Kenmore Undressed

Flooding at Wild Cliff Shores – Three Years Later and Still No Answers

How Problems are Solved in the 21st Century

Tom Corrigan, staff writer for the Bothell/Kenmore Reporter has written a follow-up article regarding the ongoing flooding problem occurring at Wild Cliff Shores, a condominium complex in the City of Kenmore. The article entitled Kenmore residents, city dealing with another potential Wild Cliff Shores flooding problem revisits a problem that, it seems, everyone wants to be involved with, but no one wants to take responsibility for. Basically, the situation is this: a Kenmore (city owned) culvert is pouring huge amounts of water into a “salmon” stream next to the condos. The condo owners have put sandbags up next to the stream bank to prevent the waters from flooding their property. The State Fish and Wildlife Department says the owners are in violation of state law (no permit for the sandbags) so they  will force the owners to obtain an expensive study to see if they can even put sand bags up!!!!!!  Some snippets from his article:

• As the subdivision is private property, Kenmore officials said the clean-up was the homeowners’ problem
• He (Kenmore’s City Manager) added that looking at the bigger picture, Kenmore sits at the bottom of the Swamp Creek Watershed, 95 percent of which sits outside the city’s boundaries and is therefore, obviously, out of the city’s control.
• the state has said that while the subdivision needs a permit to put up the sandbags, they also need one to take them down. Both permits cost money and, reportedly, neither is easily obtained.
• He added that lastly, the city intends to mount a sort of Swamp Creek summit, hoping to bring together representatives from all the various jurisdictions involved. This is a regional issue that follows geography, not political boundaries

This is What the Flooding Looks Like!

I recently wrote a blog post, Kenmore Homeowners Are Getting Stiffed in which I describe the players involved in this ridiculous situation. As I mentioned, I have a friend who lives in Wild Cliff Shores. We’ve seen the flooding. We’ve heard all about the lame excuses used by the City and the State. Basically the homeowners are being muscled  into paying huge amounts of money to “study” a mythical salmon stream so that the home owners can put sand bags up to protect their property.

Player #6

Kenmore City Manager Frederick Stouder has indicated this issue is “regional” and that it’s going to take more study and collaboration between various jurisdictions to find a solution. Frankly, I’m curious: why has it taken three years for the City of Kenmore and “other jurisdictions” to start studying this problem? The City of Kenmore has known about this and promises to keep the culvert clean, but I have a sense they’ve been putting off the inevitable. They have been very slow in searching for the TRUTH.

I suspect that construction in the neighboring communities above Wild Cliff has caused a serious runoff problem and that someone neglected to factor-in the surface water runoff problems that would be created by covering up more land with new homes. I don’t think it’s coincidental that this flooding started in 2006 after so much building. I’ll be the first one to admit that my argument is anecdotal; however, I would still like to know why it has taken so long for everyone to “wake up!”

But even more disturbing is the notion that putting up sand bags next to a flooding stream would impact salmon even if they do exist in the stream. To force the home owners of Wild Cliff Shores to spend $50,000 to pay for a study to justify putting up sand bags is, simply put, utter balderdash.

Does this Flooding “Protect” Salmon????

I can hardly wait to see if solving this serious situation is going to fall victim to the usual “Northwest Process.” Let’s see if this gets studied to death long enough that my friend’s neighborhood washes away by the time a solution is proposed!!!!

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