I received a Notice of Complete Application for the construction of an impervious trail through the center of a parcel of forested land acquired with funds collected for Lake Whatcom Watershed protection. It is terribly ironic that the first major expenditure of funds for projects on the lands acquired for watershed protection is to develop them and diminish both their long term ability and viability to do what they do naturally do – clean stormwater. The building industry must be shaking their heads in awe. Why didn’t we think of bicycle trails? We could have developed the entire watershed by now!

This whole process was a done deal from the start. When citizens gathered for an initial walk through, the recommendation was for a very simple trail on the outskirts of this parcel to allow kids a safe path to and from school. A year later, the Parks Department presented their plan, which is the current plan, no subsequent input, no comments. And by the way, the SEPA comment period closed before this public meeting was even held, bids were scheduled, approval from the sleepy city council just a nod away. That’s the way the city works when it is their project.

Prior to this expenditure, in the three years the city has owned this property, the total city investment to protect this area was three signs and a part time security patrol for several weeks when a group of entrepreneurial kids tore up the woods, chopped down trees, built bike jumps, carved multiple trails and pretty much trashed the area.

One of the “environmentally conscious” reasons given for building this trail is that the project will “fix” many of these previous problems and with a nice impervious trail and none of this will ever occur again.

If you would like to see for yourself what a wooded area looks like after a nice, clearly marked, impervious crushed limestone trail is installed, take a walk on the Scudder Pond Loop Trail. In one 2.8 mile segment you will see, 2 trials carved into the woods that lead to residences, 11 secondary trails, 18 manmade trails, 19 animal trails and 8 sections of the main trail with obvious damage from trail bikes. Most of the manmade trails are mountain bike trails that are intermittently covered with brush by parks employees for a time before the bikers reopen them. I just saw a new bike trail this morning near the steep stairs leading to the creek.

By the way, requests for repair on these stairs has been sitting at the parks department for 4 to 5 years. The last that was heard is sometime this year. Which brings up an interesting point, who will repair the inevitable trails, the inevitable damage that will be carved into this Watershed Protection Land? Parks? I doubt it? Public Works? Perhaps a couple of more signs?

The City Council, many city staff, and perhaps the now not so new mayor just don’t seem to get it -- protected land should be protected. This is what happens when a city has no long range, working, articulated, comprehensive, integrated plan in place to protect it’s water supply; no vision, no measurable goals, no meaningful benchmarks to track progress. We have spent a lot of dollars to date on supposed Lake Whatcom Reservoir/Watershed protection. Too bad this expenditure isn’t one of them. Expenditures like this create doubts about just how effective all the previous expenditures have been, just how effect future expenditures will be.