2024-01-08-minutes-public-works-study-session

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span is 50 years and replacing this culvert basically moves this project forward by 20 years helps to justify the Rooney's monetary investment today. 4. The Rooney's want this dealt with prior to it becoming a hazard. A few additional discussion points brought up in the document: • The Flood Control Zone District Advisory Committee recently declined to provide the requested assistance. - As a member of the original Flood Control committee, I understand this decision. The need for driveway culvert replacements were identified early in the planning process and should have been budgeted as part of the project up front and not be dependent on the Flood Control budget for a PW created problem. It was not. Having reviewed meeting notes and discussion from the last few FC meetings, it is apparent that some members are looking for direction in how to rank "private property" projects in relationship to ranking public benefit. Allowing a county project to NOT create the only fish blocking barrier destroying the benefit of more than two million dollars in taxpayer funded habitat improvements seems to be of great public benefit. Obviously, an odd position to be in. • Staff and the property owners do not agree on the potential for probable adverse impacts resulting from the pending bridge improvement project on Lick Creek—Teanaway Road. - Photography from a previous high-water event clearly indicate that water from both sides of the road being moved to the East side only will not clear the existing culverts. The county provided hydrology reports with the qualification that culverts are free of obstruction. This seems unlikely given the much heralded "wood fiesta" upstream and the county's project specification that calls for more woody debris placement directly upstream from the existing culverts. It even appears that the hydrology reports excluded the 20% bottom coble fill that WDFW requires. Another new condition that the county project inflicts on the downstream owners is the increased risk of damage from ice flows. Currently, only ice that forms on the approximately 2,200 feet of Lick Creek's downward side of the North Fork Road effect downstream residents as the existing undersized county culverts do not pass what can be car sized blocks of ice. The forty -foot water crossing will pass ice flows from the entire length of the stream. They will certainly plug the Rooney's northern parcel culvert blocking access to their property as well as increasing the risk of severe water and ice damage to the Stuart's property. • No mitigation is required in the County's Hydraulic Permit Approval with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. This is a misleading statement. It is not a function of WDFW to do so as explained above by WDFW. The document states, "Recognizing that the canopy is rapidly re-establishing, PW used a canopy coverage of 52.7 percent in final design consistent with United States Geologic Survey Region 2 Regression Equations." This seems a stretch at best. While the upstream canopy is somewhat recovering from the 2005 Lick Creek fire, I see no on the ground validity in this statement on the Jolley fire. In fact, the canopy that is replacing the Lick Creek fire is quite different from its previously dense canopy and is made of more deciduous trees than what previously existed. It is my understanding that it takes years to recover canopy and to my knowledge there has been no effort to seed or otherwise replace this canopy. Additionally, the creek flow high water events pre -Jolley fire demonstrated that these culverts would not properly convey the water that currently flows on the West side of the road that is going to be re-routed to the East side going forward. So, the statement on canopy coverage re-establishing does not add to the discussion. • No mitigation is required from the Federal Highway Administration —the project funder.- Does the FHA even know that there are going to be adverse impacts? There were no correspondence items included in my prior public disclosure request that indicated these concerns were shared or part of any county discussion with the FHA. The document states: "PW anticipates that the Department's approval does not create absolute immunity from damages related to the bridge improvement project." Obviously, this is the crux of the issue. WDFW has made it