Black Diamond NOW

A Birds Eye View Of Taylor

2012-02-24T07:36:00-08:00

Photo courtesy of University of Washington Libraries, circa 1920s

In an earlier post, I addressed the challenges of the Taylor clay mine and processing center, eventually condemned by the City of Seattle due to concerns about potential contamination of their water supply. Before condemnation proceedings, Taylor represented a pretty substantial community of up to 1,000 residents. Just look at all of the homes shown in the background of this photo. It still amazes me that so many one time good sized and vibrant communities like Taylor, Franklin and Bayne have left nary a trace today.

Taking Time To Get Out - A Hike To Jellum

2012-02-23T06:51:00-08:00

For some reason I seem to have succumbed to the malaise of the wet and dreary PNW weather and lost sight of what lights my fire - getting out and enjoying our wonderful natural areas. Where else in King County or any Urban Growth Area within the state for that matter, can you drive in a circle of less than 10 miles and experience so much natural wonder that we have readily accessible to our community. So I said the heck with it. No more meetings today, no committees tonight or worrying about this or that problem we face here in Black Diamond. Time to get out and about and recharge my batteries.

My hike of choice this day - Jellum. What's neat about hiking to Jellum is that it has some wild trail up on the ridge overlooking the Green River, there is an abandoned processing area for extracting mercury from Cinnabar mined along the rivers edge and then you have access to get down to the river itself - raging today. Round trip - about 2 to 2 1/2 hours depending on how much time you take exploring the old Cinnabar mine processing area. With all the wind and ice damage from earlier storms, hiking the trail made it a really special adventure. Why do I enjoy this so much? Following are a few pictures.

Beautiful natural forest. You can just smell the freshness in the air.

Cinnabar processing area with concrete block in the back.

Hoping for something inscribed on this block, but no luck.

Landslide that occured last year pretty much eliminating any beach near the old Jellum mine.

Wow, what power when the Green turns brown. Special thanks to Lisa Parsons for opening up so many wonderful places for Judy and I to explore. If you want to search for more local hikes and natural areas, just click on Local Trails and you will have lots of choices.

Why E-Commerce Is The Future Now

2012-02-22T07:24:00-08:00

We've seen lots of statistics regarding the drop in retail sales during the Great Recession. On-line sales also took a hit but pretty small really and look at the recovery - bigger and better than ever. Why?

A lot of reasons but my recent trip to Fry's Electronics yesterday really hit home. Our stereo receiver seems to have croaked with just one stereo channel now working. A little complicated because we have speakers in two different rooms but a real bummer just being able to listen to only one speaker in each room. After 20 plus years with our current Denon receiver, the time has come to face the abuse of our past. For today try the Black Keys El Camino album turned up to top decibles if you want to test your system and "rock out" a bit - just as a test of course, but I guarantee you won't be able to sit down.

So, in search of a solution, we first stopped at Costco. Limited selection, low price but figure it out ourselves. Then on to Fry's in Renton to talk to a real person at a brick and mortar retailer. And no more Best Buy for me. Bad experiences. Other than learning that I am pretty dumb regarding electronics I heard little of value at Fry's other than I needed to do my own research. So why pay the overhead cost for brick and mortar retail if you can't get something of value more than you can get on line? Guess where we won't be investing any of our resources in the near future. On line it is for us now.

One more observation - just think how much easier it is for seniors and others not so mobile to order online compared to having to manage the logistics to get to and from a mall. By comparison, a computer can be a lot easier way to navigate for our increasingly tech savy shoppers and UPS/FedEX deliver to our door step.

And don't forget, if you buy on-line, you directly benefit our city's sales tax revenue. A rapidly changing world indeed that we live in today.

Want An Incentive To Compost And Recycle - Downsize Your Garbage Can

2012-02-21T07:15:00-08:00

One very simple way to increase the amount of waste that you either compost or recycle is to get a smaller garbage can. With the new garbage service rate increases enacted earlier this year, we decided to downsize our garbage can from a 60 gallon container supplied by Allied Waste to a 20 gallon can that we supply ourselves. Over the years we have become better at composting food waste and recycling the obvious candidates - paper and cardboard. But, it's easy to get lazy and just dump it in the garbage. So off on a new experiment we went.

First realization is that a 20 gallon garbage can is really small, so we have little room for error or egregious consumption and waste. Our second realization is that we have been dumping a lot more recyclable and compostable material in the garbage than we had thought. And finally, by adopted better habits we can save money in the process. Following is a comparison of monthly garbage rates we are currently paying versus current rates based on our old habits.

One 60 gallon cart supplied by Allied Waste with weekly service - $21.58/mo.
One 20 gallon can supplied by us with weekly service - $8.14/mo.

If you really want to conserve, you can also sign up for once a month service with a 32 gallon can that you supply for just $4.91/mo. There are other rate saving options also available in between but if you want help paying for your monthly smart phone bill, here you go. And talk about helping your kids and grand kids learn good habits in sustainability - composting and recycling is a great and yet simple place to start.

What should we put in the Garbage Can? According to Allied Waste's web site, following is a list of appropriate "garbage" items:

Aerosol Cans (empty)
Animal waste or pet litter (bagged)
Ashes (bagged)
Carbon Paper
CD's
Ceramics or Dishes
Detergent Boxes
Diapers
Empty Motor Oil Containers
Greasy Car Parts
Lids or Bottle Caps
Medical Needeles or Sharps (unless packed in a container)
Mirrors or Window Glass
Paper Towels, Plates or Napkins
Plastics or Aluminum contaminated with food
Plastic or Waxed Cardboard
Plastic Cups, Plates, Utensils or Plastic Takeout Containers
Styrofoam Food Takeout Containers or other Styrofoam
Tissue or Foil Wrapping Paper
Tissues or Toilet Paper
Toxic Containers (empty)
Waxed Paper or Cartons
Light Bulbs

Do not put in the Garbage Can:

Hazordous Waste
Computers, Televisions and Cell Phones
Electronics
Fluorescent Tubes & Bulbs
Liquids
Medical Waste
Wet Paint
Yard Debris (put in yard recycling)

For those "non garbage can" items noted above, our City annually holds a recycling event in early March. This is a great opportunity to get rid of the really "bad stuff" and do it safely. Will keep you apprised of the exact dates.

Two solid waste handlers currently service our tri-city area of Covington, Maple Valley and Black Diamond - Allied Waste (once known as Rabanco) and Waste Management. While "garbage" collected by these companies throughout King County (excluding the City of Seattle) is all dumped at King County's Cedar Hills Landfill, recycling operations for both yard waste and home recycle products are self contained and unique to each company. Their incentive - the less they dump in land fill, the less their costs will be. In addition, the more they can recover of value, the less their costs become. Following is a summary of the new products most typically made from recycled materials:

Paper becomes new paper
Cardboard becomes new cardboard
Newspaper is made into fruit packing trays and new newspaper
Glass gets made into new blass bottles and jars
Aluminum cans are made into new aluminum cans
Tin cans are made into rebar for construction projects
Plasic bottles become new fleece clothing and carpeting
Plastic containers are made into shoe inserts, recycling containers, bins and buckets
Plastic bags are made into decking and building products

One more interesting aside - what impact has the "great recession" had on waste being dumped in the County's landfill. Believe it or not there was a more than a 30% reduction in tons of landfill waste being dumped at the County's Cedar Hills site from 2007 til 2010. What does this say about our consumptive habits? I should also offer kudos to the County for making big reductions in operating costs during this period despite the fact that many of their costs are fixed and do not vary based upon the volume of waste landfilled.

I found the recycling operation at Allied Waste (also now known as Republic Services) to be really interesting. For more info, be sure to play the video:

Winter Garden - Still Harvesting

2012-02-20T07:17:00-08:00

If you would have asked me last fall if we would still be harvesting fresh vegetables from our garden come February, I would have said no way. But truth is Judy's Kale is still going strong and tastes good too. Just putting a small amount in a salad or soup for texture and flavor is really good. Have you ever tried Kale Chips before - yummy. This planting season, we are planning to add Chard as well to help us through the winter.

And then we also have parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme growing in our herb garden - still flavorful, especially the sage right now. Even our chives are growing now. Being children of the 60's I expect that you can guess about our choice of herbs - as in Simon and Garfunkel. We've ordered our seeds and potato starts from Irish Eyes in Ellensburg. With longer daylight hours and more sun, looking forward to the wonder of spring and plants growing.

Logging Railroads - Not Always Safe

2012-02-17T07:31:00-08:00

Last week, I posted some photos of "speeders" that were used to tranport loggers from mill to forest. As Judy's father could attest, accidents were not uncommon. The same can be said of "skidders" and other railcars of the time. The following photos were taken sometime during the 1930's at a site known as Good Water which is located near Grass Mountain just east of Enumclaw along what is now Hwy 410.

Photo courtesy of Washington Rural Heritage, EPL0042_773a, circa 1930-1939

How would you like to be riding the skidder that crashed through this trestle? These wooden trestles have always looked pretty fragile to me - like a bunch of toothpicks. Apparently some of them were. I could find no information about injuries. Following is a picture of the same crash taken from the opposite side.

Photo courtesy of Washington Rural Heritage, EPL0043_773b, circa 1930-1939

Lake Sawyer Water Quality Trends - 2011 Monitoring Results

2012-02-16T07:28:00-08:00

Each year, the King County Lake Stewardship Program (KCLSP) publishes a report summarizing water quality testing results for Lake Sawyer. The City of Black Diamond contracts with KCLSP to do this testing and reporting. This is in addition to the water quality testing conducted by the City itself where the focus is principally on the watershed upstream of the lake. For a complete copy of this report follow this link to Download Sawyer_WY2011rev.

By and large, results show a lot of stability with little significant change in water quality over the last several years - either for phosphorus or water clarity (secchi index). Following are several summary charts.

LSIN1 references to a sample point at the inlet, LSIN9 is a sample point roughly in the middle of the lake and LSIN10 is at the outlet.

For those interested in more information, the report noted above is a fairly easy read.

Employment Trends - Some Interesting Data

2012-02-15T07:15:00-08:00

Following is a profile of employment by size of firm and industry segment in our state, excluding the public sector. What does the future hold for our community and what steps can we be taking to help shape it? Building a local employment base is key to our future.

The following chart shows national data trends but I would expect that relative trends here pretty well mirror what we see below.

Brightwater, Duwamish Clean-Up and Biosolids - An Update

2012-02-14T07:35:00-08:00

Our Regional Water Quality Committee was recently briefed by King County staff regarding some key accomplishments for 2011. The new wastewater treatment plant known as Brightwater is now up and running and leads the list of accomplishments - photo follows.

With the many delays, cost overruns and tunneling problems galore, it's been a difficult birth to be sure. But the treatment plant is now up and operating and producing first class effluent quality. If we maintain a really long term perspective, Brightwater will eventually prove to be an important asset to our region. Time to look on the bright(water) side - no pun intended. The facility also has a great educational exhibit that is very user friendly for those who wish to learn more about water and wastewater - it's on my list for taking our grandchildren to visit. It's that good and that educational.

Next, we have the cleanup of the Green/Duwamish river waterway.

We all know that the Duwamish as it enters Puget Sound is an important economic engine for the region. We also know that it's a super-fund site that must be cleaned up. Fortunately, we are getting closer to an approved Duwamish Superfund Cleanup plan and funding strategy. And by the way, "superfund" is an oxymoron - any and all funding for cleanup will be local.

And last, let me highlight biosolids. Ever wonder what happens to all of the sludge generated by the wastewater treatment process? Fortunately, because these solids are nutrient rich (nitrogen and phosphorus) which are much needed to fertilize agricultural crops, every pound of solids generated today are used to fertilze crops - mostly for fertilizing hops production in the Yakima Valley. This is critical for all us hop heads who love IPA's. In the future, get ready for branded compost coming from King County - in direct competion with Cedar Grove Compost which is what we use today. It's all good - much better than the national brands and we look forward to having more local choices of the "good stuff".

Managing Stormwater When All You Have Is A Drainage System

2012-02-13T07:54:00-08:00

Believe it or not, the idea of managing stormwater to prevent pollution and protect our fisheries is a fairly new concept in our state and elsewhere in the country. Prior to the early 1990's, little attention was really paid to stormwater as an important environmental imperative. To the extent that stormwater retention/detention ponds were included as part of a new development, they were pretty small and particularly during storm events, the water just flowed. If you drive through Lawson Hills Estates or the Morgan Creek development, both of which were built during the 80's/early 90's period, you will find some stormwater pond capacity, but pretty small. Most of our city developed well before this period and we pretty much just have what I'll call a "drainage system" - all runoff flows directly into our streams and lakes, untreated and unattenuated. As a result, runoff from our streets and other impervious surfaces which are typically high in phosphorus and toxic metals such as copper from brake pads, end up polluting our streams and lakes and despoiling our fisheries.

While current regulations require a much higher standard for new development, including a net no new phosphorus loading to Lake Sawyer as a result of Yarrow Bay's planned Master Planned Development, it is important that we also focus on making improvements to the "drainage system" that we now have in the City. And to their credit, this is exactly what our Public Works Department and City staff have been focusing on.

Today, if you drive through the City when it's raining, you will find water just flowing into our streams from our roads, driveways and parking lots. Water is lazy - it always goes downhill and this is where our streams are. As a result, City staff has submitted an application for a $700,000+ grant that would allow us to improve stormwater management along SR169 (runoff today drains directly to Ginder Creek untreated and unattenuated). The following graphic shows what is currently being planned.

Let's hope that we can make this happen. Improvement to water quality as a result would be very beneficial. Kudo's to staff!

Being A Locavore - Portland Edition

2012-02-12T09:51:39-08:00

By way of Year of Plenty, the following video about being a locavore in Portland is really funny.

Ever Ride In A Speeder?

2012-02-10T07:38:00-08:00

Speeders were used early in the past century to transport logging workers from the mill to where logs were cut - big logs and even bigger logs back then. It's fun to reflect on what a "speeder" at the time looked like. Judy's dad was a logger for the St. Paul Lumber Co. back in the day and actually fell from a speeder, breaking his back. Fortunately he recovered with just a lttle hitch in his gitty up to show for it.

Enjoy the pictures, all taken of speeders used by the White River Lumber Co.

Photos courtesy of Washington Rural Heritage, No. 2 Speeder, Washington State Library, no date

This one looks pretty plush to me. Number 7 speeder at the White River Lumber Co circa 1930 - 1939.

No. 8 Speeder circa 1930 - 1939.

For more interesting Rural Heritage photos of this period, follow this link.

Reflections On Being A Member Of The City Council

2012-02-09T07:02:00-08:00

Of Pythons and Alligators? Just kidding of course. We have a great community and great Council!

Managing Our Groundwater Resources - Or Not?

2012-02-08T07:15:00-08:00

Groundwater represents a vital natural resource and is critical to maintaining both healthy fisheries and potable water supplies in our region. Yet, the more I learn about the sometimes arcane groundwater regulatory environment, it appears to me to be the least managed of our state's natural resources.

A recent article in Crosscut.com focused on groundwater being pumped from wells to supply giant feedlots in Eastern Washington. The volume of water pumped from these wells is incredible and in several cases exceeds all of the water our City of Black Diamond will need or use in the next 30 years. Appropriately so, our city is limited in the daily and annual volumes we can withdraw from our springs. Yet east of the mountains, we have a dry region of the state where feedlot operators can pump unlimited volumes, jeopradizing long term water supplies to farmers and communities in the area. Bizarre.

On the westside, we have our own controversy. The way current law reads, if you build a home in the county and outside of an Urban Growth Area (UGA), you are free to put in a well and use the water to irrigate up to 1/2 acre of landscape on your property without limit to the amount of water you can withdraw. From the standpoint of avoiding depletion of our groundwater resources, this may be ok in some areas - but everywhere?

The biggest local controversy appears to be between the Covington Water District, which supplies potable water to area homes but where homeowners use wells to irrigate their yards. This deprives the District of revenues that they might otherwise have (used to finance District water supply capacity investment) and since the District also pumps significant volumes of water from local groundwater sources, they are loath to see these resources further depleted. The District's policy adopted last year is to no longer supply potable water to new homes that choose to irrigate their yards with well water. Needless to say, homeowners are not happy.

I have no dog in this hunt other than protecting our groundwater resources. It would be nice if we had some facts and data about this groundwater resource, recharge rates and how much withdrawal can safely be allowed without depleting the resource and protecting our fisheries.

Black Diamond Community Center's Food Pantry Needs

2012-02-07T17:24:05-08:00

With many Food Banks faced with decreased funding and high demand, it is important that we do what we can, however small, to support them. Following is a list of the current highest priorty needs at the Black Diamond Community Center's Food Pantry:

Spaghettios
Spaghetti Sauce
Tuna
Cake Mixes & Frostings
Jam/Jelly (sugar free and regular)
Boxed Macaroni & Cheese
Gravy Mixes
Peanut Butter
Instant Mashed Potatoes
Chili

In addition, don't forget that there is always demand for gasoline vouchers that can easily be purchased at the Cenex station. If you have the opportunity to attend the City's open community forum that is scheduled for this Thursday at the Community Center at 7 pm, please bring a donation if you can. Thanks!

Puget Sound Fresh

2012-02-07T07:14:00-08:00

Puget Sound Fresh is an interesting source of information for what's fresh, local and in season year round here in the Puget Sound region. Find a farmer, farmers market, harvest schedule, recipes and events. And believe it or not, some farmers markets remain open year round and with fresh local produce even this time of year. Check it out.

Diamond Mineral Springs Resort

2012-02-06T07:56:00-08:00

Photo courtesy of the White River Valley Museum, PO-05460, circa 1901

The Diamond Mineral Springs Resort was located along Green Valley Road, about 9 miles from Auburn, 4 miles from Black Diamond and just west of Flaming Geyser. Originally an 80 acre cattle ranch purchased by Thomas C. Spaight, they discovered a bubbling spring on the property. Testing of the water confirmed that the spring was rich in mineral elements valued in the treatment of diseases and illnesses. Mr. Spaight apparently was quite the entrepreneur so they ended up deciding to bottle it and sell it locally. They also built the resort which included a dance hall, tennis courts, baseball diamond and tents - thought to be the first resort to be built in the area at the time. Diamond Mineral Springs was not named for Black Diamond as one might think, but instead for the sparkle of the water caused by ethane gas contained in it. Apparently the same phenomenon that created Flaming Geyser.

For more information about the history of Diamond Mineral Springs, follow this link to White River Valley Museum. Thanks again to the Museum for permission to post their photo. Located in Auburn, the Museum is also a great place to visit if you have the opportunity.

Football Concussions - No Small Deal

2012-02-03T04:34:00-08:00

Having my udergraduate education paid for by a football scholorship to WSU many years ago, a recent article in Science Daily really caught my attention. Concussions for young athletes really do cause serious long term problems. At least in my day, we did have Riddell suspension helmets that served to help mitigate the impact of helmet on helmet contact, which was the norm preached by coaches at the time. As a linebacker, this was our mission - being a 'headhunter". We were coached to hit with the head, not the shoulders. I only ended up in the hospital for concussions after 2 games, but was always more than ready to go the following week. Hospital bed to football field, and so it goes. So, if I occasionlly lose it, please forgive me and understand- wires do not always connect as they should. And don't forget to support new coach Mike Leach at WSU - we will definately be kicking the UW's butt soon (like next year) and the new PAC 12 as well. Our current coaches attention to the health and nurturing of our youth and athletes these days beats anything that we experienced in the "old days".

Footnote: I also taught statistics as a graduate student as a way to pay for my masters degree back then. Those poor students. We definately benefited from the much more personal approach to education back then. You won't see these comparable opportunities today. We loved the environment of WSU at the time and have benefited greatly over the years from our time there.

Local Economic Outlook - The Latest

2012-02-02T07:54:00-08:00

On Tuesday, our Emergency Medical Services (EMS) task force was briefed regarding the latest economic outlook for King County. I found it very revealing, particularly since the focus is local. On the whole, they were able to point to some good news and some not so good news.

The good news:

There is some growth here in the county
King County seems to be doing better than the nation as a whole
Retail sales are up 4% to 6% overall (+11% in Black Diamond)
Employment is up 1.5% to 2% year over year with over 18,000 jobs added in the county during this period
Local firms seem to be doing well, particularly Boeing and Microsoft
The affordability index for new home purchases is at the highest level in the last 20+ years.

The not so good news:

The housing market remains very weak despite much improved affordability
Retail sales (and sales tax revenues) remain well below pre-recession levels
There are many risks to our local economy still out there that are beyond our control including, commodity prices (energy), European Union, Congress disfunction, etc. We are not an island.

One of the biggest surprises to me was that incomes in the county have returned to pre-recession levels, but not retail spending as shown below:

Wow - retail sales are not currently expected to return to pre-recession levels until 2024. How about assessed values for real estate?

For homeowners, this would appear to be good news for our 2012 tax bills. Assessed values always lag by a year so 2012 assessments will be based on 2011 values.

Among the most shocking of the data presented was the New Construction Forecast for King County. This data shows just how big the bubble was here when over $8 billion of construction activity occurred in 2009, now expected to be less than $1.8 billion in 2012 - that's a collapse. The new norm - if we get back to $4 to $5 billion per year we might be fortunate.

Seeing this data, it's a little easier for me to understand the magnitude of the "adjustment" our state and local governments are having to undergo. It also brings home the lesson loud and clear - don't spend it all during the good times. Save, save, save!

Is There Hope For The Housing Market?

2012-02-01T07:24:00-08:00

Our outlook for the future always seems to be the most pessimistic when we are at the bottom of a business cycle. Given where housing markets now are with recent record low prices, a continued forclosure overhang and all time low housing starts in 2011, it's hard for us to see how things might get any better. But, could it be that housing markets might actually begin to grow in the reasonably near future? Following are a couple of charts posted by Mathew Yglesias at Slate magazine. They show that population is growing significantly faster than housing starts, which historically would lead to significant pent up demand and hence growth. The longer this pent up demand goes unfulfilled, the stronger a recovery there typically might be.

In essence, rather than occupy new homes or apartments, people are doubling up, moving in with relatives etc. Is this the "new normal" or can we expect to see significant growth in housing markets in the years ahead? I certainly have no crystal ball but an intriguing question.