Charges that a developer illegally removed a concrete dam to drain wetland are untrue, according to state and city officials.
Shoreline city workers went Dec. 2 to the site downstream from Peverly Pond near the Aegis Assisted Living project to investigate the charges made at the Dec. 1 City Council meeting by local environmentalist Janet Way. The workers took photos that show the dam, which is in the Interstate 5 right of way and owned by the state Department of Transportation, still in place.
Way told Council members “the dam is gone” and that Aegis, which proposed removing the dam as mitigation for building its senior living facility near a wetlands, had removed it without the proper permit from state Fish and Wildlife or from the state DOT.
“DOT sent Aegis a letter dated June 24th telling them ‘you can’t do your mitigation on our property, don’t touch the dam,’ ” Way said Dec. 1. “I drove by there on Friday and it’s been the rainy season and the pond is shrunk – the dam is gone. They had no permit to remove the dam.”
State Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds, sent a letter Dec. 2 to DOT planning manager Ramin Pazooki asking for an investigation.
“Citizens have reason to believe that Aegis has taken independent action to remove this ‘concrete structure’ without informing you or (state Department of Fish and Wildlife), and without applying for a hydraulic permit. I believe this is an illegal action, which may have been done to better facilitate their building project plans,” Chase said in her letter.
The photos taken Dec. 2 by Shoreline city officials, however, show the dam is in place. Pazooki said in an e-mail to city planning director Tim Stewart that a DOT investigation of the matter found the dam to be untouched.
Stewart, in a Dec. 3 letter to Way, said, “I have investigated your complaint and found there is no evidence that a ‘check dam’ or any other flow control device has recently been in use at Peverly Pond. A concrete weir contains the pond. That weir (built when I-5 was constructed)… appears to be unchanged.”
“Based upon our investigation, I have determined that there is not probable cause to initiate a code enforcement case.”
A copy of the letter and photo of the dam was also sent to Chase, according to Stewart.
Way said Dec. 9: “My reaction to that letter is that I am going by what is visible from the street. Clearly, from the street, the water level is down from what it used to be. I don’t know what they have done to change the hydrology there, that’s why I am asking for an investigation.
“We don’t know whether or not some other part of the dam that was there before could have been altered because we don’t have proof of what was there before. There are ways of undermining the hydrology – are they pumping water out, is there a leak? If they are dewatering the wetlands to benefit their development, that is illegal,” Way said.
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