Ray Heller

Narrator: Ray Heller

Date: June 26, 2020

Interviewed by: Gary Smith

Place: Home of Terry Lavender

TRANSCRIPT:

GS: This is my fourth interview, after Terry, Dick Schaetzel and Shirley.

RH/TL: Is Shirley interviewed twice?

GS: I will interview her again tomorrow, briefly.

RH/TL: Oh, great.

GS: Okay. So let’s just start right in. If you have any knowledge, what was the basic streambed of Bear Creek, uh, in its current form? Do you know when it could be called a stable waterway?

RH: I’ve pondered on that question quite a bit. It’s a hard one to answer.

GS: Yeah.

RH: Because for a couple of reason for me. One is, I’m a little dated on this, you know, I’m seventeen years out from being active in Bear Creek, so excuse the cobwebs a little bit. The other is what we mean by stable. Do you mean like pre, pre-white settlement?

GS: Well, we wouldn’t have any record unless there were stories the Indians passed down, but, uh, where there were artefacts that could indicate a, a stream side uh, like, for instance, down in Marymoor there’s artefacts in Marymoor Park that indicate a settlement, or, or, seasonal camp that would have been probably at the old confluence, maybe where that ...

RH: Right.

GS: And now of course it’s shifted downstream. So there’s an indication, that, there, and you can find it on maps of course ...

RH: Mm hmm.

GS: Where that change took place when they channelized it, but any indication like that that could show there was a different form that you could put a date on, or, you know it’s tough.

RH: No, I really don’t think I can help you much there.

GS: Well, but about the Marymoor? No, skip that. We’re going to stick to Bear Creek by my definition.

RH: Not Evans Creek?

GS: Not Evans Creek and not Sammamish above the confluence. So, unless you want to talk about the confluence a little bit?

RH: And that, that’s ... I was going to use Evans as an example what it depends on ...

GS: Well, go ahead.

RH: Stabilized,

GS: Okay.

RH: Because, Evans is degraded but it’s in sort of in a stable condition, in my mind, at least back when we were doing the basin plan. It had suffered all kinds of impact from urban runoff and all that sediment came down and filled in the Evans Channel, but it’s such low gradient it can’t really move the material. So it’s stable, but very degraded.

GS: What about the the, how would you contrast that with Bear Creek then?

RH: Bear Creek is a kind of a totally different, um, uh, character, in terms of the stream, instream character because it’s still in pretty good shape in the upper and lower portions of Bear Creek, the lower portions had much more uh, impact and I would say it’s less stable. Fairly active bank erosions going on from high flows, um, lack of cover and LWD (?) to keep things from eroding, and there was material moving down through the system. Now whether, I’m a little fuzzy on whether it’s actually exiting out into the Sammamish River, um, I’d have to refer to some of the geology stuff because I don’t remember if they did sediment movement in that level of detail in the plan.

GS: So the change, again the contrast with Evans, you know Evans doesn’t have much gradient, and it’s been degraded, or, just a lot of, uh, changes to the landscape around it, it stayed in its basic, uh, let’s call it slough arrangement. It hasn’t cut a new channel or anything, and hasn’t been moved, but Bear has been moved at least once.

RH: And it was still moving sediment as I unders... recall, in Bear Creek.

GS: Which, and then, eroding banks, and changes in its on course. Okay.

RH: Yep.

GS: Uh, do you know of any tribal settlements, or, or, structures near the creek?

RH: No, I do not.

GS: Uh, do you have any idea of tribal impacts on the creek?

RH: Nope. I don’t have any knowledge there either.

GS: Okay, we’ll go to the settler period then. Do you have any dates on pioneer settlement?

RH: No. The anecdotal information that I have is from one property owner in the Evans Creek basin, Leonard Carlson. His family, as I recall, settled in the 1880s, and he was, I think it was his grandfather, um, and he used, he lived on Rutherford (?) Creek, which was the only indexed stream that I recall, or it was one of the only indexed streams in the Bear Creek Basin, when we were doing the basin plan. The fisheries went back and counted for coho every fall. It was a very high producer of coho, and he lived on the lower portion of Rutherford (?) where most of the spawning occurred and he was very proud of it, but he also talked extensively about how his family had cleared, back in the late 1800s, the big cedar trees that they logged out of there. Um, I wish he was around that you could interview him, but unfortunately ...

GS: Is, is there a descendent that you know?

RH: I don’t know of one. I believe his, his grandson, um, bought the place, or was given the place after he passed away, but this would have been twenty years ago, and I, I really have lost touch.

GS: And that’s still near Rutherford Creek?

RH: Oh yeah, he, they own the lower quarter mile or half mile of Rutherford Creek where it emptied in to the Evans Creek, um, and that reliably had spawning coho every year.

GS: Up until when would you say, at least?

RH: Till I left uh, seventeen years ago.

GS: Okay.

RH: And that’s kind of where my knowledge drops off is at that point.

GS: I’d like to talk to you separately about that, but I’m not going to focus much on, on Evans Creek...

RH: Yeah.

GS: Maybe later.

RH: Yeah.

GS: Um, so the impacts, uh, on Bear Creek from the settlements of, and I’ve gotten some information from Shirley on this, but I’ll just ask you open ended, what impacts, early on, say a hundred years ago, would you ...

RH: Well, my understanding, is most of the basin was logged between the 1880s and 1920s. Um, most of the logging occurred in that period, and there was also a fair amount of uh, agriculture, especially the further down you went down toward the Sammamish River. Uh, I guess that would be in terms of pioneers, that’s the major impact early on, in white settlement of the water shed. I would say there’s a whole another wave of impact which probably from a stream standpoint had just as much or more impact ...

GS: Later?

RH: Later, when we started getting urban development.

GS: Let’s stick with the earlier period, uh, until roughly 1920. Shirley mentioned clear cuts on the properties that she knew or her family lived on. Do you know where she lived, by the way?

Time Stamp: 7’55” referring to the Lloyd homestead, logged in 10-20 acre lots

RH: Yes.

GS: Okay. Have you heard reference to that kind of logging?

RH: Um, yes, um, the, the Paradise site conservation area, I forget the name of the family ...

RH/TL: Lloyd.

RH: The Lloyds used to clear cut, and they, my understanding is that they used to log a portion of their property to pay their taxes, um, so it was done, you know, they’d do ten or fifteen or twenty acres at a time, uh, periodically to pay, pay their taxes.

GS: That would have been mostly west of Paradise Lake and, and Bear Creek?

RH: It would be south.

GS: Oh, south. Oh.

RH: Yeah, it would be south, south and west of uh, Paradise.

GS: Okay, okay.

RH/TL: And that logging (?) there was still evidence (?) the trees you’d walk through there (?) you’d walk through different stages.

RH: You can see them in different stages of, of growth. Yes. Um, the other place that does it, Redmond Watershed, I don’t remember a lot of the history, you could probably get more of that from the Redmond parks folks.

GS: Yeah. Who would you recommend at Redmond by the way. I have some contacts, but ...

RH: My contact is retired. Linda, Linda Gorman.

GS: Oh yeah, Linda. She’s great.

RH: Have you interviewed her? She would be ...

GS: I haven’t seen her since she retired.

RH: Right.

GS: Those people seem to disappear when they...

RH: She did. She did. She uh, I think she lives down in Southwest Washington.

GS: Yeah, I’m afraid that’s out of my range.

RH: She was a great contact.

GS: Yeah.

RH: ... at parks

GS: She was, she did good work on grants ...

RH: Oh, she was she was my uh, ment... well, she was my buddy on, in the City of Redmond getting things done. (laughs)

GS: A couple of other things that Shirley mentioned: Fish farming, above the lake, she didn’t have details but she said people would uh, whether they hand carried or somehow got salmon, trout I should say not salmon, above the lake and they had a little place where they would let them spawn. Any reference to that?

RH: No. I’m not familiar with that at all.

GS: Okay.

Time Stamp: 9’59” referring to fish farming in early 20th Century and Kokanee harvest in late 20th Century

RH: The only fish farming that I’m aware of is the kokanee harvest that they did on Bear Creek by the Department of Fish and Wildlife and I believe the Muckleshoots were involved.

GS: How recent?

RH: Oh golly, they stopped that probably twenty, thirty years ago.

GS: Oh. That’s the first reference I’ve heard.

RH: Yes. They used to put a trap up somewhere, boy, somewhere near Classic Nursery.

GS: Okay.

RH: And they would trap kokanee annually and they took the eggs, rooted them, and that’s what I believe went to Baker Lake and various lakes around the uh, Northwest, was Bear Creek kokanee. So...

GS: Hmmm. I’ve heard the reverse. I heard Whatcom and some other sources have brought eggs down here, never heard that ...

RH: Yes. They used to harvest uh, kokanee ...

GS: Okay.

RH: I don’t ...

RH/TL: They’ve got that storage area that I keep asking, “are you sure we can’t buy Bear Creek ...

RH: Kokanee ...

RH/TL: Sammamish kokanee genes (??) someplace else, and I don’t get a bite on it.

GS: Last thing from Shirley, uh, she mentioned repairing planning which you kind of referred to but you mentioned downstream, she said up in that area that they were planting, uh, sounded very close to the creek, uh, she didn’t mention the crops, have you seen reference to that? Up in Upper Bear Creek?

RH: Planning agricultural crops?

GS: Yes.

RH: No. I’m not familiar with agriculture that far up.

GS: I’ll ask her later.

RH: One of the, uh, inventories that I did ...

Noise. Interview moves inside.

GS: Watch your language, Terry, I’m just saying ...

All laugh.

Time Stamp: 11’55” summarizing settler impacts

RH: So the other ... to summarize we were talking about uh, impacts, and so, historically I’d say since white settlement straightening the stream, which is the lower mile, riftrafting (?) on the lower portions of Bear Creek were, was done, huge rifts but not much, um, clearing, erosion, and increased flows, those, that’s my list of, of the major impacts, uh

GS: That’s helpful. Uh, and most of what you just described was, was, well, you tell me, where would it apply uh, along the length of the creek? I mean probably the whole way to some degree, but,

RH: Yes, I was going to say, it would decrease generally the further north on the ... further upstream you went.

GS: Right.

RH: And it would increase as you went into Lower Bear Creek.

GS: Okay, that’s a good summary, and uh, that will wrap up our old history, um,  to kick off the more modern period how would you describe, uh, waterway preservation and/or restoration?

RH: Um, I’m going to have to ponder this a little bit. Um, it’s um, we talked about it a little bit earlier maybe when it was off, it’s preservation and restoration are long term efforts in my mind. It’s not like a, a, two year after where you fund the project and then you do it and you’re done. Uh, I think that’s not likely to have a very high level of success, um, at least in Bear Creek, but generally in King County, from my experience. The longer term that you have an effort going on whether it’s uh, buying, preserving, stellar properties that have functions that are very good for the stream, or whether it’s restoring highly degraded areas, um, again, you may, almost all our efforts in Bear Creek um, as well as other portions of King County were done with cooperative property owners. We, we aren’t forcing people, in most cases. There’s no imminent domain that I worked with during my years, where you’re forcing a property owner to do a project. So you’re looking for the cooperation. To do that, you’d have to have a long term effort, um, just, that’s the only way. [?] You may, it may be a bad year for that. And they got family issues. They had things going on, they don’t want to deal with you this year, but next year, five years from now, they may very well want to cooperate, or they, or their neighbors may talk to them. That was the other tack we took. If we could get one property owner on each reach, to do a project, that became an example for all of their neighbors, and they talk to their neighbors and they say it was a good experience or not. So you’re selling your program every time you go and work on a property. Um, we found that to work very well, and again, you have to have a long term effort. You can’t do it all in one or two years.

GS: You, you mention Bear Creek and other waterways, in King County, how, how would you describe any of the unique characteristics of Bear Creek in comparison to some of the others in this long term view?

RH: You mean comparing Bear Creek to other basins?

GS: Yes.

RH: Um, I guess I would refer to the waterways program where we ranked watersheds across the whole county, and Bear Creek was a significant high value watershed right up there with many others, um, you know, lots ? Creek, oh golly, some of the tributaries of the Snoqualmie, I’m thinking of basins that are comparable size.

GS: What about, from, the aspect of uh, cooperation from nearby property owners, uh, was Bear Creek any better, worse, the same as other?

RH: I think we’re pretty much the same.

GS: Okay.

RH: Well, let me think about that a little bit. Um, I would say compared to further east and southeast there are some watersheds that are uh, property owners are less cooperative than they are out on Bear Creek, yes. I would say they’re a little more cooperative here, yes.

GS: When you said those directions were you referring to Issaquah and Sammamish? Uh, which would be Evans, well Evans is Bear Creek. What watersheds were you thinking of when you said east and south?

RH: I’m thinking down in the Sisk Creek [??] area, um, Covington ...

GS: Okay.

RH: Oh golly, down near Whatcom Creek, um, there’s, you have a little tougher time selling a program to some of those folks. Doesn’t mean you aren’t successful, but when you’re trying to make a watershed-wide change, you really need to, over time, try to get, a, a majority of the people to adopt your watershed, or at least value the functions that are, that exist here.

GS: Well then, you mention waterway plan, uh, Waterway 2000 was it?

RH: Yes.

GS: Was that the, well, what was the start of preservation/restoration efforts on Bear Creek? Start there. Uh, did it go before that waterway program?

Time Stamp: 18’16” Ray mentioned and Terry Lavender explained the “drug parcel”

RH: Yes. It did. It started, right here, um, just north of, uh, I think it’s the adjacent property here. We call it the Drug parcel.

GS: South of Duvall Road here?

RH: Yes, uh, as I recall, and Terry can correct me if I get it wrong, there was a letter sent to our, to the county that there ...

RH/TL: To the property owners right here.

RH: Well it went to the adjacent property ...

RH/TL: I still have the letter.

RH: Okay. She knows it better than I do.

GS: Okay.

RH: Yes.

GS: You can chime in here.

RH: Yeah. So anyway, the drug enforcement folks were uh, yeah, sent a letter there and ...

GS: I did hear that, sir.

RH: Yeah, okay. I don’t need to repeat it. (all laugh). That was the start. That was the first parcel for preservation that we purchased that was prior to waterways which was just after the basin plan was created, and we were just starting on restoration projects in the basin. We weren’t starting any preservation really yet. So ...

GS: [?]

RH: So uh, that got us, that got things started.

GS: [laughs.] Great start. You weren’t directly involved in that?

RH: Um...

RH/TL: He was.

GS: Oh.

RH: Yes.

GS: Well then you can tell your part of it because I have Sherry’s and Terry’s.

RH: I just remember being out in the wetland with uh, uh, was the county executive there?

RH/TL: Yes. Tim Mill [?]

RH: Yes.

RH/TL: Tim Mill and Jim Cramer ... I have a film of the news conference.

RH: Tim Mill [?] ...

RH/TL: [?]

RH: In his suits and his wing tips and we’re out in this wetland.

All laugh

RH: And the, I think it was from Chicago that the enforcement or the DEA person ...

RH/TL: The federal marshal, yeah.

RH: Yeah, federal marshal ...

GS: DEA was not there?

RH/TL: I don’t know that. I just remember the federal marshal.

GS: They were involved but the marshal was the representative.

RH: Yes, the marshal was the representative of the official and they were doing this transaction. It was uh, quite the event.

GS: So (laughs) that little accident of history was from what you can recall the start of an organized restoration effort,

RH/TL: preservation.

GS: preservation ...

RH: ... preservation

GS: ... on the creek?

RH: Right.

GS: Okay.

Time Stamp: 20’33” referring to “Bear Creek Basin Plan” and it recommendation to acquire and preserve riparian areas, a step taken years later with Waterways 2000

RH: We, we had already started on the basin plan ...

GS: Right.

RH: ... doing the restoration. One of the recommendations out of the basin plan was to preserve the, the good areas and, er, well the prime functioning areas in the basin. That, that was one of the major recommendations in there.

RH/TL: I think one of the key things there that we eventually got the property donated by the federal government but we couldn’t get a part of King County to take it...

GS: Right.

RH/TL: And so Jim Cramer in um, surface water management took it as the Jenson pond.

RH: That’s right.

RH/TL: And it probably’s still is on the books that way and he told me years later that that was the genesis for waterways ‘cause the idea that the county would own wetlands and streams like property, so I don’t know, you know, that’s his take on it, but...

GS: Can you both agree on a date, or at least a year that that happened?

RH/TL: 1991 and 2.

RH: ... right after the plan was adopted, the basin plan.

RH/TL: I will tell you exactly what year ...

RH: I don’t remember the dates.

GS: So, the key point for me, is that uh, and now, now I’ve said all this, is that, that was a preservation land, first time that the county took over a piece and prior to that there were restoration efforts, I guess they would be small, uh, efforts along the creek with cooperation from private property owners that wanted to get in and remove weeds or ...

Time Stamp: 22’10” referring to restoration projects along Bear Creek, including at Conrad Olsen Park

RH: Um, not so much removing weeds, um, that came later where, was, was more plantings.

GS: Oh, okay.

RH: And um, bank erosion down on the, the lower portions of Bear Creek, but outside of the City of Redmond.

GS: Uh huh.

RH: Um, and we also did restoration on City of Redmond property.

GS: Okay.

RH: Because it was funded by, as I recall, the City of Redmond Parks, like Conrad Olsen, uh Park.

GS: Okay. Yes.

RH: We, we, I believe King County designed and managed the construction and I believe the city paid for it.

GS: Do you have a year for that?

RH: No I don’t. It was right after ...

GS: ... in the 90s.

RH: Oh yes, in the 90s

RH/TL: What was the project?

RH: Conrad Olsen.

RH/TL: Oh yeah, ...

RH: And I remember that one significantly ..

RH/TL: That’s the notice of sale.

GS: Okay. (laughs)

RH/TL: And I actually documented, I took it, I kept, I wrote down all the steps we took and I have all the letters and all the documents...

GS: Is that dated ‘91 or ’92?

RH/TL: It’s dated, the notice of sale is April 26, 1990

GS: Oh, ’90.

RH/TL: ... and then the, uh, the actual press conference where it was turned over was May 28, 1991, so ...

GS: Good story. Anything else on early efforts at preservation at, it would be after that one, uh,

RH: No, as Terry said, apparently that was the first time where King County had actually purchased a wetland, and preserving habitat for habitat value.

GS: And then the next one you mentioned was Conrad Olsen which was in cooperation with Redmond city.

RH: That was one of the early on projects, I’m not sure if it was the first one ...

GS: Okay.

Time Stamp: 23’54” referring to Friendly Village restoration by King County

RH: We also did a project in Friendly Village down there because they had a flooding issues and we did bank um, stabilization with, I believe large woody debris, and it was rif raffed and, and, let’s see, I think that’s the City of Redmond now.

GS: [?] .. a new owner there that, they’re continuing that work, I’ll just say that

RH: Okay.

Time Stamp: 24’24” Terry Lavender referring to Roberts’ property

RH/TL: The first piece of property bought in the county under the waterways program was what we refer to as the Roberts property.

GS: Was one of you guys working that?

RH/TL: Yes

RH: Yes.

GS: That was the first waterways ...

RH/TL: Waterways 2000,

GS: purchased ...

RH/TL: ... purchased in all of King County.

GS: Okay.

RH/TL: That was, I believe was in 1994.

GS: Uh, okay, now we’ll start in to Ray’s work. This would be your job history, basically, perhaps volunteer work in addition, your role as an observer, and participant in restoring the creek.

RH: Um, I guess I’d preface that with my work, with my familiarity with Bear Creek, kind of starts back in 1976, um, the King County resource planning program started in January of that year and I was hired in June of ’76 to do an inventory of all the agriculture lands in King County, so, my job for that summer was to drive all around King County and inventory the agricultural land in the county, and Bear Creek and Sammamish were lumped in to one um, planning, er, yeah, planning area for preserving agriculture.

GS: And what was the program that...

RH: The Agriculture Preservation Program. Yep. So I was the person who inventoried all the ag land in King County but it included Bear Creek and the Sammamish River, um, as one of the focus areas, so I got to drive all around through the area. The area in Bear Creek that was considered viable for agriculture only when up to about middle Bear, so maybe, 133rd, or 145th, I don’t remember the exact boundary, but it didn’t go all the way to the headwaters.

GS: What, why not?

RH: Because there was very little active agriculture ...

GS: It just wasn’t being done?

RH: They had a definition of commercial agriculture, is what they were looking for, um, just pasture ...

GS: But the parcels are bigger as you go north.

Time Stamp: 27’03” referring to King County’s wetlands and streams inventory work, 1981-1986

RH: They are, but, um there was some grazing, some animals, but it was, there was, I would say no commercial agriculture, no dairy farms, there was no uh, crop land, stuff like that. So that was the first inventory. Then in 1981 we, the County, did a wetland inventory of all of Western King County, and I was a Team Leader on that, and so I then got to walk through wetlands, uh, throughout this area. I didn’t do Bear Creek, but I did Evans Creek. I was team lead on that.

GS: Who did, uh, Bear?

RH: I don’t recall.

GS: King County staff ...

RH: There were three teams ...

GS: Oh.

RH: ... and I was the leader of one of the teams, and we split up the basins throughout the county.

GS: And that was in ’81?

RH: That was in ’81. And then in 1985-86 we did, in preparation for the storm water management program, we did a stream reconnaissance of all the watersheds in King County and I was mana... I managed that program and I was also Team Lead, um, for uh, as one of the field teams, so ...

GS: What’s the difference between inventory and reconnaissance?

[talk over each other]

RH: It’s basically the same thing. You’re just inventorying what’s out there.

GS: And then the stream, okay.

RH: Yeah. We were focused on streams in ’85-’86, and in ’81 we were only looking at wetlands.

GS: Right. Okay.

RH: And we used the Fish and Wildlife Service definition of wetlands. And then in ’87 through 1990, we did, I managed the Bear Creek Basin Plan, then I was steward here, um, from 2003, um, I’m sorry. I was steward until 2003. [laughs]

GS: So you started after the Basin Plan?

RH: Not directly. I started in the mid ... I don’t remember what year I started as steward.

GS: Mid 90s?

RH: Yeah, mid 90’s because I did the Issaquah Basin Plan after I did Bear Creek

GS: Oh

RH: So, it was after the Issaquah Basin Plan I moved on to uh, a steward.

GS: It’s a good time to reflect on Issaquah versus Bear Creek. I mean Issaquah is a longer, if you take the full length of it, a much longer, uh, waterway.

RH: It’s a bigger watershed.

GS: Bigger.

RH: Not a lot, but, but it’s a little bit bigger and it’s got a more... elevation drop as well. It’s really starts in kind of a mountainous terrain. It’s a bigger stream, bigger flows. You get more of a snow pack, uh, so you get more of a snow on rain events, it generates. And it’s a different character. You don’t have a um, low gradient flood plain in Issaquah like you have in Bear Creek, so it’s a different geology...

GS: Okay.

RH: ... basically. Come down to ...

GS: And human development, it isn’t so different, is it?

RH: No. No, it’s similar. You’ve got agriculture, there was agriculture in the lower part of Issaquah. Not so much any more.

 GS: But there’s still commercial agriculture upstream.

RH: Not much.

GS: There was until... no? Back in the period you were doing these inventories?

RH: You know there used to be on Bear Creek too. I would say they’re similar in that regard. That agriculture is pretty much gone from both watersheds.

GS: Okay, so we’re going to switch over, uh, to NGOs, um, which ones are relevant to Bear Creek that you run into?

RH: Adopt a stream.

GS: Okay.

RH: Watertenders.

GS: Mmm hmm.

RH: Uh, the Land Conservancy, I guess that’s called Porterra now.

GS: Okay.

RH: Um...

GS: What did Cascade, I know the other two pretty well ...

RH: In terms of preservation they were ...

GS: Okay.

RH: ... instrumental in the Paradise Valley ...

GS: Okay.

RH: ... conservation area. And I believe they worked on some others here but I couldn’t name ‘em right ...

GS: Okay. Um, do you want to talk any, any greater degree about Watertenders? I got [??] so it isn’t necessary, but if you have something to say.

RH: I worked with them extensively. They were very active on education. They had a newsletter that went out. They did See the Salmon events in the fall and I would, oh, you know, help out on those events, um, you know, hoping to educate the folks that wanted to come and see the salmon, just answering questions.

GS: So onsite education would have been pretty much unique to them. Adopt a Stream does inve... does work on the stream ...

RH: I didn’t specifically work with Adopt a Stream, but Adopt a Stream did do projects in Bear Creek ...

GS: Right. Yes.

RH: And, um ...

GS: They’re still doing them.

Time Stamp: 31’53” referring to King County’s “Small Habitat Restoration Program”

RH: Yeah. And you know, some, King County had a small habitat restoration program doing similar things that Adopt a Stream does, but there’s so much work to be done, it was, Adopt a Stream would do some, and it’s, yeah, we worked together.

GS: Well, what’s that County habitat program, did it have a name?

RH: Yeah, it was the small habitat restoration program.

RH/TL: ???

RH: Yeah. Mason Bowles was the, the head of it.

GS: Mason?

RH: Mason.

GS: Still there?

RH: You know I don’t know.

GS: Is that worth pursuing? Is it something that affected Bear Creek much?

RH: Oh yeah, they did a number of projects in Bear Creek.

RH/TL: On private property.

RH: Yes.

GS: Okay. Mason...

RH: Mason Bowles. B-o-w-l-e-s.

GS: Okay.

RH: He was the lead of it when I left. Whether he still is I have no idea, but ..

GS: Now he ... Go ahead.

RH: But they would know. At the county.

GS: Yeah, particularly if it’s still going.

RH: And what we did is they kind of picked up the low hanging fruit, um, projects that were ready to go, you had cooperative property owner, and they did their own ranking process county wide and they would, you would just, as steward you would give them what projects needed to be done and they would rank them county wide and they’d go do the ones that they had money for each year.

GS: They had there own, uh, money source, they weren’t ...

RH: Yes.

GS: ... relying on [?] aid, or anything?

RH: They were relying on funds from the division.

GS: Uh huh. County money.

RH: Yeah.

RH/TL: [???]  water management...

RH: Probably.

RH/TL: The most recent one I personally know of is um, on, off of Avondale there on the Nickel’s property, Tom Peters [?] did a couple of fall habitat restorations on Nickels...

GS: Oh yeah, Tom. Okay, okay.

RH/TL:  ... in the last five years, say. So, that’s the most recent ones I know about.

RH: I think they did the projects just down from little bit [?] or was that a major ...

RH/TL: No, that was a major ...

RH: That was a major ...

RH/TL: ... an effort of the City of Redmond. Yeah.

RH: Oh, okay. Okay.

GS: What was property [?] of work done?

RH/TL: ... the Nickels?

[hard to understand the above exchange because of talking over each other.]

GS: Okay. Um, so that’s it for NGOs.

RH: Yes.

GS: That’s fine. Um, what about [?] aid, what do you see its role in Bear Creek?

RH: Um ...  (laughs) huge.

GS: Money.

RH: Yeah. We, we, we just, uh coordinated, I mean we were, yeah, we were part of the [?] aid effort, uh, at the county, so, yeah, I worked with them, the staff. Yep. Submitted grants for digging projects for preservation and restoration.

GS: This County really runs it as a, as a, as an administrative effort, uh, course it’s a political membership and, and the interlocal agreement, but, it’s really a County operation. I mean,

RH: No, I think it’s uh, includes all the jurisdictions as well.

GS: It ...

RH/TL: Jerry sits on the steering committee ...

RH: Oh, okay.

RH/TL: He took my seat, but, yeah.

RH: You probably ...

GS: Just looking at how it works and people making presentations, the expertise ...

RH: Most are county ...

GS: ... are the county.

RH: The scientific expertise ...

GS: Yes.

RH: Yes, that’s correct.

GS: Has it always been that way, I presume it’s been ...

RH: Yes, pretty much. Um, also I believe Fish and Wildlife and the Muckleshoots are also in there.

GS: Yes. Yeah.

RH: And um, somebody else, oh uh, [?] Fisheries.

GS: Yes. There’s a lot of contributors.

RH: Yes. ... and the Corps are probably in there too.

GS: Yeah, they ... There’s been some good people from all those organizations. Uh, it’s too bad, they are continuing to work uh, by teleconference now, but it’s, kind of wacky. Um, so you would emphasize their role, at least after listening ...

RH: All of our projects went to the [?] process, so yeah, it’s an integral part to uh, the planning effort now, is going through [?] aid.

GS: Um, looking at the counties, is Snohomish County relevant to Bear Creek?

Time Stamp: 36’33” highlighting the importance of protecting the headwaters in Snohomish County and the danger of new developments enabled by the capacity of Brightwater Sewage Treatment

RH: Absolutely. Critical.

GS: Really?

RH: Yes.

GS: In what way?

RH: If you don’t protect the headwaters you’re gonna have a hard time having a functioning system all the way down.

GS: And have they done work up there?

RH: Yes.

GS: Okay.

RH: Yep. And there’s also the biggest fears I have rest in Snohomish County.

GS: Why?

RH: Because of the Bright Water, being located where it is. It’s basically right on the headwaters of the, right adjacent to the headwaters, of Bear Creek and Cottage Lake Creek.

GS: Is it worst case thinking?

RH: Yes. It would be, you put in the infrastructure, it’s, it’s just a political decision to change land use.

GS: Oh. You’re not talking about natural disasters, like an earthquake, you’re talking about ...

RH: No, I’m talking about development.

RH/TL: Yes.

GS: Oh.

Time Stamp: 37’25” Terry Lavender describing “heartburn” about Trilogy and Redmond Ridge UPDs (“Urban Planned Developments”)

RH/TL: And my heartburn is the, the strip of land between the um, urban planned development, or whatever you want to call ‘em, and the UGA [?]. Because that would give ... rather than, Redmond annexes, you know, Redmond Ridge and stuff like that, and you know ... that’s the Bear Creek corridor, [?] in between. That’s one of the reasons I try to keep the focus [?] along that urban growth boundary. But for me [?] heartburn.

GS: That’s the same thing you’re talking about?

RH: Well, actually that’s similar ...

GS: Uh huh.

RH: It’s the same concern ...

GS: Yours is more, further north from ...

RH: The concern that Terry’s talking about is, is concern within King County, I’m talking about the development potential...

GS: Oh, right.

RH: ... in Snohomish County. But then that’s the next corollary to that is the potential for developing the rural area within King County and again Brightwater is quite close. Start adding infrastructure, widening roads, it’s just a political decision to change land use. If the infrastructure is here. It’s hard to keep it rural.

GS: Right.

RH: It’s harder to keep it rural.

GS: The, development agreements that have been made up until now, apparently, uh, is about to lapse, have you heard this? The [?] counties ... you must have heard about it ... for Redmond Ridge.

RH: No. I haven’t heard it.

GS: They’re uh, trying to, kind of wrap up some of the existing agreement that are in the last year or two, like, into a larger uh, agreement about development. I would say simply put east of the watershed preserve.

RH: So into the Snoqualmie?

GS: Uh, I don’t know how far over the hill it goes. Uh, but it’s the area that’s been developed they’re looking at a larger view of that area now, after the individual development agreements have run out. Anyway, they got, I’ll send you some stuff, it’s current issue. Okay. Good to know Snohomish County, I hadn’t even thought about the Brightwater issue. Um. Your background in King County, uh, when did, or how did the County’s role change, when you talk about preservation/restoration efforts that went on. From what you know prior to the good events you mentioned, what, what was the attitude change of the, they did a statutory change in the County’s role, for, uh, Bear Creek, preservation and restoration.

Time Stamp: 40’22” referring to Bear Creek Community Plan and “Urban Planned Development”

RH: I’m not sure if I’m answering your question, but, um, when the Bear Creek basin plan was done, that’s when the MP, I’m sorry, when the Bear Creek community plan was done ...

GS: Okay.

RH: The UPD’s, that you just referenced, were, uh, a huge debate, and there was a lot of dissent about, consternation about that going in, so shortly after the community plan was adopted, it wasn’t too much longer the basin plan came along, and for the first time Bear Creek and Soos[?] Creek basin plans were the first two basins that were studied under a new method which is to use more of a scientific method, so we went out and hired, actually the basin recon program did it, set the precedent for that, we hired scientists, as team members. Biologists, Geologists, um, Engineers, to assess all these natural systems to find out what were the impacts, um, on our water resources, basically, and we put together these plans ...

GS: Uh huh.

RH: ... with a scientific background and I think it was very successful because we were able then to go to the County council and say, “based on the scientists, these are the impacts that you’ve had to date, these are the impacts you’re going to suffer based on the land uses that you’ve changed, and we adopted, in Bear Creek, the strictest standard, regulatory standards, um, anywhere.

GS: What was the other creek besides Bear that had a basin plan?

RH: Soos Creek and Bear Creek were the first ones under the new planning program.

GS: Do you want to compare the two in terms of how they turned out?

RH: Soos Creek had a hatchery on it. It’s a little bit bigger basin, but it had much more uh, uh, urban impact already, and most of the resources other than the, the hatchery which is low down in the system, uh, there wasn’t a lot of, a lot of wetlands in, in Soos creek. It’s a very expensive um, let’s see, does, I’m trying to remember, does Covington Creek, I think it drains into Soos, yeah, it does. It’s a bigger system.

RH/TL: And Jenkins ...

RH: And Jenkins. Um, there’s some really nice habitat. I forgot about Jenkins and Covington. There’s some really nice habitat in those systems.

GS: And a lot of it has been protected [?]

RH: Yeah.

GS: So it’s had a comparable affect on the watershed?

RH: Yes, they adopted, uh, I don’t know if they had as strict a basin, or a stream buffers, no Bear Creek had this, we had the forest retention here, in this basin. I think this was the first place we adopted it.

RH/TL: ... the only one that survived the, the legal challenge.

GS: I didn’t even know this, uh forest retention thing. When did that happen?

RH: As part of the basin ..

GS: Oh. Okay. I’m a little, I’m ignorant on that [?]

RH: And then, did I get my dates screwed up? Was it, the community plan was adopted before the basin plan.

RH/TL: Oh yes.

RH: Yeah ...

RH/TL: I’ve got stuff in there ... I can keep looking [?] my drawers ..

all laugh

RH: She’s, she’s a library. She saves all this stuff. I only have a few documents.

RH/TL: I only have one of the top drawers left, but it’s good stuff.

RH: But as part of the basin plan, yes, we adopted, er, the County Council adopted a, a forest retention standard as well as, wide, more than a hundred foot, buffers.

GS: What was the trigger for that, I mean, obviously the plan was the mechanism, but, you, you went back to the UPD’s, as a way of looking, rationally looking at development, and Bear Creek Community plan was part of that? Was that the definition of an area that would then have a community organization?

RH: The Bear Creek Community Plan is not the same geographic area as the Bear Creek Basin Plan. It’s a bigger area that actually includes part of the Snoqualmie.

GS: But the first, in terms of an evolution the Bear Creek Community Plan was prior.

RH: Was prior to the Basin Plan, that’s correct.

GS: And was it based on the UPD’s that defined the areas?

RH: It adopted the UPD concept before the Basin Plan came along.

GS: Right.

RH: If the Basin plan had been done first,

GS: Uh huh.

RH: I wonder if, I don’t know, but I wonder if the argument for the UPDs would have been diff..., er the result would have been different. Maybe a different development standard [?]...

RH/TL: The Basin Plan was actually [?] the UPD.

GS: It’s what?

RH/TL: [?] on the UPD

GS: Huh.

RH: Probably a political decision.

GS: You’re right, the UPD is what’s being reviewed for Redmond Ridge now. That’s happening there, taking comments or something. Uh, okay. So that’s County. Anything else on County? Uh, jurisdiction, I mean there’s plenty there...

RH/TL: There was also a, a, a very serious actually, attempt to put an airport up on [?] Hill, a second airport? [?]. ‘Cause I remember working on opposing that. That was when Bill Reams was still around. Would have been right behind here, um, and it shows up every once in awhile, you’ll hear a reference to the second Eastside airport, you know, and then I-604 was going to go through ...

GS: Right, I remember that one.

RH/TL: ...that route .. yes

talk over each other

GS: Were those ... threats, we’ll call them, energizing people at that ...

RH/TL: Yes.

GS: What you’re suggesting?

RH/TL: Yes. People [?]

GS: And, and was it through the Bear Creek Community group, or, it wasn’t Watertenders at that point ...

RH/TL: No.

GS: They weren’t really organized then, they were just unhappy people.

RH/TL: Yeah, I mean you organized around the issues. The first one I know of is the one is the one that Wendy always talked about, and Louise Miller ...

RH: That was the sewage lagoon, not the ...

GS: Oh, right.

RH: Yeah.

RH/TL: See, part of why I’ve kind of been ...  sorry, I’m distracting from the conversation ...

RH: That’s okay.

RH/TL: Part of why I think there aren’t community groups right now is because there’s not a threat perceived.

GS: Right. Yeah. I agree.

RH/TL: Um. I don’t know...

RH: Hmm.

GS: Do you see that? The threat is what moves people?

RH: It’s a motivator, yes.

GS: Yeah. Yep. Um, on to the city then. Uh, and I’d like you to look at conflict as well as cooperation in terms of the relations the County has had with the City over the years here with regard to Bear Creek.

RH: Um, we had an interlocal agreement with the jurisdictions to do the Basin Plan, uh, so that’s City of Redmond, King County and Snohomish County, and then, when we went to adoption, it was agreed that all the jurisdictions would adopt the Basin Plan. King County did first. I believe Redmond did a year or so later,

RH/TL: They, but they didn’t adopt all the aspects of it.

RH: They adopted portions of it,

RH/TL: Yes, exactly.

GS: Huh.

RH: And then I believe the same was with Snohomish County, and they ...

RH/TL: They didn’t adopt all.

RH: They didn’t adopt everything.

GS: Was Woodinville not involved?

RH: Woodinville was involved when we went to implementation. We had an interlocal, and they contributed to the stewardship salary. So they contributed as, when I was Basin Steward out here, they, my salary was shared.

GS: Woodinville?

RH: Woodinville joined ...

GS: With the other three jurisdictions?

RH: Correct.

GS: Uh, what about conflict, conflict?

RH: Conflict ...

GS: Well, I mean different approaches, different views on...

RH: Um, That’s part of what I alluded to when you first came, um, there were people at the City of Redmond that let me know when things were happening, um, so, I, we could, like, the development on part of the Keller Farm, um, it was going through review with the City, and they found out that the buffers were going to be like down to twenty five feet ...

GS: This Aegis?

RH: Yes.

RH/TL: No.

RH: No.

RH/TL: No, Millenium.

GS: Millenium?

RH: Millenium. That’s it. Thank you. Millenium and the buffers were gonna, were coming in at like twenty-five feet, I can’t remember the exact figures, and the Basin Plan called for a hundred and fifty feet, I think ..

RH/TL: No. A hundred and thirty.

RH: So, the citizens out here and, went down and we argued with uh, the City to, to do their part for a much better, um, buffer, and to do restoration to get the developer to do restoration along the creek.

GS: When you say we, the County and, were there private citizens involved?

RH: Private citizens were involved. They were the instrumental on making, getting those changes in the City review

GS: Who was the coordinator for all that? I mean, you had to get the word out.

RH: I don’t know if I can name names. [Laughs] My source at the City is nameless.

All laugh.

GS: What about the private citizens?

RH: Oh, Terry, um, oh golly, I’m trying to remember who all got involved.

GS: Was Watertenders was involved?

RH/TL: [?]

RH: I believe Wendy Walsh got involved ...

RH/TL: Kevin Pollack [?] was, uh, President of Watertenders at the time. And Ray was the one who brought us the idea of planting bigger than normal trees.

GS: Oh..

RH/TL: And that’s why, and so, that was one of the things we got out of the agreement, was larger trees, like four or five types of trees, and they all had to be watered and such and the survival rate was phenomenal, and that’s why when you drive down there you almost can’t see the buildings now, because the forest in the buffer is so good.

GS: Because ... big trouble for Dick and me when we were doing water testing because you can’t get to the creek anymore.

RH: I love it. Would somebody send that? That’s success! (laughs) When you can’t see the creek, that’s what we wanted. (laughs)

GS: Right. Keep the people away. Terry’s like that.

RH: (laughs). No, actually I’m not at all a proponent for that. I argued with the City of Redmond Parks Department to create a part of uh, Mackie Creek that goes through of Farrel-McWhirter Park, to make it a, ‘cause the kids, they had a play area for the kids there. And, I said, “well, if that’s what you wanted, that kids want to play in the creek, it’s great for education, just engineer a portion of this so the kids can get in the water.”

RH/TL: Like a water park.

RH: And the City refused to do it. They said, “nope, we’re going to block this all off to people intrusion, period.” I said, “Well, whatever. If that’s what you want to do.”

GS: Well, the work on Mackie continues. What period were you talking about?

RH: This would have been in the ‘90s.

GS: Oh, okay. Early on.

RH: Early on.

GS: This was before they’d gotten rid of some of the problems ...

RH: Yes. I was also a proponent on Lower Bear Creek, on the Town Centre, to make walkways to go out so people could go out and see the stream.

GS: Where were you when I needed you.

all laughs.

RH/TL: (?)

RH: I was, and that didn’t go very far with the City either. (laughs). Uh, so I wouldn’t say I was viewed by the City, uh, I think I was helpful for them, but I was also a hindrance at times. A pain in the butt, maybe. (laughs)

GS: Well at least you and Linda got along.

RH: Linda and I got along well, yes. And we got a lot of projects done.

Yeah.

RH: Conrad Olsen is a prime example of that one.

GS: Uh huh.

RH: I try to remember the name of the Parks Director at that time. It was a gentlemen. Remember it was, it was kind of a upper, middle age guy ... John ... Something?

GS; Private citizen? Land owner?

RH/TL: No. The Parks Director.

GS: Oh. John Spangler?

RH/TL: No.

RH: No, no, he was ...

GS: ... the Director.

RH: ... the Parks Director.

GS: Crouch, right.

RH: No.

RH/TL: John Couch.

RH: John Couch, yes.

GS: John Couch.

RH/TL: He’s still around.

GS: Yes.

RH: That’s right.

GS: He didn’t show up much but he’s around. He’s a good guy, I thought.

RH: Yeah. We were able to usually convince him to do most things.

RH/TL: But he was a Parks Guy.

GS: Yes.

RH/TL: You know, like, “what use is this wetlands right here.” You know, he was a Parks guy.

GS: Yeah. Yeah.

RH: Um...

RH/TL: And then you got Craig Martin there for awhile.

GS: Mm hmm.

RH: Oh boy. I don’t want to go there.

GS: He’s still around. I saw him in the last couple of months.

RH: Um, but it’s not just the City of Redmond. Um, King County Parks also, when we started thinking about restoration of Lower Bear Creek the first thing we thought about was let’s restore the old channel through Marymoor Park.

GS: Oh, just move it south?

RH: Correct. That was the first thought, is just, recreate that. Well, I kind of already knew that wasn’t going to fly, but you have to put it out there. It didn’t fly. (laughs)

GS: That wasn’t even close.

RH: Redmond, er King County Parks was not going to go there at all.

GS: Yep. You had a hard time, I remember that.

Time Stamp: 54’43” summarizing benefits of Lower Bear Creek passage for migrating salmon

RH: So. Um, golly. Um, you asked what role does Redmond play, they play a critical role. When I mention Snohomish is critical to the health of the watershed, so is Redmond, because all of the fish that come back have to migrate, transport in and out through Redmond. So, having good transport zone, rearing zone, um, you know stream side buffers, and all the things that are critical for the function, Redmond has got ‘em in spades, and that’s where most of the, those projects, the big bucks, actually reside, in Redmond, for that restoration.

RH/TL: Do you want to mention something about ground water withdrawal?

RH: Oh Boy. Um, yeah, you have a ground water well over in the industrial area. That was a concern. I always thought was kind of crazy was, not only that, there’s a cemetery real close to that and he’s embalming, um, but apparently there’s, I mean, Redmond tests their water, I’m sure ...

GS: I thought it was County testing sites. Maybe there’s both ..

RH/TL: Fifty percent of Redmond’s water comes out of ground water.

GS: I know it’s big and that, but there’s all kinds of ... You can see them. There’s stand pipes. So, you’re saying it’s City, uh piping, it’s City water.

RH: Yeah, I believe it’s the City.

GS: Yeah. Makes sense.

RH: Well, maybe they send it probably to somebody, maybe the county has some, or, I don’t know who tests it quite frankly.

RH/TL: So, my concern has always been that they have a permit for eight million gallons per day, or something like that.

RH: Oh, for dictating ground ...

RH/TL: ... and they, several times attempted to get a permit for a greater water rights ...

RH: Oh, I see.

RH/TL: ...and plus there’s one of the drains at (?) Creek that serves Kent, actually flows up surface for part of the year and therefore it’s unavailable to fish because of the drinking water withdrawal, and so I’ve always felt that that was something that needed to be watched, um ...

GS: That the ... if you withdraw the water it’s gonna take stream water.

RH: Yes.

RH/TL: Redmond’s position, because I was on the Redmond Bear Creek ground water committee for a number of years, and Redmond’s position is they are not withdrawing Bear Creek water.

GS: Hmm.

RH/TL: But it is their interest in the ground water management area overland (?) Upper Bear Creek which my property resides in and therefore I have certain regulatory requirements to protect, so it’s a, doesn’t match.

GS: I get mystified by some surface flows. I won’t be able to ask any good questions about that.

RH: There’s a, yeah, the geology section from the, from the Bear Creek Basin plan (?) talks about there’s a lot of resessional or outwash materials in here, and that the water actually migrates, can migrate between Cottage Lake Creek and Bear Creek, um subsurface.

GS: That’s in the plan?

RH: Yes.

GS: To move on, you say you, saying you’ve been out of the loop for several years, but do you know of any prospects for new restoration of Bear Creek, or might need restoration on Bear Creek?

RH: Not really. I mean, the whole, and you don’t want to address Evans Creek, the whole question of Evans Creek, whether that is a viable restoration project or not is a big question mark. I’m not saying it is, but it, at some point, I guess, well I’ve heard that the City and RYA (?) are going to restore the lower portion of Evans Creek where it butts up with, or empties into Bear Creek.

GS: Yes.

RH/TL: They’re going to move it, yeah, Evans ...

GS: Yes.

RH: So, in a way ...

GS: that’s important, right?

RH: In a way, you’re looking at that lower part of Evans Creek ...

GS: Yes.

RH: ... the whole question whether spending money on Evans Creek throughout restoration of that whole system is a good question, and I, I don’t have it, actually probably needs to be readdressed from the habitat standpoint, what you get for what, what you would be doing.

GS: Is that a project that’s been on your radar so to speak for a long time? I mean, I know..

RH: It’s been on here since Basin Plan, and the Basin Plan did not propose to do it. Right.

GS: And you’re talking about this area behind the industrial park?

RH: Yeah, it’s, it would be a major project.

GS: Yeah.

RH: And you’re not just talking about stream restoration, you’re talking about wetland restoration for miles. Because basically the whole valley is wetland. So it would be a huge undertaking.

GS: Well what, can you tie that in to the Keller Farm, uh, the mitigation bank that’s going on because they’re contiguous essentially, uh ...

RH: Well ...

GS: And also DOT’s got a property that you’re probably aware.

RH: When you go in to Evans Creek, and actually Bear Creek too, you have another player here which we haven’t talked about today, um, it’s our, our buddy the beaver.

GS: They’re very active in there.

RH: You, if you go to the mouth of Evans Creek, there’s a, I, I, before this interview I went on the, King County i-map and I pulled up the 2019 area photo, there’s a huge beaver uh, impoundment there. I couldn’t believe it.

GS: I believe that’s on DOT property primarily.

RH: It’s huge.

GS: And, which nobody cares about, it’s, it’s just... They planted on there, and I don’t know what...

RH: Yeah.

GS: That may be part of material that beavers are pulling in, I don’t know.

RH: (laughs) I was surprised to see such a big, extensive impoundment though.

GS: Yeah.

RH: It’s quite a presence.

GS: City’s tracking that. I don’t know what their plan is, but they’re taking lessons from that to use on the Keller Farm. The, the work they’re going to do there.

RH: Anticipate you’re going to have an active beaver, uh, interaction.

GS: Yes, they’re aware.

RH: Okay.

RH/TL: The two big restorations that I know that are in the permit process, well, the one that’s going to start is the Little Bit, the connection of that restoration there. And then the City’s doing one south of that, south of the ...

GS: Yeah.

RH/TL: The city’s (?) 95th street ...

GS: South of 95th. Yeah.

RH/TL: And then they’re beginning the planning for uh, a big restoration that would be south of Grantston, that big open area up, (?) the county now owns close to thirty or forty acres in there.

GS: What’s Grantston?

RH/TL: It’s a property off of Bear Creek Road.

GS: Okay.

RH: It’s about 140th, 145th.

RH/TL: Yeah. I’ll take, I can take you in there sometime, Gary if you want to go for a walk. It’s pretty cool...

GS: Okay.

RH: It’s kind of where Mink Road and (?)

RH/TL: South of that.

RH: Yeah. South of the twin pipeline.

RH/TL: So you have um, the, Bear Creek Country Club Golf Course, you have um, Bear Creek Road, and then there’s in between there, there’s a huge protected area that they’re going to bring large wood in and do some other things.

RH: The other thing that, when you mention the City of Redmond, um, I had a go around with them in terms of the industrial area. I picked up on the filling that was going on back in the 80s, um and during the Basin planning process, and complained to the City. The City did not wish to address the filling by making them stop or to pull out the fill that had been put in along Evans Creek there. Again this is Evans, not Bear. Um, so they chose and it’s in the Basin Plan, to say that they would ask for restoration when those properties were redeveloped. Now I understand they’re going to be redoing, building a whole new channel, so, basically the City has punted on the industrial area.

GS: Uh huh. Uh huh.

RH: And the property owners, the violations that they’ve done over ..

GS: Move away from it.

RH: They’re just moving away from it. I contended at that time that if they’re going for restoration at a later date that they should get the property owners to pony up for some of that because they’re increasing their property values, and it shouldn’t just be a RYA 8 project or a City of Redmond project, the industrial, for the value, increase in property values they’re getting they should be ponying up some money for restoration in the future. How that applies I have no idea, but (laughs) ...

GS: No, that’s ...

RH: That’s ...

GS: ... fascinating.

RH: That was my uh, and I, I walked away from that thing too because the City did not wish to do ...

GS: Yeah. And that’s history now.

RH: Yeah.

GS: All those people are gone.

RH: Yeah. Yeah.

GS: Interesting, so. Okay, your opinion, the most successful restoration project on Bear Creek.

RH: Um, I have a hard time with that one. There’s so many good ones. Um, big and small.

GS: I guess that would be the thing. One big, one small, maybe?

Time Stamp: 1:04’33” referring to restoration of the last mile of Lower Bear Creek and Conrad Olsen Farm as “major successes”

RH: Oh man. Um,

GS: One in Upper Bear Creek, one in Lower Bear Creek? Does that help you any?

RH: You know the lower mile uh, being restored and creating uh, a passable, uh, fish passage through there under all flows, uh, would be, was, was probably one of the best ones ...

GS: Okay. Lower. What about upper? Or middle to upper?

RH: You know the Conrad-Olsen’s a good one. King County roads did some really good stuff, um, down, just downstream of Classic Nursery

GS: Okay.

RH: ... where the mouth of Cottage Lake Creek comes in.

GS: Oh. Who did that?

RH: Roads.

GS: Oh. Roads.

RH: King County Roads did it as part of the Basin Plan. They just, for mitigation, for their widening of Avondale. They did a big chunk of restoration through there. What we call the Bostick property and some uh, some other properties.

GS: And that would have been done by Roads people with cooperation from ...

RH: They just took our plans and put together and funded it and did it together. Put it together.

GS: Okay.

RH: Yeah. Um. Oh golly, you know the NG... you know, Watertenders did small projects out here pulling weeds and purple ? strife. There’s just so many projects that so many people have done. Private property owners have done some. I’ve even done some on my own too, just with my beer buddies, you know? One of them lived here on Bear Creek and he wanted to remove 100 cedar and hemlocks from his landscaping, so we took them and put them on Frog Haven up near Paradise Lake, and it was incredible to go back ten years later with these guys and we, we, it was, the trees were like fifteen feet tall.

RH/TL: You know we obliterated a road, a driveway that went in there, and I literally, even though I planted some of those trees, cannot find that driveway. It was totally obliterated.

GS: That’s great.

RH: So it, it’s a joy to me to drive out here to visit Oaks (?) now, and to see the trees that are growing. It’s, it’s awesome. And I can’t see the creek in most the places, and that, is wonderful. (laughs).

GS: I don’t want to puncture your balloon. What about the least successful, or the, the biggest problems that have developed over the last thirty, twenty, thirty years? Threats to the creek’s health?

RH: Well, prior to the Basin Plan, the biggest problem was development that was going on especially in the upland areas and the lack of erosion control, and we spent a lot of time talking about that, and showing examples to County Council members when we were trying to get adoption of the Basin Plan and the standards that were in here. And so we took ‘em to places where the rain was coming down and the mud was flowing off. And that impacted you know, the, that was impacting the spawning areas throughout the basin, again where development was going on at the time.

GS: And you think it was lack of enforcement, or?

RH: Yes. It was lack of enforcement. It was also lack of good regulation, uh, that required to have added good erosion control.

GS: And, and during the process of development, of the construction project ...

RH: Yes.

GS: Okay.

RH/TL: There was no temporary erosion or sedimentation control required on residential development. And school sites were exempt.

GS: Right. That’s been ...

RH/TL: And some of the worst things ... I got the first stop work order on the school site, right back up here, and that was some of the worst erosion I saw, them clearing in October, um, with no temporary erosion and sedimentation. That’s no longer true.

GS: That’s a county jurisdiction?

RH/TL: Yes. And that’s no longer true. Even residential development now has to have temporary erosion and sedimentation control.

GS: But enforcement is still a question.

RH/TL: I, I don’t know about that. Enforcement of other things is an issue, but when it, when it’s development I’m not sure. I haven’t had anybody ask me to come look at a site for a long time.

GS: Do you think it’s getting better?

RH: Yes. Yes.

RH/TL: I think it is.

RH: Things are, things are way better than they were, yes. Absolutely.

GS: Okay. Last section is uh, trying to get you to uh, write up Bear Creek. Uh. Well, (?) maybe the big picture, uh, how do you see Bear Creek in comparison to other, uh, creeks?

RH: That’s a good question, Gary, and I’ve thought about it and I’ve put down my little quote here.

GS: Okay.

Time Stamp: 1:09’25” Ray’s ideal watershed, containing quote used in the video, “Bear Creek:  An Oral History of A Changing Landscape”

RH: With continuous ...  I picture Bear Creek with continuous stream side vegetation throughout the watershed on all the tributaries, and Bear Creek empties cool water into the Sammamish River. That’s my short, simple sentence.

GS: That’s nice. Uh. What part does, uh, Cottage Lake Creek play in that, cold water.

RH: Well, it used to play a very critical role, from the, that groundwater on Coal Creek coming out of the ground.

GS: But you’ve mentioned this, it could be that water flows between the two creeks, uh ...

RH: Subsurface.

GS: Subsurface. But the aquifer is the key right, in terms of ...

RH: Yes.

GS: Okay. And there isn’t this, uh,

RH: I’m referring to the surface waters.

GS: Okay.

RH: Yeah. I’m referring to surface water. You know if you have a continuous buffer, streamside buffer throughout the watershed, at least ninety, ninety five percent of it, um, you’ve got to be able to lower the water temperatures a little bit, and last I remember, Sammamish River can use all the help it can get for uh, keeping water temperatures down, for not only the Issaquah system, but for Bear Creek, and Little Bear,

GS: What, uh, back on the vegetation. What success did you have when you were trying to get larger trees planted? I remember ...

Time Stamp: 1:11’06” Ray’s claim about plantings along Bear Creek

RH: My recollection is that during my tenure we planted about five streamside miles of Bear Creek and tributaries.

GS: And, that was County effort, on County land.

RH: I think I’m counting City and County. I’m counting all the projects.

GS: And you were able to get larger trees by just pushing the issue with ...

RH: Oh, Terry’s referring to that one project.

GS: Oh, just one project.

RH: We didn’t push that on all the projects.

GS: It didn’t become a standard.

RH: No.

GS: Yeah. I haven’t had much luck with that. Redmond is in the process of reviewing its tree regulations and one of the issues is uh, offsite mitigation. One of the issues with that is what size trees and what maintenance they get. You just argued for the best you can get.

RH: Yeah, it’s a cost thing too. The bigger the trees the more it costs and it’s more you have to maintain it, uh, actively, for a period of time. But it does get things going faster, um, because the bigger and faster the trees grow it ... and provides shade that not only provides for cooler water but also keeps some of the invasives down. If you can get ...

GS: More shade?

RH: Yeah.

GS: Okay. And then do you want to try to divide up the creek?

RH: Oh sure. That’s easy.

GS: Oh okay.

RH: Um, I’ve helped put together, you know, the Basin Plan divided it, waterways divided it. So you’ve got Lower Bear up to about 133rd maybe approximately. I can’t remember the exact boundaries. And Middle Bear up to about Juanitas (?) here.

GS: Which is on what street?

RH: Right behind us here.

GS: I mean is, you get us, there’s no street there.

RH: It’s about 110 ...

GS: Is it a dead end?

RH/TL: A hundred, well, 173 is the address.

GS: Oh, 173. Oh.

RH: Yeah. And then from Juanita all the way up is Upper Bear.

GS: (laughs)

RH: Some people use Woodinville ...

RH/TL: That’s the same thing I told him.

RH: Some people use Woodinville/Duval Road as the boundary line but really it’s just south of the Woodinville/Duval Road.

GS: Right. You did say that. I heard that.

RH: (laughs). I didn’t know she said that.

GS: Yeah she ...

RH/TL: I said it when he interviewed me.

RH: Oh! I guess we think alike.

RH/TL: You were my teacher!

RH: Oh! I taught you!

GS: Okay. Uh, did you pay any attention to Bear Creek above Paradise Lake?

RH: I have. It’s long time ago.

GS: Uh huh.

RH: There’s a, there’s a, Lake Leota drains out? Uh ... into ...

RH/TL: (?)

RH: No. No. There’s, there’s a ... Let me get my map out. (gets map). Yeah. Lake Leota.

GS: Lake Leota? And that, that’s still called Bear Creek up there?

RH: Yes. Yeah. It drains into Paradise Lake. Um, I worked with some citizens on the outlet of Lake Leota.

GS: Uh huh.

RH: They were, I can’t even remember what their issue was.

GS: Is the connection called Bear Creek?

RH/TL: Crystal Lake?

RH: No. It’s right here.

GS: Is it, is it called Bear Creek?

RH: It’s uh, no, it’s a diff... 136. Tributary 136 and 138. It empties into the wetland above ...

GS: Oh. Okay.

RH: ... Paradise Lake

GS: Right. Cause if it is called Bear Creek up above the lake there’s some ...

RH: Actually there is another trib, the main stem. No, that’s 105 is the main stem. 0140A drains in and I don’t have any ...

GS: You don’t call it Bear Creek?

RH: No.

GS: Above Paradise it’s, it’s  tributaries.

RH: It’s tributaries ...

GS: Okay.

RH: ...above Paradise. Yeah.

GS: (?) go by Shirley’s reference.

RH: Oh, wait. No. I’m looking at the map, it shows it going, shows it going, Bear Creek going above Paradise ...

GS: Right.

RH: ... up to here.

GS: Okay.

RH: Up to tributary 140 and 140 A.

GS: Directly north, basically.

RH: Yep. Yeah. There it is. So Bear Creek does extend about a mile down, well, yeah, it’s about a mile.

GS: Okay.

RH: But then there’s a trib that comes in from Lake Leota that comes in from, to, on the eastside of Paradise Lake. I believe it’s Leota. I can’t read the, the map. There is a lake up there that drains, drains down. I know, I believe there was a development up there. They were putting in a retention, a storm water drainage system that was, like, inadequate for our standards but Snohomish County hadn’t adopted them. So we were arguing for stricter runoff controls. Uh, but I don’t remember how successful we were.

GS: I think Terry’s back. She would know. That may have been the same project Watertenders got involved in.

RH: Could have been.

RH/TL: With Shirley. Yeah. It was a Street of Dreams.

GS: Oh yes, she’s talked about that.

RH/TL: Yeah.

GS: Is that right Craig (?)

RH/TL: I need to find my Basin Plan. I can’t picture Lake Leota and I want to see it on a map. Where is my (?) Cause that’s not where I pictured Lake Leota. I can’t (?)

RH: I can’t even read it.

GS: So, Craig (?) it may not have been Street of Dreams that your referring, about that surface water problem?

RH: I don’t, it could have been.

GS: That name didn’t ring a bell? What period, what time (?) Here we go.

RH: It  ..

RH/TL: Quinn’s Crafting (?)

GS: Yes. Shirley mentioned that.

RH: That, that sounds familiar.

GS: That’s the same.

RH: Yeah.

RH/TL: See? I don’t have Alzheimers. I’m doing okay.

RH: (laughs). You’re doing better than me.

GS: You know I’m going to skip the last two, but I just want to leave it open, uh, and get you to focus on salmon in particular. What is Bear Creek have that, uh,(?) for salmon.

RH/TL: It’s Echo Lake.

RH: Echo Lake. Not, not ...

GS: Not Leota?

RH: No, it’s Echo.

GS: Oh.

RH: Echo. Echo Lake.

GS: Same, same issue, but ...

RH: Yeah.

GS: ... it’s Leota. I mean Echo.

RH: Yes. It’s Echo, not Leota.

GS: Um. Can you kind of distill parts of Bear Creek that are performing for salmon that, that have a good story and, and perhaps striking story as well for salmon survival?

RH: Uh, Cottage Lake Creek used to have the best spawning habitat, or at least the most usage, um, during my tenure out here.

GS: I’ve heard that for kings in particular.

RH: Kings in particular, but also they got ... yes, you’re right. Most of the kings went to Cottage Lake Creek, but it also had quite a few sockeye and coho, and the coho used to be spawned all the way up to the headwaters on Coal Creek ...

GS: I’ve heard that.

RH: Up by the gage. It was amazing to see them up there.

GS: The gage, meaning the water gage?

RH: There used to be a gage on Coal Creek.

RH/TL: (?)

RH: Yeah, I don’t remember ...

GS: What’s Lesherman(?)

RH/TL: (?)Lesherman (?) property (?).  It’s my favorite place, it’s hard to get in but it’s my favorite place to be. Because it just inspires us, people to go in .

GS: It’s on Cottage Lake Creek?

RH: Was I the person who found ... who walked that? Who found the ..

RH/TH: There was a trail, a path for a trailer and there was a rough rock road put in you had that removed as a project, and he had the fill that blocked part of the stream?

RH: I’m meaning the genesis of finding Coal Creek.

RH/TH: Oh.

RH: I remember Leo Basset(?name) told me about Coal Creek. Kept talking about Coal Creek and so I, I stomped out through those wetlands which was no easy thing.

RH/TL: No.

RH: And I believe that’s when I found that stream flowing out of the ground... anyway it’s a pretty amazing place.

GS: There about the same place that Lesher(??) property?

RH: Yes. That’s, the,  Lesher (??) Coal Creek flows through the Lesherness (?) property, the actual coming out of the ground uh, is, I think just east, west of there.

RH/TL: It’s further than that because I’ve been on that, I finally got to go on the, uh, there’s a thirty or forty acre piece, it’s off the Woodinville/Duval Road.

RH: Oh sure. I know that piece.

RH/TL: Do you know that a (?) meat processing plant?

RH: No, I didn’t know that.

RH/TL: Yeah. And I finally got to go there and the creek is fully formed going through that property so it’s even further south but I remember you taking me (?) than you thought it came out. And it’s pretty cool.

GS: But that had to do with Kings in particular, but coho and sockeye as well.

RH: Coho used to go, um, all the way up. I believe they were even above Paradise for awhile. They were definitely in the tribs that flow in just on the south end of Paradise. Used to be quite a bit of coho spawning on that trib, that was off to the east there, what’s the number, um, it’s ...

GS: But that’s south of the lake.

RH: It is just south of the lake. Yes. Just barely. Yep. Little tiny trib, but it used to have coho reliably every year. At the beaver dams throughout the system were not a uh, an impediment to coho. We used to find sockeye carcasses occasionally in some of the beaver dams, and state fish and wildlife when they did there walks they used to put little holes in the beaver dams when they did their stream counts so fish were always getting through. And I never did see a, a uh, chinook carcass on, in a beaver dam. But they would probably have more of a problem with a beaver dam than any of the others. Um, in the City of Redmond there’s probably not a lot of spawning habitat, more rearing potential down there. Kokanee used to spawn, I think in the City of Redmond, yeah, yes, so

RH/TL: He’s really active with (?) unlimited.

RH: Oh, okay. You know it better than I then. But uh, yeah, they, kokanee ...

GS: I don’t think they know that story about the trapping, I’m going, you may get a follow up call from somebody about that, uh, Jim Bowers is the new guy replacing ? Parish. A very good guy. He’s taking up this Kokanee project, and he’s (?) insight given historical documents that Terry had. He loves getting that.

RH: I’m trying to remember who told me that. I think it was Doug Webber.

RH/TL: Oh, yeah.

RH: Doug used to help out on some of this stuff.

RH/TL: Yeah, he was always up in (?) watching the coho and (?)

RH: Yeah.

GS: But you’re talking about kokanee?

RH: Yes. Yes.

GS: Doug Webber still with county?

RH: No, no, he passed on.

GS: Oh, he’s gone.

RH/TL: He was Wendy’s husband,

GS: Oh.

RH/TL: ...but he worked for WDFW.

GS: Oh okay. So WDFW (?)

RH/TL: Didn’t he work for ...

RH: Actually (?) NOA Fisheries I think.

RH/TL: ... he worked for NOA fisheries.

RH: Yeah. NOA fisheries.

GS: Oh, NOA. They wouldn’t have been involved in kokanee project, would they?

RH: No.

RH/TL: No.

GS: He just knew ...

RH: But he knew about it, right. And I think he might have even helped at some point.

GS: Okay.

RH: But he definitely knew about it. he told me where, and it’s somewhere in lower, lower Bear. Somewhere ...

GS: You don’t know a living person who would know more detail?

RH: No I don’t.

GS: Well, you’re the source, then.

RH: Oh no. That’s scary.

GS: That’s just historical note, because they’re interested in proving that this is a native, uh, kokanee, uh, and any history that they have of human intervention is just interesting to them, you know, because they’re obviously involved again now.

RH: Mm hmm. So are the kokanee coming back? Are they ..

RH/TL: Not (??)

GS: This year wasn’t bad, but the trend in the last twenty years is terrible. You know the Issaquah ..

RH/TL: ?

RH: I mean we used to see kokanee when I was here as steward, on down um, by Avondale Place. We saw, we saw kokanee.

RH/TL: I know I walked the stream in part of the kokanee survey, but um ...

GS: So Avondale Place. I just saw that coming up here.

RH/TL: Yeah.

GS: There’s ... How far off, you go onto Avenue Place

RH: And the bridge, and

GS: Oh, Okay.

RH: I remember we used to, there used to, I think there used to be a beaver dam there. Fish would congregate below and I’m pretty sure we saw kokanee one year. They were small. Looked like small sockeye.

RH/TL: Right.

GS: Mm hmm.

RH/TL: Do you want your beer now?

GS: I do. I’m gonna stop ...