Dredging ends, beavers return

I haven’t seen the furry critters myself, but I have it upon reliable eye-witness authority that the beavers are now back frolicking in the waters off the northern coast of Madison Park. This, in spite of the two weeks of dredging in the area recently undertaken by Broadmoor’s contractor. The dredging company pulled out last week, meaning (I guess) that water from the Lake is now free to gush unhindered into the irrigation pipes of the golf course.
.
I don’t get up early enough, unfortunately, to get a shot of swimming beavers (who, I am told, are most likely to be seen after sunrise); but Canterbury resident Gene Brandzel provided this fuzzy shot last week to prove his point either that the Loch Ness monster lives or that the beavers are really back in Canterbury (Gene admits that the lighting was bad). He reports that there were four adult beavers on show at 5:30 that particular morning, which just happened to be a couple of days before the dredging equipment was evacuated. “Some of the beavers slapped their tails right next to the dredge to say goodbye,” Brandzel said. “It was quite touching.”

Broadmoor isn’t the only community, by the way, to benefit from the dredging effort. As a condition of one of the permits that Broadmoor needed to obtain for the project, the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife required that the pier at the end of 37th Avenue E., near the dredging site, be resurfaced. The old surface of the pier (aka “dock”) was wooden, allowing little light to penetrate into waters underneath. The new pier has slots that allow the light to shine through. This, in theory, should be good for the aquatic and plant life of the bay.

It's nice to know that the fears of many of us that the beavers might be disturbed as a result of the dredging have apparently proved overblown. The waters look serene, the beaver lodge remains intact, and we presumably can soon look forward to seeing the results of another successful breading season. If anyone gets a good shot of the new brood, please share with us!

[Middle photo: the wooden housing for the Broadmoor irrigation system intake pipe, around which the dredging occurred.]

Broadmoor begins dredging

With all required permits in place, Broadmoor’s contractor began pulling the sludge from Union Bay yesterday around the intake pipe for the golf course’s watering system. As we’ve reported previously, Broadmoor wants green grass in the summer, and that apparently requires more water than the intake pipe could accommodate. Deepening the channel in the area surrounding the intake pipe will supposedly solve the problem for the immediate future.

Not everyone is happy about the situation, however. Canterbury resident Gene Brandzel led the effort to keep the City from approving Broadmoor’s permit request as originally submitted. His concern, and that of other wildlife enthusiasts, was that a nearby beaver lodge would be disrupted during the dredging and the beavers might be negatively impacted, perhaps even abandoning their home. In the end, the City decided that the Madison Park beavers were not in jeopardy.

Seattle’s Department of Planning & Development Director, Diane Sugimura, sent Brandzel an email today in which she stated “the beaver are not an endangered species, and their habitat is not protected.” She commented that based on discussions with the State’s Department of Fish & Wildlife, she believes the beavers will probably not leave the area, as they are used to an urban environment with a lot of noise and activity. As evidence she cited the lodge’s proximity to SR-520. In the end, she said, she was sorry that her decision to grant the permit was not what Brandzel wanted, but “I do feel that our decision meets our regulatory authority.”

This is not quite a “Beavers be Damned” story, however, since the opposition by Brandzel and others to Broadmoor’s original plans did result, as Sugimura noted in her email, in a significantly reduced area and depth of dredging. Nevertheless, as can be seen in the photo below, the boom area is pretty close to the beaver damn, which is visible directly in front the dock at the 37th Avenue E. road end.

Brandzel, meanwhile, is unhappy not only with the outcome but with the process as well. “These are not ordinary beavers” he wrote in response to Sigimura, “and treating them as if they are is closing one’s eyes to the uniqueness of having these creatures as part of an urban community.” Brandzel is calling for volunteers to monitor the dredging activity to be sure that it complies with the permit. If you’re interested in helping, you can contact him at genebb@gmail.com or (206) 940-4489.

Dredging is expected to continue for two to three weeks.

Beavers beware! Broadmoor to dredge

Though they’ve been given a couple-week reprieve so they can finish out their breeding season, the Madison Park beavers may soon be in for a rude awakening. Broadmoor’s plans to dredge around the golf club’s water intake pipe (shown above) have been approved by the City with the only restriction being that the project may not begin before April Fool’s Day. As reported previously on this blog, Broadmoor has a longstanding right to take water from Union Bay. The golf course utilizes pumped water from this source to help keep the grass green during the summer. The intake pipe for the irrigation system is located just off the pier at the 37th Avenue E. road end, within 40 feet or so of a beaver lodge which appears to be inhabited. As many neighbors have reported, beavers are very active in the vicinity.

To be fair, Broadmoor’s dredging plans have been scaled back significantly from what was originally proposed. The golf course had asked to be allowed to do a deep dredge within a twenty-foot radius around the intake site. After public complaints about the potential disruption to the natural habitat, Broadmoor agreed to limit the project's scope. Under the revised plan dredging will occur only in the area up to 17 feet to the west of the intake, up to five feet to the south, and up to six feet to the east. The depth of the dredging will be limited to six feet. There will be no dredging to the north of the intake so as to minimize the impact on the beaver population.

As noted in the City’s “analysis and decision” concerning Broadmoor’s dredging proposal, beavers are a protected wildlife species under Washington State law. However, “restrictions on development activity within the vicinity of a beaver lodge are not regulated,” according to the Seattle Department of Planning & Development’s analysis. Under terms of the State Environmental Protection Act (SEPA), the City issued a “Determination of Non-Significance,” thereby allowing work to go ahead. Broadmoor’s contactor must still obtain several other permits, including one from the State's Department of Fish & Wildlife, before dredging can commence. I was unable to get a return call today from the contractor to confirm whether all of these permits are now in place.

Residents of the area, including the beavers and herons, can expect to endure two to three weeks of construction activity once the project gets underway. A barge-based crane will utilize a clam-shell dredge to collect dredge spoils from around the intake site. The spoils will then be dumped onto a shuttle barge which will convey the residue to a storage barge located in the Lake, about a third of a mile to the east. The dredge spoils will ultimately be trucked to a new home somewhere in Maltby, Washington.

Gene Brandzel, one of the neighborhood activists who oppose Broadmoor’s dredging plans, is unhappy with the City’s decision. “After declaring the beaver a protected animal under Washington State law, today's decision has no scientific information that confirms that the revised dredging plan protects the beaver,” Brandzel told me. He notes that while the City said it would consult with “experts” concerning the potential impact on the beavers, there is no indication in the approval who was contacted and what those experts may have said. He questions whether the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife has decided the plan protects the beavers. Unless that is the case, he said, “What alternative is left other than to appeal the City’s ruling? Someone has to step up for the beavers.”

The latest on our neighborhood beavers

Well they’re still out there alright, frolicking in the waters off Madison Park’s northern shore, blithely unaware that the City is rapidly moving towards a decision on whether to allow dredging within just a few yards of their snugly lodge located near the dock at the foot of 37th Avenue E. The Seattle Department of Planning & Development (DPD) reports that they expect to have a decision within two weeks on Broadmoor’s request to dredge the general area.

As we reported last month, the managers of the golf course say they need a less-obstructed water intake system for hydrating the grass during the summer months. Neighbors in the area of the beaver lodge worry about collateral damage to the beavers and other wildlife as a result of the proposed dredging. In particular, there was concern that the dredging operation would damage or destroy several suspected beaver tunnels that were thought to run underwater into the beaver lodge from the land near the dock (one of the tunnel entrances is shown below).

However, neighborhood activist Liz Brandzel notes that she has been told this by the DPD: "Biologists confirmed that beavers do not build tunnels from their lodge or from their dam to the shoreline. The dredging therefore would not affect the beavers in this way." The tunnels may, therefore, be the handiwork (or rather, the paw-work) of a different kind of rodent.

In any event, the public comment period on Broadmoor’s permit request has now ended, so the next opportunity for the public to be involved will occur when and if a dredging permit is granted. DPD spokesperson Bryan Stevens tells me that a permit approval would be appealable for a period of two weeks. We’ve requested a copy of the permit decision when it’s issued and will be report what we know when we know it.

.

[Photo of beaver lodge by Dave Hutchins. Photo of beavers at play by Jana Wilkins. Photo of mystery tunnel by Bryan Tagas.]

Do Broadmoor’s dredging plans pose a threat to Lake Washington wildlife?

I'm sure it comes as a surprise to many of us that Broadmoor Golf Club keeps its course green and lush during the summer with the help of water pumped from Lake Washington. Under grandfathered water rights which probably date back many decades, the Club gets Lake water from an intake pipe located at the foot of the 37th Avenue E. road end in the Canterbury section of Madison Park, just to the east of Broadmoor’s Union Bay shoreline (marked in red below):

Attention is now being focused on Broadmoor’s water-intake system as a result of the Golf Club’s request for a permit to dredge the Lake around the intake pipe. The purpose of the proposed dredging is to improve water flow to the golf course’s pump house. Some Canterbury residents are disturbed by the possibility that the habitat of wildlife in the area, particularly a small population of beavers and otters, may be negatively impacted by the dredging. They are seeking to, at minimum, delay permit approval in order to allow more study of Broadmoor’s plans.

A leader of the locals is Gene Brandzel, a Canterbury Shores resident and attorney who says that the “Biological Evaluation for Sensitive Fish and Wildlife Species” that Broadmoor submitted as part of its dredging application is inadequate. The study, which was prepared for Broadmoor by The Watershed Company, “doesn’t deal with any of the wildlife issues at the inlet,“ he says, “other than those related to salmon and certain other fish.”

Brandzel is upset that Watershed’s report “says nothing about the beavers other than to state there’s a beaver lodge in the area but that no beavers were observed.” The reason no beavers were observed, he notes, is that the report writers visited the site during the day. Beavers are only observable in the area at dawn and dusk, he says.

As proof that there is a lot of beaver activity, Madison Park resident Jana Wilkins visited the area on Sunday and provided these pictures of beavers frolicking during the early morning hours:

In this shot, looking north to the SR-520 Bridge, three beavers are visible (click to enlarge):

Brandzel, who visits the road end frequently, says that Broadmoor has not addressed most of the wildlife issues in its report. “What we want is a complete biological study of the wildlife--including the beavers, otters, herons, eagles, turtles, ducks and geese, and red-winged blackbirds--that inhabit the area where the dredging would be done.” Secondly, he notes, “we need time to work with Broadmoor to see if there‘s a way to give them the water supply they need without disruption to the natural habitat.” He notes that there are alternative water-pumping systems to the one Broadmoor currently employs which might be less costly, more effective, and not as potentially detrimental as dredging would be to the environment of the inlet. What the opponents have asked for, he says, is for the permit process to be delayed for 90 days in order to see if both objectives can be achieved during that period.

On my own visit to the site with Brandzel and his wife, Liz, we observed a heron standing in or near the area of the proposed dredge. And to the right of the dock at the road end there appeared to be several tunnels, which the Brandzels say are used by the beavers to access their lodge (beaver dam) which sits less than 100 feet to the north. It seems apparent that the beaver tunnels extend directly into the area that Broadmoor will be dredging. According to Brandzel, dredging--if approved--will occur within 15 feet of the beaver lodge (shown to the left in the photo below).

Alan Foltz, permit coordinator for Broadmoor’s dredging contractor, Waterfront Construction, tells me that regarding the beaver lodge “we are not going near it” during dredging. “It is not our intent to endanger the wildlife” in the area, he says. He adds that the beaver dam is an appropriate distance from the dredging operation. “We do dredging in a lot of areas of Lake Washington, and if the federal, state and local agencies all agree we are in compliance, then we're able to dredge. We never dredge unless we are in compliance.” He notes that Waterfront Construction has been in business for a good 30 years and in its history has always been very conscious of the environment. "Almost all of our work involves environmental enhancements," he notes.

According to Foltz, his company’s experience with beavers is that during the dredging period they tend to scatter but then return to the area as soon as dredging is completed. He acknowledges that Waterfront Construction is looking at ways to minimize the impact of the dredging on the area’s beaver population: "Mitigation is definitely under consideration.”

Under Broadmoor’s permit request, planned dredging would remove up to 1,000 cubic yards of silt and sediment in a 20-foot radius from the water intake pipe, which is housed in a wooden structure near the road-end dock. The dredging would also remove “invasive” plant species growing within the proposed dredge zone. The project is expected to be completed in a two to three week period and will be accomplished through the use of a barge-based crane and clam-shell dredge.

The last dredging which occurred in the area was reportedly in 1974, and the intent of this year’s dredging would be to return the water intake system to its 1974 level of “operational integrity and efficiency.”

Foltz notes that multiple permits are required for the project, some of which have been approved and some of which are still in process. The City of Seattle’s approval process is still underway, and the public-comment period has been extended until January 14, this Thursday. Anyone who would like to give their input is encouraged to do so by faxing their comments to project planner Craig Flamme at the City’s Department of Planning and Development: (206) 233-7901. He can also be emailed (craig.flamme@seattle.gov).

The Madison Park Community Council (MPCC) considered the Broadmoor water intake issue at its monthly meeting this month, informally agreeing to support efforts to find a solution to Broadmoor’s needs other than dredging. MPCC President Ken Myrabo says “it’s a very sensitive wetlands area and we’d like to work with them to find other options.” He notes that former MPCC board member Maurice Cooper, who is a Broadmoor resident, has been asked by Council members to meet with both sides and see if there’s a possible compromise. "I applaud what they’re doing,” he added.

.

More to follow.

[Upper photo courtesy of Broadmoor Golf Club. Aerial photo by the US Geological Survey. All other photos by Jana Wilkins. ]