City acknowledges wetland role
Spokane city officials admitted Friday that they did not follow appropriate permitting policies and likely “disturbed” a wetland at 44th and Regal, which neighbors said disappeared last summer.
Earlier this year a city planner denied that crews working on a project to improve and widen Regal Street from 38th to 49th had anything to do with the disappearance of the wetland.
In a press release Friday, Marlene Feist, the city’s public affairs officer, acknowledged that Spokane did not apply for a wetlands permit as part of the 2005 Regal Street construction project. Although there is still a question about whether a permit would have been required – because the property’s wetland designation had changed over the years – the city will work with the Washington state Department of Ecology to develop a mitigation plan.
“There’s a lot of criticism surrounding this. It’s not as cut and dried as we like it to be,” Feist said during a phone interview.
The property, owned by developer Harlan Douglass, is the site of a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter. Controversy arose when neighbors suspected that a 10,000-square-foot wetland along Regal Street had been filled in last year – about the same time as the street project.
Neighbors filed a code enforcement complaint, which started the investigation that led to Friday’s announcement, the city said. The city admitted encroaching on 3,000 square feet of the wetland, which is now entirely buried.
The admission was in stark contrast to a February interview in which Steve Haynes, a city planning official, denied that the city had anything to do with the wetland’s disappearance. While a Department of Ecology biologist thought the wetland was filled sometime this past year, Haynes contended it was buried two or three years ago, before Douglass purchased the land and while it was still owned by Dr. Ralph Berg.
Records show the City of Spokane entered into a contract in July 2004 with Berg LLC to access Berg’s land on the northeast corner of 44th and Regal during the street project. During the road-widening project, Feist said, the crew rebuilt a blocked culvert, although she doesn’t know if that would have partially or completely cut off the water supply to the wetland.
Cheryl Gwinn, a member of Association for Sensible Transportation, a citizen group opposing the Wal-Mart project, said the city has procrastinated in producing daily construction logs that the group wants to review.
“Really, what we are starting to conclude is the reason we’re not getting all the documents is because they were destroyed,” said Gwinn.
While the group applauded the city for its admission, they took issue with several points in the release. They were uncomfortable with the city’s plan to handle mitigation by contributing to a wetland “bank” in Loon Lake, which is within the watershed, or by rerouting water to Hazel’s Creek Regional Drainage Facility. Gwinn thinks the 20-acre Hazel’s Creek site, intended to collect runoff and help solve the area’s drainage issues, will soon be overburdened.
Doug Spruance, a local attorney who devotes time to environmental issues, said the idea of mitigating to another area a local resource that helps with drainage and pollution filtration is preposterous.
“Why don’t we just move it to (the state of) Maine? What does Stevens County have to do with this area?” Spruance said.
The news release said the landowner will have to submit to a State Environment Protection Act checklist, a requirement for certain development permits, and possibly submit an Environmental Impact Statement. Feist couldn’t say how large a portion of land would be considered for environmental studies, although neighbors contend Wal-Mart’s concrete expanse could send water downhill creating residential flood issues.
The wetlands issue “will not preclude the development of this site,” the city’s release said, mentioning an espresso stand that is currently going into the location.
Said Spruance, “This development is going to go forward – how can you say that? It’s like it doesn’t matter.”