WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council Meeting Notes Bellevue City Hall July 15, 2010

Members Present Dr. Don Davidson, Chair (Mayor, Bellevue); Joan McBride, Vice Chair (Mayor, Kirkland); Eric Adman (Sno-King Watershed Council); Eileen Barber (Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery [FISH]); Layne Barnes (Councilmember, Maple Valley); Susan Boundy-Sanders (Councilmember, City of Woodinville); joan burlingame (Cedar River Council); Chris Coffin (WA Department of Ecology); David Cooper (Alternate, Councilmember, Yarrow Point); (Bruce Dodds (Councilmember, Clyde Hill); Chris Eggen (Councilmember, Shoreline); Don Fiene (Councilmember, Lake Forest Park); Don Gerend (Mayor, Sammamish); Mike Grady (Councilmember, Mercer Island); Lisa Jensen (Councilmember, Newcastle); Kirk Lakey (WA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife); Kathy Minsch (Alternate for Councilmember Mike O’Brien, Seattle); Lora Petso (Councilmember, Edmonds); Larry Phillips (Councilmember, King County); Sue Rooney (Friends of the Cedar River Watershed); Tris Samberg (Councilmember, Bothell); Peggy Sanders (Alternate, Snohomish County); Gary Smith (Water Tenders); Frank Urabeck (Citizen).

Others Present Rika Cecil (Shoreline); Peter Donaldson (Friends of the Cedar River Watershed); Jim Erckman (Friends of the Cedar River Watershed); Jenny Gaus (Kirkland); Sandy Kilroy (King County); Joan McGilton (Mayor, Burien); Marlla Mhoon (Councilmember, Covington); Edward Mulhern (Renton); Jason Mulvihill-Kuntz (Puget Sound Partnership); Joyce Nichols (Bellevue); Sarah Ogier (King County); Doug Osterman (WRIA 9 Watershed); Bill Peloza (Councilmember, Auburn); Jessica Saavedra (King Conservation District); Jon Spangler (Redmond); Linda Grob (WRIA 8 Administrative Coordinator); Mary Jorgensen (WRIA 8 Actions and Funding Coordinator); Sarah Spilseth (WRIA 8 Project Assistant); Scott Stolnack (WRIA 8 Technical Coordinator); Jean White (WRIA 8 Watershed Coordinator).

Introductions Chair Dr. Don Davidson opened the meeting and invited attendees to introduce themselves.

Public Comment There was no public comment.

Approval of Meeting Notes for May 20, 2010 Meeting The Salmon Recovery Council unanimously approved the meeting notes for the May 20, 2010 meeting.

Updates & Announcements Jean White, Watershed Coordinator, provided the following updates on recent events and topics: ▫ WRIA 8 Salmon Tour: State and federal legislators have been invited to go on the tour, and Jean encouraged WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council (SRC) members to bring a friend and help recruit their legislators. Jean explained that she will be sending out an email next week with details about the tour, which is scheduled for Friday, August 13, 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The tour will depart from Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island. ▫ Salmon SEEson: The fourth annual fall Salmon SEEson campaign is starting now, with salmon- viewing opportunities scheduled from July to December. Please help us to publicize it. Jean asked that SRC members come to the events to meet the volunteers and see salmon.

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▫ Sockeye Counts at the Locks: This is a peak time to see sockeye, and though counts are higher then they were at this time the last two years, they are still below a fishable level. The co-managers’ prediction for Chinook is also better than last year, but it’s very early in the season. Jean identified August 15 as the optimum day to see Chinook at the Locks. ▫ Puget Sound Report: ▫ The Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council wants to identify Projects of Puget Sound-wide Regional Significance and to develop a funding strategy for them. Watersheds were asked to identify up to three projects of regional significance. WRIA 8 submitted: improved fish passage at the Locks and Salmon Bay; the WRIA 8 nearshore (how to collectively address the BNSF railroad); and large scale protection and restoration on the Cedar River. It’s all very conceptual at this point. ▫ At the federal level, legislation to have Puget Sound identified as a Great Water Body has moved out of committee. The designation means Puget Sound can become a program in the Clean Water Act, which makes it on a par with Chesapeake Bay and available for up to $90M annually. ▫ The South Central Puget Sound Action Area Caucus is meeting next week. They will be discussing restoration priorities from the Action Agenda for our area. Implementation of the WRIA Salmon Plans is the highest priority. They will also be discussing legislative priorities. ▫ The WRIA 8 SRC has discussed commenting on NOAA’s review of the Puget Sound Chinook Harvest Management Plan when it comes out for public comment. NOAA’s review has been delayed until early 2011. ▫ Committee Updates: Jean highlighted some of the activities of the committees, with more details to be found on the committee handout in the meeting packet: fieldwork has begun on the 2010 Wadeable Streams monitoring project (Technical Committee); the Implementation Committee met with the facilitator for the WRIA 8 Summit to work on the format for the Summit; and the second mailing of the Green Shorelines mailers to lakeshore residents is going out on June 21 (Green Shorelines Steering Committee).

Other announcements: ▫ Frank Urabeck reported that the contract for the permanent Cedar River sockeye hatchery was recently awarded. He said the hatchery will be capable of producing 40 million sockeye fry, which will help us do a much better job at producing fish.

WRIA 8 King Conservation District (KCD) Grant Recommendations Mary Jorgensen, Actions and Funding Coordinator, announced that the 2010 KCD grant funding amount for WRIA 8 is $1,172,112. Twelve site specific applications, five public outreach and education applications, and one monitoring application were received for a total of eighteen and a request of $2,286,341, resulting in a shortfall of over $1 million. This year’s Project Subcommittee members were Councilmember Don Fiene (Lake Forest Park), Hans Berge (King County), Kathy Minsch (Seattle), Jessica Saavedra (KCD), Brian Ward (Bellevue) and Scott Stolnack, Technical Coordinator. The Project Subcommittee ranked each project application for how well it met: the WRIA 8 Conservation Strategy; Ten-Year Start List or Monitoring chapter; Priority is given to Tier 1 projects in priority Cedar, Migratory, Naturally-spawning Sammamish, and Sammamish population areas; and KCD Policies and Procedures. Site visits and presentations were April 20 and 21, and applications were scored, ranked and funding amounts recommended for allocation at the June 9 Project Subcommittee meeting. The subcommittee’s recommendations are as follows:

Rank Project (Applicant in parentheses) Request Recom. Site Specific Projects Cedar River Coordinated Invasive Knotweed Control Project – Phase III 1 $81,725 $81,725 (King County) 2 Lower Bear Creek Restoration 2010 #N201 (Redmond) $210,000 $140,000 3 Cottage Lake Creek Restoration 2010 #N298 & #N282 (King County) $75,000 $70,000 2 WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council Meeting Summary 7/15/10

4 Issaquah Creek Restoration #I239, #I243 & #I236 (King County) $75,000 $70,000 South Lake Washington Shoreline Restoration Design and Construction 5 $68,025 $68,025 (Renton Airport) Issaquah Creek Restoration at Lake Sammamish State Park 2011 6 $50,000 $50,000 #1202 (Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust) Upper Kelsey Creek Habitat Restoration Project – Construction Phase 7 $30,000 $30,000 #N469 (Mid Puget Sound Fisheries Enhancement Group) 8 Issaquah Creek Protection #I249 & #I250 (King County) $250,000 $250,000 9 Bear Creek Protection 2010 #N256, #N257 & #N258 (King County) $400,000 0 Beaux Arts Shoreline Restoration Design Permitting #C288B (Western 10 $25,000 $25,000 Academy of Beaux Arts) 11 Mapes Creek Mouth Restoration #C271 (Seattle Public Utilities) $325,000 0 12 The Boy Scout Property Acquisition #N371 (Bothell) $225,000 0 Subtotal $1,814,750 $784,750 Public Outreach and Education 1 Salmon Watcher Program 2010-2011 (King County) $46,573 $43,573 1 2011 Cedar River Journey (Friends of the Cedar River Watershed) $27,800 $27,800 1 Beach Naturalist Program 2011 (Seattle Aquarium Society) $12,600 $12,600 Lake Washington Cedar Sammamish Forest Stewardship #C721, 4 $18,283 $16,00 #C719, #C731, #C720, #I715, #N719 & #N735 (WSU) WRIA 8 Rain Garden Training and Installation Project (Stewardship 5 $50,000 0 Partners) Subtotal $155,256 $99,973 Monitoring 2011 Chinook Spawning Ground Surveys and Outmigrant Trapping 1 $316,335 $313,335 (King County) Subtotal $316,335 $313,335 Total $2,286,926 $1,172,112

Mary explained that due to our shortfall we really focused on completing Site Specific projects, resulting in the following requests not getting funded: ▫ Bear Creek Protection: The property is long and narrow with the Bear Creek crossing on one end of it and is expensive. The Project Subcommittee would like King County to work with the landowner on a conservation easement or other way of protecting the habitat with less than full acquisition. The current owner is only interested in selling. ▫ Mapes Creek Mouth Restoration: Project would complete the design for a project to daylight 300 feet of Mapes Creek a small tributary on the southeast end of Lake Washington through a park and restore the creek mouth. Restoring the creek mouth would be highly beneficial for Chinook, but the project is very expensive and the Project Subcommittee was concerned that the costs/benefit of the project. ▫ Boy Scout Property Acquisition: This parcel is heavily forested and slopes steeply toward the freeway with North Creek on the opposite side of the freeway. For the salmon benefits the committee felt that the hydrologic connection to North Creek was indirect and North Creek is in a Tier 2 area.

Mary reported that four of the five Public Outreach requests were basically recommended for 100% funding. A new application this year was the Lake Washington Cedar Sammamish Forest Stewardship, which will educate landowners on forest stewardship and provide coached planning. She said there are 9,000 small farm foresters in WRIA 8 with land averaging four acres, which is a huge new audience to reach. Not receiving funding was the Rain Garden Training and Installation Project. This year’s application had a strong industrial component, which the Project Subcommittee thought would be better funded through stormwater grants. The Chinook Spawning Ground Surveys and Outmigrant Trapping in Bear Creek and the Cedar were two monitoring projects combined into one, and collectively received $313,335 of the requested $316,335.

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Mary said she discovered just before the meeting that we actually have a $25,000 shortfall due to a spreadsheet error, and her recommendation was to have the WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council direct the Project Subcommittee tweak the budget for $25,000 difference.

Discussion: ▪ joan burlingame noted that there weren’t as many acquisition projects this year. She thought it would be difficult to acquire property this cheaply next year due to current low prices. Mary Jorgensen responded that these projects were everything submitted. ▪ Don Fiene explained that there were some acquisition projects. The committee really liked the creative solutions used on the Issaquah property. The Bear Creek property was very expensive as a straight acquisition. joan mentioned that she supported transfer development rights and conservation easements, but sometimes there are compliance issues. It may be easier to acquire land in the long run. ▪ Chris Eggen commented that the development rights on the Bear Creek property have to be worth most of the cost of the land, so might not be saving much by buying the development rights. ▪ Layne Barnes asked if there is an opportunity to buy the piece with a developer, cut out the creek property, and sell the two halves. Mary Jorgensen said the Project Subcommittee shared that thought with the project sponsor, but the owner wasn’t interested in doing that at this point. ▪ Kirk Lakey asked about the distance from the creek to the edge of the property in the Issaquah Creek Protection Project, and what size the buffer would be. He remarked that he would want a significant buffer along that creek to protect the salmon. Mary Jorgensen replied that the new owner is talking about putting in a 150 foot buffer, and doing a conservation easement on the rest of the property, but that King County is still in negotiation with the property owner. Jurisdictional members of the Salmon Recovery Council (the parties to the interlocal agreement) unanimously approved the 2010 WRIA 8 King Conservation District grant recommendations and directed the WRIA 8 Project Subcommittee to adjust their recommendations to address the $25,000 error.

Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) and Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration (PSAR) Grant Recommendations Mary reported that WRIA 8 will receive an estimated $433,356 in SRFB funds and $875,496 in PSAR funds for 2010, for a total of $1,308,852. Seven proposals were submitted: two acquisitions, three restoration projects, and two fish passage projects, for a total request of $1,874,056 ($565,204 shortfall). Don Fiene and Jessica Saavedra were not on the Project Subcommittee for the SRFB/PSAR application review, and Michelle Koehler replaced Kathy Minsch for Seattle. Applications were ranked for how well they met: the Conservation Strategy; Ten-Year Start List or Monitoring chapter; Priority was given to Tier 1 projects in high priority Cedar, Migratory, Naturally-spawning Sammamish, and Sammamish population areas; and SRFB Manual 18. Several SRFB Review Panel members also reviewed the projects. Site visits and the ranking meeting occurred on June 9. The subcommittee’s recommendations are as follows:

Rank Project (Applicant in parentheses) Request Recom. South Lake Washington DNR Shoreline Restoration #C266 [10-1360] 1 $300,000 $300,000 (WA Department of Natural Resources) 2 Royal Arch Reach Acquisitions #C247 [10-1520] (Seattle Public Utilities) $300,000 $288,377 Cedar River Elliot Bridge Reach Acquisition II #C216B [10-1699] (King 3 $500,000 $270,000 County) 4 South Lake Washington Habitat Restoration #C269 [10-1634] (Renton) $300,475 $300,475 5.6 Mapes Creek Mouth Restoration #C271 [10-1558] (SPU) $225,000 $100,000 Little Bear Creek – 132nd Ave Barrier Removal #N401 & #N403 [10- 5.7 $148,751 $50,000 1750] (Adopt A Stream Foundation & partners) Glendale Kelsey Farm Fish Passage and LWD #N469, #N470 & #N473 5.8 $100,000 0 [10-1751] (Bellevue) 4 WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council Meeting Summary 7/15/10

Total $1,874,056 $1,308,852

Mary reported that Seattle will use their KCD funds toward the Mapes Creek project total request amount, but they are still a little short for what they will need for local match for the Army Corps of Engineers funding. The Little Bear Creek project was recommended for only about ⅓ of the request, but it is a Tier 2 project. The Glendale Kelsey Farm Fish Passage project was not recommended for funding due to the shortfall. There were questions on its design, and the SRFB reviewers still didn’t think juveniles would get through. The project sponsor was recommending not taking out the weirs, but reviewers felt the weirs might be modified.

Discussion: ▪ joan burlingame mentioned that in Royal Arch reach King County pulls wood out of the river. She asked who was responsible for pulling out hazardous wood. Sandy Kilroy, King County, explained that wood is reported to the Sheriff’s Office and the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks then moves or swings the hazardous wood out of the way. ▪ Layne Barnes noted that the Elliott Reach project will receive only $270,000 of the requested $500,000, and he inquired if the reduced amount would harm the restoration on the parcel. Mary Jorgensen explained that the project sponsor has some money left over from last year and they also have Flood Control District money ▪ Frank Urabeck asked what kind on monitoring will take place at the Renton Airport project. Mary Jorgensen replied that the Project Subcommittee requested effectiveness monitoring on this project. Monitoring is a necessity at this project because it is experimental. Scott Stolnack commented that we will be working to make sure project sponsors do this monitoring. ▪ Susan Boundy-Sanders inquired if there was anything else Woodinville could do regarding the Little Bear Creek Barrier Removal project. Mary explained that the permit costs were high, other costs were low, and the Project Subcommittee recommended that they use a streamlined WDFW permitting process. ▪ Kirk Lakey remarked that as a Recovery Implementation Technical Team (RITT) member he has to review the projects for consistency with the WRIA 8 Plan, and he said he was struggling with some issues regarding the two acquisition projects. The King County’s large wood ordinance may diminish the effectiveness of the projects, because King County may remove wood that is creating habitat for boater safety. The island in the Renton airport project is being used as a barrier to sediment filling in the airplane takeout ramp. And Mapes Creek was not identified with a tier in the Conservation Plan, but the Mapes Creek mouth is Tier 1. ▪ Larry Phillips reported that King County did pass an ordinance on large wood, which states wood will be placed so it is not a hazard to those using river or creek systems. We had strong public comment on both sides of the issue, and he said he thought we balanced the ordinance pretty well. As an advocate for salmon it would also be hard to justify placing large wood that would be hazardous to the public. Kirk Lakey responded that he was going to deal with those issues when reviewing as a RITT member, and at WDFW we have always allowed for the moving of large wood. ▪ joan burlingame inquired if the Royal Arch project will be purchasing the park. Mary Jorgensen explained that it would. She said the big cliff across the river will fail in the next couple of decades. It will be good to have the property ready – it will be beneficial to salmon. The Salmon Recovery Council unanimously approved the Salmon Recovery Funding Board and Puget Sound Acquisition and Restoration grant recommendations.

WRIA 9’s Alternative Funding Mechanisms Analysis for Salmon Conservation The WRIA 9 leadership in attendance were Mayor Joan McGilton, Burien, Chair of the WRIA 9 Management Committee, Councilmember Bill Peloza, Co-Chair, WRIA 9 Ecosystem Forum, and Councilmember Marlla Mhoon, Co-Chair, WRIA 9 Ecosystem Forum.

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Mayor McGilton reported that when the WRIA 9 Salmon Habitat Plan was being put together in 2004 we came up with 144 projects, knowing we could never pay for them. The WRIAs have since ended up competing with each other for a small pot of SRFB money, with WRIA 8 getting slightly more money than 9. She explained that our plan costs $300 million or $10 million/year for 30 years, whereas we are only receiving around $1.5 million/year. We hired a consultant, David Bakter, CEO of Earth Economics, to look at this problem, and he came up with 23 funding mechanism options. David is nationally and internationally known, is working on an ecological economics analysis of the Gulf of Mexico, and lives in Tacoma. Our Watershed Ecosystem Forum narrowed the funding mechanisms down to three, and they could be just WRIA 9 focused, or include all of King County.

Councilmember Peloza reported that he recently went back to Washington D.C. with the National Organization of Cities, and they were starting to look at a funding mechanism. He told them about our Salmon Habitat Plan and our funding mechanisms discussion, and he is going to share the WRIA 9 analysis with them. He said he also presented the funding mechanism information to the electeds at last night’s Suburban Cities Association.

Councilmember Marlla Mhoon commented that it was obvious to all of us that there was a real funding need. Over the last ten years, we have been getting 84% less in funding. There is an economic benefit for the public to salmon restoration.

Doug Osterman, WRIA 9 Watershed Coordinator, went over the three recommended funding mechanisms: 1) lid lift on the Flood Control District funding; 2) per parcel assessment fee or tax; and 3) watershed investment district. He said there is a lot of opportunity for some of these actions to happen on a county-wide level, and legally the watershed investment district would have to be county-wide.

Don Davidson asked Doug to clarify why WRIA 8 gets more SRFB money than WRIA 9. Doug Osterman explained that WRIA 9 did really well with funding even before we did our plan, and then the allocation was changed to give more money to rural areas. Which means just as we were ramping up to implement projects, WRIA 9 was capped and limited in the money we could provide for habitat projects. WRIA 9 is now capped at 4% of the total, and WRIA 8 gets 5%. The state is essentially saying, “Urban watersheds are wealthy, and you should be able to pay to implement your plans yourself”, so that’s what we are trying to do.

Doug explained that the first funding mechanism would add $.01 to the flood levy, generating $1.68 million for WRIA 9, which is similar to the proposal floated late last year to replace KCD funding. He said we understand there are several things, like the Army Corps levy policy, that are complications right now. Kirk Lakey asked how FEMA biological opinions might affect Flood District funding, because at a meeting he attended today they said they were going to do that. Doug said he didn’t know the answer, and we would have to look at it. Larry Phillips agreed that there is a real opportunity to look at the Flood District, but it is very unlikely for 2011. He said we can’t levy a portion, so you would have to be careful how you say this. Joan McGilton mentioned that we talked about this and bringing it forward, and decided to leave it here as a placeholder. Councilmember Phillips commented that there may be some work in the legislature to not make the Flood District such a junior taxing district. Marlla Mhoon noted that we discussed it in depth at Suburban Cities. Doug said we will be discussing it also at our next Forum meeting on August 12. With the new information that is out now, we might see if they want to look at one of the other mechanisms that didn’t get top votes.

Doug Osterman said the second mechanism is the per parcel assessment/fee, and the final mechanism is the watershed investment district. The watershed investment district would potentially merge several districts, and be on a watershed basis, with each watershed possibly customizing how it spends money. He remarked that watershed would then only compete internally.

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Don Davidson thanked the WRIA 9 leadership for taking the time to discuss their funding mechanism analysis with the SRC. He said they hit on some really good ideas, and he would like time to look over the information. Our WRIAs are costly to restore and pretty artificial. If we can get salmon back so people can see them, it would allow the legislators to also see salmon. Dr. Davidson said we should put this on our agenda for a future meeting. He noted that the next Salmon Recovery Council meeting is September 16th.

Joan McBride mentioned that she liked the idea of waiting until September, but she also liked the idea of getting a small work group together with WRIAs 7 and 9 to talk about this more. Doug Osterman explained that WRIA 9 has an outreach strategy, and are talking to the Snoqualmie Watershed Forum next Wednesday, and the Snohomish Basin Salmon Recovery Forum on August 5. WRIA 9 is making funding mechanisms one of the main items on our legislative agenda, and at our field trip next Wednesday we will be talking about this. We want to get the right information to city councils, and are considering setting up a speakers bureau. Don Davidson said we can go over the information before September, and he noted that it doesn’t have to be totally solved this year.

Jason Mulvihill-Kuntz, Puget Sound Partnership, commented that the funding mechanism discussion is really timely. The Partnership appreciates WRIA 9’s work, and they are looking at how to work on this on a watershed scale. He said Doug and the WRIA 9 folks were planning to talk to David Dicks and the Partnership soon.

Success Story: The Watershed Report Peter Donaldson, Friends of the Cedar River Watershed, said our purpose was to inspire the next generation of watershed stewards through education, restoration and public communications. Top high school students worked with a professional to produce an annual video report to track sustainability trends in the watershed. 200 people showed up at the first screening of the pilot Watershed Report video. The video is a strategic tool meant for high schools students to share watershed sustainability information with city councils, green businesses, and fellow students. Peter said we will have the video posted on the web, and we hope to have it on TV. Due to lack of time the showing of the video was postponed until the next SRC meeting.

Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 5:38 p.m. The next Salmon Recovery Council meeting is September 16th, 2010 at Bellevue City Hall.

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