Groups, city spar over wetland fixes

Environmentalists and community groups Wednesday asked the state to step in and block the city of Seattle's construction work at a fire training center near South Park, the latest round in a yearslong feud over the city's treatment of nearby Hamm Creek.

The Center for Environmental Law and Policy, along with the Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition, asked the state Department of Ecology to order further work at the site halted because the city lacks state permission to divert water that flows into a fork of the creek.

The work under way is meant to replace wetlands that were damaged by construction of the city's Joint Training Facility for firefighters and utility crews. The environmentalists say the city's methods will cause further damage.

"It will steal water from Hamm Creek and degrade Hamm Creek," said B.J. Cummings, coordinator for the cleanup coalition.

Brenda Bauer, director of the city's Fleets and Facilities Department, which is overseeing the project, countered that the city is going to great lengths to create wetlands where there once was a gravel mine. The changes the environmental groups are demanding would be of little value, she said.

"They're asking us to do something that we are concerned will have questionable environmental benefit and may cause harm," said Bauer.

The dispute has been ongoing since at least 2005, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cited the city for illegally filling wetlands while building the training center. The Corps had been alerted by Hamm Creek restoration activist John Beal, who has since died.

The city and the Corps eventually reached a settlement that committed the city to build or restore an acre of wetlands and 1.3 acres of buffers on the training site to make up for the 1.3 acres of wetlands it had filled or was going to fill.

That work, as well as other habitat restoration along the Duwamish River, will cost roughly $4 million, on top of the project's original $26 million, Bauer said.

The city wants to create part of an artificial wetland with spring water that now flows into a fork of Hamm Creek called the Lost Fork, said Cummings. The water passing through the new wetland would eventually just go down a storm drain, she said.

Bauer said the fix sought by environmentalists would mean extensive excavation to get water to flow in a direction that is now uphill.

Mayor Greg Nickels has backed Bauer, sending a letter to City Councilmember Richard Conlin in July saying the changes would be costly and provide little benefit. Conlin, who chairs the Environment, Emergency Management and Utilities Committee, couldn't be reached Wednesday.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com