilize the bank in a few places, slow down the flow a tad and help collect silt and small pebbles. We also have a bunch of live willow and red twig dogwood stakes stuck into the bank in the worst spots. As those grow roots, they will definitely help hold the bank together.

A Good Rain

2009-09-08T11:20:00.000-07:00

We had an inch or so of rain over the weekend so I finally have a collection of before/during/after pictures of water flow in the stream to post.

This is looking to the southwest corner of our yard (downstream) on July 30th -

(I think that's the lowest flow I've ever seen in the stream.)

Here is the same view in the early afternoon of September 6, after about an inch of rainfall overnight -

And this was taken this morning, September 8th -

I'm noticing that the silt layer at the bottom of the steam has been washed away to some degree.

Here is a shot of the large woody debris added to the middle of our stretch of stream taken on July 30 -

Immediately following the rain when the flow was high -

(Notice that the lower log is completely under water?)

And today -

(You can see the gravel bed that was hiding under the silt)

One more spot to show is the large woody debris added to the streambank at the north end of our yard. This was taken on July 30th also -

Here is a (really bad) photo of the same spot after the rain -

I'm afraid that it is a bit difficult to appreciate from photos the difference in silt on my white rock experiment site, but here goes. This is the before shot, on June 29th -

And this is what it looked like after the high flow from the rain receeded -

Sand and gravel revealed again, although the rocks are definitely buried quite a bit.

Here's a picture of this experiment at the beginning -

And just for a little drama, here are a couple pictures of the highest flow that we have seen, on December 3, 2007 -

This is a wider shot of that area at the north end of our yard where large woody debris has been added. The stream was flowing over the road on this day. (The picture quality is terrible because it was POURING rain and I was snapping pictures very quickly for the sake of protecting the camera)

This is a wider view of the southwest corner of our yard on 12/3/07. For orientation, that cedar tree that is in the middle/top of this photo is the same tree that is in the upper right corner of the photos at the beginning of this post. To the right of it in this photo you can see where the water flow knocked out part of our fence. I forgot that happened...

Freshwater mussel in Little Swamp Creek

2009-08-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

Something in the stream that looked vaguely mussel-like had been catching my eye for a while now. It was near our foot bridge, so I would look down at it every day and wonder what kind of trash it was that was half buried in the streambed. Today I noticed that the crack/gap down the middle was closed for the first time, so I was finally inspired to investigate. I was surprised to discover that it is a real, live mussel!

According to the King County website, we have a freshwater mussel in our area called the Western Pearlshell (Margaritifera falcata). I believe that is what I've found. Here is a link to the King County Freshwater Mussels homepage. According to what I read there, these mussels are a good indicator of stream health because of their sensitivity to pollutants. So finding one is good news, though I'm sure finding a bed full would be even better...

The Western Pearlshell pictured on the King County website appears to be about the size of the one that I found, and the information says that the one in their picture is estimated to be around 50 years old!

I'm a little worried about the look of the hinge area of this one -

The creatures that lurk in the stream....

2009-07-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

As a part of the stream restoration event held in our yard last week, the guys from Adopt-A-Stream put a few live traps in the stream overnight to get a feel for what is or is not living in this section of Little Swamp Creek. The traps were baited with punctured cans of cat food. I know that is a BAD picture, but I just had to put it on here anyway. Here's what those traps looked like out of the water -

This is a second style of trap that they used, and what it caught -

We had not seen any crayfish or any evidence of crayfish (parts left behind by raccoons, for example...) in the stream for several years, so we were pretty excited to see that they are still living in there.

Then we saw this from another trap -

Woo hoo! That is two crayfish, a sculpin and a Pacific giant salamander! What you have to realize is that all we see when looking in the stream during the day are some small (2-4") fish (probably cutthroat trout or coho fry) zipping around, caddisfly larvae crawling along the stream bottom, and water skeeters on top of the water. Those are great, but this was an amazing discovery and so encouraging as indicators of a relatively healthy stream!

Here's a SECOND salamander, from a different trap -

Mighty cute!

One trap caught only sculpin -

I probably must emphasize here that Adopt-A-Stream had a permit to trap and release in the stream. They didn't keep these creatures out for very long, but it was just the perfect thing for Eric and I and the students from The LEAF School to see what inhabits the stream.

Interestingly enough, there weren't any of the little fry that we see zipping around in the stream. Unfortunately they are food for these other creatures and if any were trapped they may have been eaten. Oops.

Later in the day, CK and Loren from Adopt-A-Stream collected macro-invertebrates from the stream bed so the LEAF School students could figure out what was there. I'll talk more about all of the amazing learning opportunities AAS set up in a later post, but for now here is a picture of some of what they found -

And finally, here is a critter that just happened to show up at the right place at the right time for some ooo-ing and ah-ing and a picture -

I'm afraid that it might be a young bullfrog, which I don't think is a good thing for the native amphibians. I haven't been able to identify it yet, so if anybody out there reading this can tell me what this is, please do!

Large Woody Debris Planting Day

2009-07-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

July 22nd was the day that Adopt-A-Stream (AAS) and a new class from The LEAF School at Edmonds Community College came to install "large woody debris" (LWD) in one side of the stream bank in our yard. Once again we want to send out a HUGE thank you to everyone involved in this project! You are all amazing and do such good work.

I must admit that I had no idea how or exactly where this large woody debris was going to be installed, so it was very fun to watch and photograph. Happily, I am finally putting this post together to share the process.

That is the pile of logs that Adopt-A-Stream dropped off the day before the big event, along with a small pile of rebar. The mystery was growing. The Adopt-A-Stream elves also placed some live traps at a few spots in the stream to see what would wander in over night. I'll talk about that more in a different post...

As I discovered and you will see, the plan was to place two criss-crossed logs at three different places along the west side of the stream bank in our yard. The guys from Adopt-A-Stream placed the logs in the right places and drilled them, and the students from The LEAF School pounded in the rebar to keep them in place. Here is my record of the event ---

The first set of logs were placed just right and holes were drilled into them near each end and where they cross -

LEAF School volunteers hammered in the rebar to anchor them into place -

Here the first set is, all done -

That part of the stream bank experienced a lot of undercutting/eroding in the last year or so. The AAS guys shoved some lengths of thick willow branches (left over from a tree that fell over in our yard last winter) into the bank to help stabilize it. Plus they came back the next day with "live stakes" of redtwig dogwood and willow branches to shove into the bank along there. The stakes will hopefully take root and grow into bushes that will stablize the bank, too. Here are a couple of shots of that -

Can you see the stakes in this shot? It's a little hard to see. Hopefully they survive this crazy hot, dry spell and leaf out!

I caught some different steps of the process when the second set of logs were installed:

Drilling...

Pounding in rebar with this awesome tool...

Done, with an extra chunk of willow thrown in for good measure....

Here is a "before" and "after" shot looking east at this second spot -

There are a bunch of live stakes poked in there, too. Actually, the redtwig dogwood that are already growing there are from branches that I poked into the ground a few years ago.

Here's the last pair of logs, placed up near the front of our yard close to where the stream comes out of the culvert that goes under the street -

I love this two-person rebar pounding operation!

And here is the final set, all finished -

This particular spot gets hammered by the water blasting out of the under-sized culvert in high run-off times. It will be interesting to watch what happens here now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are a few reasons to add large woody debris to a stream. Most obvious to me is the effect this will have on the flow in the stream when the rains return. Instead of just blasting literally straight through this section of the stream, the flow will move up and down and around the logs. Maybe this will slow the flow down a tiny bit. But the most interesting thing that the logs will do that I didn't fully realize is create better gravel beds for spawning. The logs should catch some of the small rocks and pebbles that would otherwise be pushed downstream with some of the massive flows that we see in the fall and winter. Plus the movement of the water going up and over the logs and then down again clears the silt from the streambed immediately downstream from the logs. I hadn't realized that before.

And of course the logs will provide some cover for the creatures that inhabit the stream. And we were so excited to learn about what critters are actually living in our stream! But more about that later....

From the July 1, 2009 "Kenmore Reporter" - Sno-King Watershed Council and Little Swamp Creek in the local media!

2009-06-30T21:58:00.001-07:00

Group takes regional look at waterways

By TOM CORRIGAN

Bothell Reporter Reporter

About a year and a half back, the grassroots group People for an Environmentally Responsible Kenmore (PERK) called a public meeting to discuss a stream known only by its number designation, 0056.

As 0056 flows through a couple of jurisdictions besides Kenmore, those attending the discussion included representatives from at least two cities, a number of resident groups and some private, environmentally minded citizens. Among the latter was Eric Adman.

During the meeting, Adman said someone from the nonprofit Adopt-A-Stream Foundation noticed there were a number of small groups represented such as PERK, many linked to individual waterways.

“They didn’t really speak as representatives of the overall issues,” Adman.

Out of that discussion grew the Sno-King Watershed Council, of which Adman is the current chair.

A Kenmore resident who lives along Little Swamp Creek, Adman said the council tries to be sort of an umbrella group and a bridge between the highly focused interests of groups such as, for example, the Denny Creek Neighborhood Association, and more regional questions.

What are those regional questions? Adman said they range from increased urban flooding to regulatory inconsistencies across jurisdictional boundaries. The group’s goals include educating the public, decision makers and other stakeholders. One big event listed by Adman was a multi-jurisdictional meeting on Swamp Creek held in Lake Forest Park in October.

That event drew State Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Shoreline, as well as officials from several local communities.

In terms of education, Adopt-A-Stream Director Tom Murdoch said the Watershed Council, of which he is a big fan, has its work cut out for it. To start with, he wondered out loud just how many people know what a watershed is or could name the watershed in which they live.

Murdoch added a simplified definition of a watershed is any area that feeds water into a specific waterway. Adman noted watersheds usually extend for miles around a particular watercourse. In terms of maintaining and restoring local streams and creeks, Adman seems to think the biggest issue by far is controlling the runoff from watersheds.

Thanks to development and, in his mind, way too much impervious asphalt and concrete, way too much water reaches way too many waterways. One result is urban flooding after heavy rains or heavy snow melts.

“We have 100-year floods every few years,” Adman said.

In response to some of these and other issues, the state recently has mandated the use of low-impact development (LID) construction methods “wherever feasible.”

“The question is, what does ‘wherever feasible’ mean?” Adman said.

Permeable pavement certainly is one LID technique to control runoff, but Adman added there are plenty of others, and spreading the word about those is certainly a mission of the Watershed Council. Of course all the work regarding run-off ultimately will help keep pollutants out of waterways, one piece of the puzzle that could lead to restoration of various salmon runs, another issue of great interest to the Watershed Council.

For his part, Adman said there is no doubt living alongside Little Swamp Creek inspired him to get involved with water-quality and watershed-control issues. He said he’s seen a few salmon in the creek, but also seen days when the water resembles “cream-filled coffee.”

With the help of Adopt-A-Stream, Adman added his back yard has become a demonstration project for restoring native vegetation.

A paramedic stationed at the downtown Bothell fire station and having just come off a shift, Adman nevertheless is well-spoken and talks seemingly effortlessly about the complicated issues for which he has a clear passion. He wants the Watershed Council to continue to grow, to add more experts and to keep on “prodding” local officials into action.

“We just really want to connect the dots between the problems and provide solutions,” Adman said.

For further information, visit www.snokingwatershedcouncil.org.

Bothell Reporter Reporter Tom Corrigan can be reached at tcorrigan@bothell-reporter.com or (425) 483-3732, ext. 5052.

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White Rock/Sediment Experiment

2009-06-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

A little while back I learned of an experiment one can do involving placing painted rocks in a river or stream and tracking their movement from high water flows. That idea gave me the inspiration for a way to try to see how much silt/sediment settles out of the water in Little Swamp Creek after a good rain. (Truth be told, I know my idea was influenced by my interest in the environmental sculptor Andy Goldsworthy) I purchased a bag of white marble "chips" and made a circle of them in the stream about 15-18" in diameter:

These starting pictures were taken on June 4th. You may be able to tell from this closer picture that at this location the bottom of the stream is covered with a bit of silt already - about 1/4-1/2". I chose this day to place the rocks in the stream because it hadn't rained for a couple of weeks and there was rain in the weather forecast - the perfect conditions for some particularly silty water to come downstream.

I was very surprised to see that after just 3 hours in the stream, on a clear day, the white rocks looked like this:

After 18 hours, the rocks looked like this (and we did not have the forecasted rain):

This is 24 hours after the rocks were placed in the stream:

48 hours in the stream:

5 days after placing the rocks in the stream:

And today, after 25 days in the stream, and not much rain, the rocks are almost buried:

At this point, instead of anxiously awaiting a big rain flow to see what sediment covers up the rocks, I am now very curious to see if a good flow clears off the sediment. And I wonder what kind of flow it will take to move the white rocks. Check back for updates on this ongoing experiment!

Heron on the restored bank of Swamp Creek

2009-06-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

It was nice to see some animal life on the bank of the lower end of Swamp Creek this morning! There was a heron hanging out on the recently restored bank of the stream where it goes under Highway 522 at 80th.

What a crazy contrast - this stock still, silent bird right under the craziness of the morning commute and ongoing construction work. I love that we can see this in Kenmore.