February Illahee Community Meeting? The Illahee Community Club (ICC) holds its regularly scheduled meetings the middle month of each quarter and is looking to meet later this month at a time and place to be decided later. This is the meeting where current information about what is happening in Illahee is shared, along with regular reports about what the ICC is doing. Notice of the meeting is provided by signs throughout the area along with notice by email to residents who have provided their email addresses. The signs should be coming out soon.
Appeal Information? There evidently are some issues going on with Superior Court appeal regarding Timbers Edge that we hope will be discussed at the ICC meeting. We have heard something about the Shorelines Hearings Board appeal being delayed for discussions to take place and hope to find out more at the meeting. These appeals have been taken on by the ICC and they note they have been costly and they appreciate the community's continued moral and financial support, both of which are needed.
Illahee Preserve Demonstration Rain Garden. This project to install a demonstration rain garden at the new Almira Illahee Preserve parking lot is a GO. We heard that a majority of the native plants have been ordered from the Kitsap Conservation District and they will be picked up on Friday, March 5, 2010, and that a planting party is being planned for Saturday, March 6th, and possibly as a backup, Sunday, March 7th. Evidently the area has been divided into 5 rain garden areas and volunteers are needed to do the planting. There is a letter scheduled to go out this week that is supposed to describe the project that we will pass on when it comes out.
Why Rain Gardens? The short answer is they help slow down and clean stormwater which is especially needed in the Illahee Creek Watershed to help alleviate the stormwater surges that plague Illahee Creek and Puget Sound. We noticed the article in the Kitsap Sun this week written by Kitsap County Commissioner Josh Brown that helps explain why the county is finally getting interested. When we presented stormwater arguments at the Illahee Outfall appeal, Josh was the only Commissioner that sided with the Illahee Community, and while we lost that appeal to the Commissioners, we ended up with a favorable mediated agreement as the result of the appeal to the Shorelines Hearings Board. The article link is: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/feb/04/my-turn-stormwater-crisis-needs-solutions-now/
The Other Reason For Rain Gardens - Aquifer Replenishment. The other reason for rain gardens is they help infiltrate water back into the aquifers, which are needed to maintain the baseflow in Illahee Creek (because that baseflow comes from the underlying shallow aquifer). That fact has been established as the results of community funded studies that totaled almost $10,000. (As an aside comment regarding Illahee aquifers, we felt the County Commissioners did little to protect our aquifers in their Timbers Edge decision when they stipulated infiltration, but then added the escape clause "to the extent feasible." If they were really serious about protecting our aquifers, they wouldn't have added an escape clause. Maybe some day the County will come around to respect our aquifers, like they are coming around to be concerned about the effects of stormwater. It seems like it takes too long in Kitsap County for the legislative process to catch up with science.)
Jim Aho
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