Uncertain future

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE

The way Robin Lesher sees it, a popular sport is ruining this city’s largest park, hurting wildlife, trees and plants.

She wants the city to ban an 18-hole disc golf course from the 60-acre Terrace Creek Park, arguing the sport conflicts with city environmental laws.

Disc golfers say they’ve gone out of their way to be good stewards of the park, which is habitat for hundreds of species of plants and animals just north of 236th Street Southwest off 48th Avenue West.

“They’re trampling the plants; they’ve killed some trees,” said Lesher, a plant biologist with the U.S. Forest Service who’s lived in the city since 1990. She’s voiced her concerns to the City Council and the Recreation and Parks Advisory Commission.

Lowell Shields, a Mountlake Terrace resident and president of the Seattle Disc Golf Player’s Association, said Lesher’s complaints are “off-base.”

“I’m an environmentalist and I disagree with her,” he said. “She’s just completely off the deep end.”

Disc golfers may have to move their “holes” — metal baskets placed in the park in 1994. But, at least in the short run, it won’t be because of environmental concerns, said Ken Courtmanch, the city’s parks and facilities superintendent.

The city’s planning storm water improvements that will displace two of the course’s holes. A planned off-leash dog park near the Recreation Pavilion’s parking lot will displace two more holes and improvements to the park’s picnic area will force disc golfers to move another hole — five in all.

“The reasons the holes are being requested to be moved at this point is strictly for space reasons,” he said.

On a recent walk through the park, Lesher pointed to Alder trees she said disc golfers have damaged. Dozens of Alders clearly had lost much of their bark. She pointed to a bird.

“That’s a pileated woodpecker,” she said, pointing to a bird that is a candidate for the federal Endangered Species list.

“Basically, every time they throw a Frisbee, they go in a 180-degree arc,” she said of the golfers. “It’s not like they’re just out walking along the trails, like a normal person would.”

She pointed to slopes she claims have eroded because of foot traffic from disc golfers. Hemlock tree roots were clearly visible.

“Alder has very thin bark,” she said. “Those discs are quite hard and when they hit the tree, they damage living cells — the cambian (layer) — that’s right below the bark.”

Disc golf has been a part of Terrace Creek Park since 1994. Prior to that, Veterans Park had been home to a 9-hole course since 1985. The disc golfer’s association got City Council approval to donate the 18-hole course to the park in 1993, according to a May 29 memo from Recreation and Parks Director Don Sarcletti to the council.

Shields, of the golf association, said his group brought in Boy Scouts earlier this year and planted bushes along slopes damaged by foot traffic. “We actually cleaned (one slope in the park) up from being a dump,” he said.

“We went in and planted 100 plants on Earth Day,” said Shields, who said he is a certified tree risk inspector with a degree in ornamental horticulture. He denied that golfers cut down trees.

“We take nothing out,” he said. “We have a written agreement with the parks department that we’ve had ever since we put the course in.”

Shane Hope, the city’s planning and development director, wrote in a May 27 memo to Sarcletti that there was never environmental review of the 18-hole site when it went in. In 2004, the council adopted stricter environmental requirements with a Critical Areas Ordinance but disc golf at the park is exempt because it predates the law, Hope wrote.

According to Hope, future environmental review may be necessary. That hinges on whether new hole sites are within 200 feet of a critical area or if they’re close to a critical wildlife habitat or geologic hazards.

The Recreation and Parks Advisory Commission reviewed four disc golf association proposals in April. The city’s Community Development Department is reviewing the relocation options and may require completion of a critical area report, depending upon which sites are chosen for the new holes.