During floods, Lyon Creek and McAleer Creek, which drains Lake Ballinger, jump their banks, run together in Lake Forest Park, and swamp the city’s popular Towne Centre.
The problems that plague the creeks are the same, officials with Lake Forest Park and Shoreline told the newly-formed Lake Ballinger work group May 27. They should be dealt with at the same time and by the same people, the officials argued.
It wasn’t an argument they won.
The five-city work group was created earlier this year to tackle problems with Lake Ballinger’s watershed. It won a $200,000 earmark from the state Department of Ecology to deal very specifically with Lake Ballinger.
Lyon Creek isn’t part of that, the work group decided.
The group agreed upon language for an interlocal agreement which would create a more formal task force to wrestle with the watershed, and manage the DOE study.
Member cities have been asked to approve the ILA by July 15 in time for another meeting.
The Lyon Creek decision was a relief for people living around Lake Ballinger, which regularly floods during major rain events.
“You have to be careful,” said Jerry Thorson, president of the Lake Ballinger Home Owner’s Association. “You could have such a bureaucratic mess that we’d never get anything done.”
The 107-acre urban Lake Ballinger sits in Mountlake Terrace, is fed mostly by Lynnwood’s Hall Creek and is drained — too slowly, critics charge — by McAleer Creek, which runs primarily through Mountlake Terrace and the cities of Lake Forest Park and Shoreline.
Somehow, of the 52 homes around the lake, all but three are located in Edmonds.
Solving water quality and flooding issues along the lake and its creeks has been a difficult chore that has reflected the diverse city interests.
Lyon Creek’s involvement was an early hurdle, as a different mix of cities feed that creek. Edmonds and Lynnwood’s stormwater does not flow into Lyon.
Ultimately, Lake Forest Park mayor Dave Hutchinson agreed that a separate Lyon Creek work group could be the best step.
“Lyon Creek is the most important thing to us,” said Hutchinson, who said flood damage in December totaled $2.5 million. “It is a very serious situation for us.”
For budget reasons, the DOE’s study needs to be completed by June 30, 2009. The study will compile existing data, and build baseline data for the watershed’s ground and surfacewater.
“The question is what is natural, and what has been changed?,” said Doug Wood, with the DOE. “The other question is why do they not match?”
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