Staff reports
The Seattle District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract to work with the City of Auburn on a joint ecosystem restoration project at Mill Creek, a tributary to the Green River.
For more than 100 years, human activity has changed the Green/Duwamish River watershed, degrading its ability to provide clean, productive habitat for fish and wildlife. Spanning the tidal estuaries to the spawning and wildlife habitat areas in the upper basin, the project is a comprehensive restoration program for the entire Green-Duwamish watershed.
“The Corps does not design and construct these projects in isolation,” said Col. John Buck, USACE Seattle District commander. “We rely on feedback from resource agencies, tribal entities and citizens to ensure their success. Additionally, we rely on our partnership with our sponsors; they not only provide time, energy, and real estate, but they also share costs necessary to design and construct these projects. Without them, there would be no Green-Duwamish ecosystem restoration projects, such as the Mill Creek Project.”
The Mill Creek Project extends from just downstream of the stream crossing at State Route 18 to the stream crossing at State Route 167. A large part of the mile-long restoration project is inside the Auburn Environmental Park.
Designers created the project to provide multiple benefits, including: removal of existing noxious weeds; re-vegetation of nearly 25 acres of the Mill Creek basin with native trees and plants; the creation and enhancement of habitat for salmon and other aquatic wildlife; increased stream channel and culvert conveyance capacity within the reach; and the creation of additional flood-storage areas to reduce downstream flooding during periods of high stream flow.
“This project is a good example of how government agencies and community stakeholders can work together to achieve a win-win project,” said Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus. “In this case, we are helping with regional salmon recovery effort in Auburn, and at the same time decreasing flood risk experienced by neighboring and downstream properties during the wet winter months.”
The City of Auburn, which is the local (non-federal) sponsor for the project, has worked with other state and regional organizations to assemble the local cost-share funding for the project. These organizations are the WRIA-9 Forum, the King Conservation District and the King County Flood Control District, which provided funding assistance for the City’s project design cost share. The Washington Department of Ecology provided state floodplain management grant funding to help with City costs for project real estate acquisition and construction.
“The City has worked with the Army Corps and our non-federal partners for a number of years to get to this point,” said Auburn Environmental Services Manager Chris Andersen. “We had to work through a series of pretty complex issues related to the real estate, design and budget. Now [that] we have the land, approved design and funding, it’s time to get the project constructed.”
Construction starts in December and should be finished by late 2016.
