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Meetings are held at the Newport Yacht Club, 71 Skagit Key, Bellevue, WA.
Coal Creek Community Coalition in the News
Eastside Journal: Coalition fighting to save Coal Creek salmon!!!
Heavy sediment deposits are killing newly hatched fish.
2000-04-15
by Judy Ronningen
Journal Reporter
BELLEVUE -- Coal Creek was named after the coal mines that flourished a century ago in the Newcastle area. As the creek rushes down Cougar Mountain, through Newcastle and Bellevue and into Lake Washington, the legacy of the mines is still obvious: Eroded stream banks, winter flooding and water loaded with so much sediment it kills salmon eggs and hatchlings. Not one spawning salmon was spotted in Coal Creek above Interstate 405 last year. Each year, the creek carries an average of 3,500 cubic yards of silt.
``It's hard to believe that little stream is carrying that much sediment,'' said Bill Weinstein. He is president of a new group pushing to clean up the entire 5-mile length of the creek. The Coal Creek Community Coalition, started by a small group of homeowners in the Newport Shores neighborhood near Lake Washington, is trying to recruit supporters from all along the creek basin to increase the group's political impact in lobbying for creek projects. Newport Shores homeowners live at the very end of Coal Creek and get the worst of the flooding and sediment each winter. In front of Weinstein's house, layers of sediment deposit have caused the creek level to rise 18 inches over five years. They may face a challenge in trying to recruit homeowners upstream: Most don't live right along the creek and aren't personally affected by it.
Nevertheless, King County Councilman Rob McKenna, who led a walking tour of Coal Creek hot spots last year, thinks the coalition can connect with people who are concerned about the environment and salmon. Good hiking trails nearby give people exposure to the creek's problems, he noted. ``I just think (a regional coalition) is a great idea,'' McKenna said. ``It will help us address Coal Creek issues that cross at least three jurisdictions.''
If anyone can put together a coalition, it may be this group: Only a few months old, they've already filed for nonprofit status. They use PowerPoint to make their pitch to community groups. They're lawyers, bankers, engineers and organizers, many of them politically active. ``We're moving very quickly,'' Weinstein said. ``We have a very capable group of people.'' During the past decade, King County and the city of Bellevue have done some work to stabilize the creek, including detention ponds and flood control. But the coalition says King County has fallen far short of what it promised to do in a 1987 agreement with Bellevue. One of the most unstable sites is in the Cinder Mine area, located near the Newcastle Golf and Country Club. Coal miners dumped tons of coal waste there, which later caught fire underground. It was mined for the cinders until the early 1960s, according to Scott Taylor, the city's Coal Creek expert. Critics say the county built a small holding pond there to detain silt. It promised to build a bigger pond but never did. Bill Eckel, manager for the county's regional water resource section, said the situation changed after county officials signed the agreement. Nearby land had been zoned for fairly dense development, which would have increased runoff into the creek. Instead, he said, King County bought the land for Cougar Mountain Regional Park in 1989, reducing the runoff and the need for a bigger pond. There also is disagreement whether the county did enough to stabilize creek banks near the Cinder Mine. To critics who demand more, Eckel notes that King County already has spent more money per mile on Coal Creek than other similar areas. Meanwhile, Bellevue plans to dredge away part of the delta that has built up in Lake Washington from sediment borne by Coal Creek. Taylor said the delta is so big that it's restricting creek flows into the lake, causing water to back up and flood creekside property. The Newport Yacht Club also has complained about delta getting in the way of their boats, but Taylor said any benefit to the club would be incidental.
* * * For more information about the Coal Creek Community Coalition, call Steve
Faloon at (425) 644-6139