The Everett City Council’s vote last month to spend $1.3 million to upgrade parks was timely. Still unclear is the level of concern by Parks Department administrators for ensuring ” … that the community feels safe being in all the parks.” Feeling safe and being safe are two different conditions when using parks on the Snohomish River.
The Riverside Park at Lowell’s historic “bend of the river” has been an unsafe place for visitors since the early 1900s and is getting worse. A potential Superfund project is waiting at one point, owing to early operations there of a creosote plant. Its site has been covered in layers of debris by changing ownership but never cleaned up by modern environmental standards for public health.
Of more immediate importance is the rapid deterioration of riverbanks by erosion. These riverbanks are landfills that encroached on the river channel passing close by in pre-settlement history. The river is reclaiming its own pathway. At places the erosion has penetrated the public area with high vertical drops to deep water. As a farmer, I would not allow cattle into such conditions without fencing, but park officials allow people in without concern.
During the past year, I presented these conditions, with slides, to several groups, including the Parks Department. I included photos where visitor drownings occurred during the site’s mill-pocket history. No comments or questions were received.
Perhaps park administrators know the river there but have opted to “take a chance,” that is, to withhold the warning signs, fencing and riverbank armoring that would render this property safe for public use. If so, this is a plan worth changing. A single new drowning will render everything ever done there for recreation insufficient to ever cover the cost.
ALEX GETCHELL ALEXANDER
Everett
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