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City of Seattle
Gregory J. Nickels, Mayor
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NEWS ADVISORY
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| SUBJECT: Community, City, County to Celebrate Ravenna Creek Daylighting
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
5/11/2006 12:27:00 PM |
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Annie Kolb-Nelson, (206)263-6157
Joelle Ligon (206) 233-7929
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Community, City, County to Celebrate Ravenna
Creek Daylighting
Wastewater improvement project now a walk in the park
Community members are invited to celebrate a newly completed park enhancement
and sewer improvement project that will benefit wildlife habitat, improve local
parks and ultimately save money for King County's sewer ratepayers.
On Sunday, May 14, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. King County will join Seattle Parks
and Recreation and the Ravenna Creek Alliance to celebrate completion of a project
to daylight a portion of Ravenna Creek. The event will take place in Ravenna
Park, 2450 NE 55th St. in Seattle.
The event will feature entertainment including jugglers who will perform and
give instruction, a clown making toy balloons for children, live music from
Island Jamz and the Shed Boys, and children's face painting. At 1 p.m., there
will be an official ribbon cutting ceremony. The community is invited to bring
a picnic lunch and enjoy an afternoon in the park by the newly daylighted creek.
Drinks and dessert will be provided. A complete schedule of the day's activities
is available on the websites listed below.
This $1.9 million project was funded by the King County Wastewater Treatment
Division, by the voter approved Seattle Pro Parks Levy and the City of Seattle
Mayor's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. King County also allocated $2.1
million to lay 2,700 lineal feet of pipe, which allows Ravenna Creek to flow
to its natural outfall at Union Bay.
King County's Wastewater Treatment Division began construction on the project
in 2003 to fix a problem that began decades earlier when developers diverted
a creek that once ran from Green Lake to Lake Washington into a sewer pipe at
the south end of Ravenna Park. Clean water from the creek flow eventually ended
up being treated unnecessarily at the West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle.
The county built a new pipeline system to divert the creek flow back to University
Slough in Union Bay, which will reduce sewer system operation costs and make
room for wastewater and stormwater within the sewer system.
"The Ravenna Creek Daylighting Project is near and dear to my heart because
it's one of those projects that show how we can take some of the mistakes of
the past and turn them into treasures for the future" said former King
County Councilwoman Cynthia Sullivan, who actively worked to make the project
possible.
A partnership with Seattle Parks and the Ravenna Creek Alliance enabled additional
restoration projects in the park to move forward, daylighting Ravenna Creek
in the south end of Ravenna Park where it had been in an underground pipe for
50 years. The daylighting project includes 650 feet of new streambed, which
lengthens the surface creek by twenty percent, and the rehabilitation of 200
additional feet of existing stream, within four acres of native plant restoration.
"This collaborative project offers multiple benefits for residents and
ratepayers," said King County Wastewater Treatment Division Director Don
Theiler. "In addition to making more effective use of our sewer system,
the daylighting project will benefit the community and the environment."
The creek daylighting and other restoration projects will improve drainage,
enhance habitat and improve water quality, and offer a more attractive park
with amenities that include accessible walkways and public art.
"The work done by the Ravenna Creek Alliance in conjunction with the City
of Seattle and King County has created a beautiful amenity for the city that
allows community members to see and hear the water that runs in the creek,"
said Parks Superintendent Ken Bounds. "We're pleased to participate in
a partnership that brings so much value to the neighborhood, to the City and
to the whole County."
Peggy Gaynor of GAYNOR Inc. is the designer of the daylighted creek segment and native plant restoration. “Peggy has extraordinary 3-D imagination and a real ability to work with water in nature,” said Kit O¹Neill, president of Ravenna Creek Alliance. “In this daylighting project she has succeeded in making her vision visible to all of us.”
Artist Mark Brest van Kempen created a series of artworks related to Ravenna
Creek, including an outfall structure made of steel and glass that connects
the natural creek to a manmade conveyance pipe.Artworks in the sidewalk on 25th
Avenue NE memorialize the former creek route creek and mark its existence beneath
the sidewalk. Administered by the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, the
artworks were funded by 1% for Art funds.
Additional resources and information about these improvements can be found
on the Web at:
http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wtd/projects/ravenna.htm
http://www.seattle.gov/parks/proparks/projects/RavennaCreekatRavenna.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~ravennacreek/
[Ravenna Creek Alliance]
People enjoy clean water and a healthy environment because of King County's
wastewater treatment program. The county's Wastewater Treatment Division protects
public health and water quality by serving 17 cities, 17 local sewer utilities
and more than 1.4 million residents in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties.
Formerly called Metro, the regional clean-water agency now operated by King
County has been preventing water pollution for more than 40 years.
Approved by Seattle voters in 2000, the $198.2 million Pro Parks Levy will fund
more than 100 projects throughout the city over eight years. Projects include
improvements to athletic fields, playgrounds, trails and community centers and
parks. Funding will also increase green spaces, support Zoo programs and enhance
park maintenance.
This project will help build a stronger community and healthy families, some
of Mayor Greg Nickel's highest priorities for Seattle.
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Seattle Parks and Recreation
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