Northshore and mitigation dreams
I was surprised by Federal Way’s benign attitude at the recent hearing concerning the fate of the proposed Northshore Golf Course development. Apparently your city’s staff feels that the salient issues have been addressed and satisfactorily mitigated. This is a high risk course of action considering the poorly defined and problematic nature of the issues. A successful mitigation requires a comprehensive analysis of all the salient factors and a 100 percent accurate crystal ball.
Critical issues abound such as traffic and overcrowded playgrounds, but for a good example, consider stormwater management. This issue somehow escaped mitigation. Consider that the City of Tacoma has grandfathered the developer under their 2003 Surface Water Management Manual, which requires provisions to handle rainfall up to a 100-year storm level of 4.1 inches, a level which has been exceeded in the area six times in the past 20 years.
Your city has improved the conveyances from the Joe’s Creek culvert at Hoyt Road to the 320th Street detention pond and flow control. These modifications will serve to accelerate flow of stormwater through the Twin Lakes area, minimizing the flooding potential. But the negative aspect is that the rapid dump of stormwater to downsteam Joe’s Creek will result in scouring and erosion. The considerable cost of the city’s efforts to improve this habitat and promote the nascent Coho spawning run may well go for naught.
The developer plans to denude the entire golf course at the beginning of the six-year build-out plan exposing raw earth to the elements with the Joe’s Creek headwaters in the last phase to be completed. The potential for the transfer of silt to Twin Lakes would be high, raising the lake level and sooner or later requiring dredging. Remember the disastrous Twin Lakes floods of 1979 during construction of the golf course back nine, and in 1990 during installation of the On the Green Apartment complex.
The increased pollution load from the high density development (860 homes, 2,150 residents) will enhance your sea lettuce crop in Dumas Bay. Both the Hylebos Waterway and Dumas Bay, already identified by the Washington State Department of Ecology as being at the highest level, Category 5, of impaired waterways, will be impacted with severe consequences.
SaveNETacoma pretty much stands alone in opposing this development. As this controversy will be finally settled in the courts, our legal costs are high and mounting. If you share our concerns, we would truly appreciate your attendance at our fundraiser dinner hosted by the favorite Italian restaurant, Gino’s Bistro, with entertainment and raffles Nov. 14 at the Brown Point Improvement Club overlooking Commencement Bay. Contact Lois Cooper-Thompson at (253) 874-6684 for reservations. If you are unable to attend, donations would be truly appreciated.
Despite the political boundaries, we are in this fight together.
Gene B. Foster, NE Tacoma
