About six months after Seattle Public Utilities started the Roadside Raingarden Pilot Project in Ballard (.pdf map here), many residents who live next to them are upset. Nearly 75 people gathered to voice their anger, concerns and frustrations to members of Seattle Public Utilities at an emotional meeting Wednesday night.
A properly draining raingarden.
The problem, according to community members, is nearly half of the roadside raingardens don’t work properly. In the raingardens that don’t drain, inches of water will sit in the bottom for days after it stops raining. Andrew Lee the Combined Sewer Overflow manager for Seattle Public Utilities, acknowledges that there is a problem. “What we’ve seen is that some of these raingardens are not performing the way that the tests indicated they would,” Lee says. “They’re performing actually much worse.” The design standards call for the gardens to drain within 72 hours after the rain stops, a timeframe that some residents think is too long.
Nearly half of the roadside raingardens aren’t draining properly.
“We find ourselves in a difficult and surprising position with this project,” Nancy Ahern the Deputy Director of Seattle Public Utilities told residents. She says that Seattle Public Utilities has built successful raingardens in other parts of the city with happy citizens. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Ballard. “To be clear, we are very supportive of the raingardens,” Karrie Mathison said during a presentation by residents, “the point is we want them fixed.”
Residents put together a presentation for SPU.
During the two and a half hour meeting, many residents voiced their displeasure at many parts of the raingardens – the depth of them, the steep slopes, the standing water and the signage that the Seattle Department of Transportation requires. “We don’t believe that these are something that should be in our neighborhood,” one resident said, comparing the raingarden to a detention pond.
One of the raingardens with a steep slope.
A main theme throughout the meeting was the lack of communication between SPU and residents. “I would ask you, first of all, to be straight and honest with us as this develops and pay attention to the real needs of the community,” another resident told the contingent from SPU. That is exactly what SPU intends to do. “We are interested in partnering with the Ballard community,” Ahren tells us after the meeting. Within a week residents will get communication from SPU, Ahren says, and they will reach out to key leaders in the community to possibly create a task force. The plan is to work with the community to define what a successful raingarden is, she tells us.
Signs required by SDOT for the “bump out” raingardens.
The first course of action for SPU is to address the standing water. “Our first objective is to get the non-performing rain gardens to drain so we don’t have the standing water,” Lee told the group. “We fully understand the safety concerns that people have.” The department will do a retrofit to the non-performing raingardens as soon as possible to get them draining, although this may not be a final solution. Ahren wants the community to have a voice in what that final solution might be. If the raingardens that aren’t working can’t be fixed, SPU is willing to take them out and restore the street to the way it was, Ahren said at the meeting.
The roadside raingardens is a pilot project for SPU to create a solution for Ballard’s Combined Sewer Overflow issues. If this first project is deemed successful, other parts of Ballard may get these raingardens. You can read more about the project here.
![](https://www.myballard.com/wp-content/uploads/2024-My-Ballard-Tile-Ad-Troop-100.png")
The last photo is really the only one that shows any plants, and they do not appear to have matured. Could part of the problem be the fact that these are only a few months old and won’t work until plant material is established?
regarding the outrage over ‘retention ponds in my neighborhood’, maybe if you didn’t build 50% of your property with impervious surfaces, this wouldn’t be a problem. Although Seattle restricts building coverage, they do not restict impervious surfaces (driveways, patios, etc.) the way many other jurisdictions do. Maybe some more regulations regarding these standards would eliminate the need for a ‘retention pond’ on your street.
This is what taxes dollars are meant for….REALLY??????
Ugly mosquito breeding swamps that makes parking even harder? Sign me up!
Why not hand them over to the Department of Parks and let them run them as neighborhood pools?
First you pay someone to dig a ditch.
Then you pay someone to fill it in.
That’s about where 50% of your local taxes go.
DPD does restrict the percentage of impervious surfaces.
Ponds Cream – I am assuming that you do not live in the area where these “rain gardens” are. The houses and whatever is on the property were there before the “rain gardens” were dug! What you are saying makes no sense!
SPU have a good idea here and it does work, I have one on my street that was privately funded, but these gardens are not draining and the pools will cause a problem if they are not fixed.
as opposed to the standard practice of running clean rainwater through a sewage system causing it to overflow and pour sewage into the waterways?
Yes. You are absolutely correct. 50%. That’s why we don’t have police, fire, schools, public utilities, roads, parks, social services, etc. We’re spending billions to dig holes and fill them in.
These things are so unbelievably stupid and therefore so totally typical, civic Seattle.
I knew this was mostly about parking for people.
it’s not like you live in Manhattan or Capital Hill even–why do people think it’s so difficult to park around here? is walking a few hundred feet going to kill you?
where in the code book? do you mean King County’s code book?
what’s the limit then?
what you’re saying makes no sense.
do you think these houses were all built at once, with no additional development in the last 20 years? there is a reason the wastewater overflows happen more and more often, and it’s not just the weather. Between builders scooping up dumpy little houses and replacing them with ‘maxed out’ building footprints with two car driveways, and regular homeowners adding on, there is a huge increase in impervious area in this vicinity.
I do live in the area, and I dig these rain gardens.
Out = Neighborhood bake sale fund raiser
In = Neighborhood raingarden mudwrestling fund raiser
Leagues forming now!
jane you ignorant sl*t.
Depends where you are in Ballard. There’s no good reason to reduce parking capacity. If you are asking me to walk a few extra blocks to accommodate some ugly enviromania contraptions because I dare own a car, then yes, I do have cause to object.
He was being Metaphorical.
50% of these ponds have 6-12 inches of standing water, all the time, until a truck decides to come pump them, which is maybe every two weeks. Pond scum is all over them – they smell – and kids are playing around them, so dangerous. These were built on top of clay soil – they won’t drain – they didn’t test it completely. Your tax money was wasted on this. The City has to fix it immediately – it’s so wrong.
I’d rather have this than sewage flowing into the Sound. They get this fixed with a little tweaking. This is the kind of stuff I want my tax dollars to be spent on…
Please figure out how to drain those pools! I was a huge neighborhood advocate prior to the project…talking up the neighbors and encouraging these things. Unfortunately, they do not reflect what we were promised. They are literally filled up to the brim with water….AT ALL TIMES. They are all “rain” and no “garden”.
I also don’t buy the “drain within 72 hours after the rain stops” criteria. We live in Seattle. I can’t remember a 72 hour period when it didnt rain.
Anyone with half a brain knows you need to perform a perc test before you put in a drain filed which is basically what these are. This very simple test would have shown what areas had enough of the right type of soil to allow the water to dissipate and what areas contained too much hardpan or clay for these to function or are located to close to the existing water table. Either these test weren’t performed or where done wrong.
Living near a creek that can flood in high rains I do like the idea of improving soil absorption opportunities but I think this could have just as easily been accomplished with small underground vaults rather than open pits. A vault would not impact parking, safety or property values the way these do but they don’t make for the great photo opportunities politicians love so.
it’s about the plants, man, the plants!
what would grow in your ‘underground vault’? mushrooms maybe?
I don’t think they have quite the same filtering properties.
How many Ballard gardeners knew this wasn’t going to work BEFORE they put these in. Too much Kool-aid drinking and not enough critical engineering. Low Impact Design(infiltration) makes sense, but not every where. Reducing combined sewer over flows makes, but infiltrating in Ballard glacial till doesn’t. Bet folks would have signed up for disconnecting their roof drains with a little financial incentive from the city instead of these trip hazards.
Park your car in the garage. They city doesn’t owe you a spot in front of your house.
I was being facetious.
You must not have lived here for more than 72 hours.
All kidding aside, I think everyone other than the libertariantards are behind the idea of properly functioning rain gardens. It’s just a question of how soon they can get these to work properly.
Most other installations have worked just fine immediately, while a few needed tweaks.
Yes the city does by law.
Right up there with the million dollar crappers that, surprise surprise, became crack heads’ living rooms.
We’ll call this one a victory for car owners in Seattle’s ‘War on Cars’!
You are so right on. The only thing this argument with SPU is about, is that these rain gardens can’t drain when they sit upon clay/hardpan type of soil. Theyu can plant all the freakin trees & bushes they want but it wont change the soil under Sunset Hill.
The plants don’t have anything to do with this, this is about preventing storm water from filling our sewers by giving it time and space to be absorbed into the soil as it did before the area was developed. Put in small underground vaults to hold the water until it can be absorbed, you can plant whatever you’d like on top. Make it even more useful, plant a vegetable garden on top of the vault, you wouldn’t dare plant edibles in these rain gardens.
personally, i can’t stand the signage around them. there are like 8 per block/block and a half…looks weird and ugly.
i like the idea and figure they’ll work the kinks out, but those ugly ass signs aren’t going anywhere i assume…
In areas zoned single family housing they do.
Even if the parking isn’t at capacity, squeezing it into something resembling a crappy high density area ruins the convenience and value of living in the lower density I bought my property in. Property values are taking enough of a hit without turning into swampland.
I know the political will in Seattle is to require us to turn in our cars for sandals and gaze into crystals or something, but if I wanted that I’d live in the higher density areas.
Does anyone REALLY think that the issue here is that suddenly dozens of Ballard homeowners have paved their lots? I’d be willing to bet my mortgage payment that very few of these lots have changed much in the last 75 years or so.
Right – everyone in Ballard has been putting in tennis courts. That’s why there’s standing water in the wonderful “rain gardens” (aka retention ponds).
Well regardless of what we are saying and if it makes sense. I have talked to SPU representatives and they agree that there is a problem with these rain gardens on 28th. They are trying different methods of drainage and they admitted that some of them are not working. So we will have wait and see what they come up with.
I agree that rain gardens are a good idea and that most houses have large impervious areas. We need a greener environment.
Aren’t the libraries going to shutter again due to “funding issues”? And where does this “grant $$” come from anyway? Do we really want our government taking our money and giving it back to us in this form? How many intersections, that most of us have to endure in Ballard, are still using signals from the 60’s-70’s? Why hasn’t that freaking been addressed? Instead we got cams/bike lanes. Welcome to Hooterville people.
Indeed. These failed because they were doomed to failure before the fist shovel was turned, and anybody who has trued to dig a hole in the ground around here could have told them that. Much of this area has soil that’s somewhere between granite and rock-hard clay – every time I’m tried to dig down more than about 6 inches that’s what I hit. I’ve asked neighbors, they all laugh and say the same thing.
The city just had a “green vision” and decided to go ahead and impose it, results be damned. What a surprise!
“The design standards call for the gardens to drain within 72 hours after the rain stops…”
Hey, why is everyone complaining? It’s not July 7th yet. I’m sure they’ll drain right on schedule.
“We find ourselves in a difficult and surprising position with this project,” Nancy Ahern the Deputy Director of Seattle Public Utilities told residents.
Surprising? Not to anyone who has ever stuck a shovel in the ground nearby.
Morons.
Everything the city does to Ballard makes it worse. I wish they would just go away and inflict their “improvements” on some other neighborhood for a change.
Many of the homes in Ballard were built a long time ago, with no garages. You would know that if you hadn’t just moved here from Cleveland.
As pointed out at the end of the post, this is a *pilot* project, i.e. a test run to figure out the problems and work out the kinks. No one likes being the guinea pig, but some Seattle neighborhood was going to have to be. And even the pools that are not draining properly are doing their job to some extent: that’s water that otherwise would have gone into the storm sewers and probably caused (or exacerbated) overflows.
I hope SPU can figure out the bugs soon, but for now I’ll take some standing water in rain gardens over sewage flowing into water off Golden Gardens every time it rains.
i challenge your comment. why then does someone have to “move” their vehicle after 72 hours? unless your referring to the parking stickers that some neighborhoods have. but even those don’t guarantee a spot in front of your home. they city streets are open to all.
In some Asian countries people would raise eels in those ponds and be happy with the whole caboodle!
The springs that are prevalent in Ballard are probably contributing to the excessive runoff that engendered the (possibly unnecessary) engineered solution in this instance.
No, this is purely symbolic, kind if thing greenies ooooh and aaaaah over but does bugger all.
this is absolutely wrong. that is BUILDING COVERAGE, which is limited to 35% or 1750 sf for a 5000 af lot.
well, Mr. Smarty Pants Guy, did you find that code reference?
I didn’t think so, because it DOES NOT EXIST.
I can order 74 yards of concrete tomorrow and pave my entire lot with a 4″ slab and that would be perfectly legal.
good try though.
kim, I do believe you are correct & I was wrong. I do have a small garage & driveway which we use but I do also believe the $5400. the city just jacked my property tax too does give myself & neighbors a right to a parking spot in front of our homes. What I do not like is wasting money on projects that do not and cannot work in the hardpan soil we are built on in the Sunset Hill area.
you have less of a clue than Jane even.
these rain gardens will actually save money in the long run. it’s not some ‘frilly’ project to make people feel good. the cost of treating wastewater and stormwater is esculating, and this will ultimately defray those loads, and $
I can’t believe that people posting here actually believe that these few rain gardens have stopped any overflows at the sewage treatment plant. This effort is a drop in the bucket – not enough to make any difference.
Rainwater doesn’t go into the sewar system..
Let’s not forget about drowning kids. WA State Drowning Prevention Network is mortified over these things, rightfully so. Little kids drown in birdbaths and rain ditches and ponds – of course they could drown in these things too.
Phinney, do a little research next time. In this area of Ballard all street water drains into the sewer system. That’s why they put in these retention ponds, they keep excess water from overwhelming the sewer system which dumps into Salmon Bay when the system can’t handle it.
Why do people pull the “for the kids card” how about you don’t let your toddler walk around on the street by themselves?
THESE rain gardens will not save any money as they cant work,do you understand? the hardpan soil cant absorb the water at a fast enough rate to do any good. The money SPU has dumped in & will dump into this trying to save this is ridicules. Pump trucks coming once or twice a week only to haul the swampy water and slop to the treatment plant? what a joke, save money? no way.
I can’t believe people posting here don’t understand the situation.
The Kids card? really?
Cleveland? Never been.
Quite a few streets in Ballard have no parking on one side of the street because they are narrow. Only a yokel would move into a house without a garage or driveway and expect the city to provide them with free parking.
you people are really out to lunch.
yes phinney, the rainwater DOES go into the sewar system. not everywhere in seattle, but in a lot of these old neighborhoods where the scandanavians tried to save a nickel by putting in insufficient infrastructure.
that is also wrong paul f.
YOU are required to have a parking spot on YOUR property. the city makes no guarantee of parking on the street in front of your house.
where do you and the three ignorant people who like your comment get their information from anyway??
The raingardens don’t drain properly because of the impermeable surface–hardpan–just a few feet below what passes for topsoil in Ballard. If the engineers at SPU had quit playing with their trains and done a geologic survey, they would have discovered this. These raingardens are going to be a maintenance headache right to the end of their existence.
We live in a climate of winter rains and summer droughts. No consideration has been given to installation of cisterns, not pickle barrels by the way, on homeowner property that would collect rainwater from the ‘winter’ for use in gardens or slow discharge during the ‘summer’. There might be a ‘green’ issue with the use of electricity to power water pumps for irrigation, the offset would be made up by keeping the rainwater from flooding our sewer system.
As for the home owner rain gardens being subsidized by PUD, I wish those folks luck. No geologic soil studies and complete ignorance of soil conditions without any clue where the drainage plume will wind up…like maybe a basement?
The ‘rain bulbs’ so far are a failure.
I can’t believe the people posting here actually replaced their incandescents with fluorescents, and switched to energy-saving appliances and hybrid cars. These efforts are all a drop in the bucket and do not make a difference.
you’re right, there’s no educational value at all for kids to explore wetland habitat in their front yard. they need lawn they all good american boys and girls.
Of course it wasn’t a sudden change – although the infill with high lot to home size ratio projects in my Ballard neighborhood feels very abrupt. But your comment doesn’t acknowledge the serious problem that has existed for decades due to impervious surface and reduced hydrologic function. Where do you think all the water that you now see standing in some of these rain gardens went before? Sewer overflows, poor drainage, severely impacted water quality in local streams leading to the Puget Sound….and on and on. Rain gardens are not some trendy solution; they are a stand in for the ecosystem functions we eliminated with our development decisions. They are a small but effective piece of a greater effort to address real, long-standing, avoidable problems. Let’s face it together.
It took a while but ponds cream has finally started making sense. Must have been that first cup of coffee.
Of course this is what tax dollars are meant for!!! This, in fact, is exactly what tax dollars are meant for. The way water moves through our neighborhoods is an example of no one taking individual responsibility for a shared problem – possibly no one individual even could or should. We address this critical problem as a community, with tax dollars, because each person is impacted by toxins in our water and soil, sewer overflows, sinkholes, loss of salmon habitat, clogged storm drains, and so on. If only our tax dollars were directed at more real solutions that benefited everyone!
Only an idiot would ignore the obvious, easily-verifiable fact, that many, many homes in Ballard were built with no garage, no driveway, no off-street parking. Only an idiot would suggest that these homes are not fit to be occupied. Only an idiot would suggest that in a neighborhood that is primarily filed with homes built more than 50 or 75 years ago it has always been a requirement for those homes to provide off-street parking.
Total different issue. Replacing incandescents with fluorescents & LED lights do make a difference , if these rain gardens were in an area with permiable soil & would be for them. As it is, Sunset hill area does not have the soil for this project so that is why so many people are agaist them. If you live here you would know & understand what a mess they have made of a nice neighborhood & a terrible waste of money. I am installing two water cisterns in my back yard to collect water runoff from my house to use in the garden.
Total different issue. Replacing incandescents with fluorescents & LED lights do make a difference , if these rain gardens were in an area with permiable soil & would be for them. As it is, Sunset hill area does not have the soil for this project so that is why so many people are agaist them. If you live here you would know & understand what a mess they have made of a nice neighborhood & a terrible waste of money. I am installing two water cisterns in my back yard to collect water runoff from my house to use in the garden.
Maybe wait for the plants to mature? Just saying.
As an engineer, I have designed rain gardens in all types of soil, permeable and not. There has never been a case of a rain garden failing because of the soil that I’m aware of. In the end, it’s due to controllable circumstances, such as incorrect top soil replacement or plants not having matured enough. Give it time and trial and error and they will work. Spreading FUD in the meantime does nothing but slow or reverse the process, leading back to the status quo.
who says that it has ALWAYS been a requirement? it has been for a LONG time, but obviously not before there were cars.
actually most homes (if not all) that I see DO have at least one off-street parking spot. I see very few houses with no driveway or garage as you suggest.
perhaps look in the mirror for your moniker?
Not sure this is true everywhere in Ballard, but in the Whittier Heights area EVERY house in my block and surrounding blocks has at least a driveway, while most have single car garages. Problem as I see it is at least three-fold:
1) Most people have more than one car today vs. one or none when then neighborhood was built.
2) Most garages built back when (even some driveways too, as they were built narrow) cannot accommodate the size of many vehicles on the road today. e.g. mini-vans, SUV, large sedans and pickups.
3) Many garages are unusable as they are simply full of “stuff” (would be interesting to compare pictures of garages in the 30’s and 40’s vs. garages today).
Given these new realities, it is not surprising that parking spaces are at a premium in Ballard. This is particularly true in areas where single-family homes are been replaced by fourplexes, even in this era of two-car homes (consider +1 car on the street per single family vs. +4 per fourplex, but same curb length per lot).
That said, I think things like these gardens are a necessity for the long term health of our community. Technical problems with them can be worked out over out with some ingenuity and elbow grease – this is not rocket science after all. We just need to give them a little bit of time to work out the bugs.
I think the issue with vaults (good idea BTW) is cost and relative level of disruption, i.e. bigger whole, close streets longer, etc. Further, you would still need to deal with the absorption problem or you would just end with an overflowing system, and then back to where you started. Thoughts?
FUD much? Regional soils don’t have anything to do with how rain gardens work. It’s about the right mixture of top soil and water loving plants. Once you get those combinations right, there’s no stopping them. Now stop spreading FUD, stop being a NIMBY. Rain gardens will work, they just need time.
Children small enough to drown in a foot of water should not need to be supervised while playing next to the street, right?
Thank you for mentioning the underground springs! That was my first thought when these ‘water holes’ were mentioned. No one seems to mention that fact. Plant fish – What a disaster and waste of $$$$
Ugh, the (*&*&^%^$%ing comment system won’t allow me to post the link without moderator approval, so just go to the DPD site and search for “impervious” and you can find your way to a whole bunch of CAMs and other docs all about it.
The rainwater that lands on your roof goes into a gutter and then into a downspout that is often attached right into your sewer line.
If you have no sewer line, downspout, gutter, or roof than this doesn’t apply to you.
Actually no. You are not entitled to any parking at all under law or even common practice. Not in front of your home or otherwise. Parking is nice, and it’s a convenience that adds to the efficient use of roads, so the city generally obliges and allows or even constructs a certain amount of parking on the roads, but they are absolutely under no obligation whatsoever to do so.
So these ‘gardens’ will only hold as much water depending on how deep & wide they are & how much the plants & top soil can suck up? they then channel the water they cant hold back to the street? The water needs to soak into the ground, not just wait for the vegetation to absorb it. No plants suck up that much water. Do you have any of these
none working rain gardens on your block? we do. They fill up with water ( in one day) then the water, dirt & leaves wash out the other end. onto the street. The water that stays in the ditch, the pump truck comes and pumps out. Yeah , some more plants & grasses ought to take care of that problem.
An imaginary victory in an imaginary war. Give yourself a medal and carry on.
Enough drops and you fill that bucket.
Enough drops and you have a flood.
spg,
I looked long and hard on the DPD’s website as well as the stormwater, drainage code.
all I found was this:
SMC 22.805.030 Minimum Requirements for Single-Family
Residential Projects
All single-family residential projects shall implement green stormwater
infrastructure to the maximum extent feasible.
there was some other stuff about soil mitigation, but it appears this applies only to certain environmentally critical areas.
would be nice if the city could make any such rule easy to find!
On my block – which I think is a pretty typical one – easily half the homes have no garage, driveway, or other off-street parking. These houses were built anywhere from 1908 (mine) through the 1940s. Most of my neighbors seem to have two cars. This is hardly exceptional – it’s the norm. The car-haters can wish (or pretend) it’s not all they want, it won’t change the facts.
THERE IS NO REQUIREMENT FOR THE CITY TO PROVIDE PARKING FOR YOU.
The city doesn’t have to provide any parking at all. They can demand that you provide parking on your private property in order to build a house, and they can even take away all the street parking for the entire city if they really wanted to. Parking is not a right. Driving isn’t even a right.
I think you’re somehow mixing up the fact that the city demands builders to have parking in order to get a permit with the fact that some homes do not have driveways. Both may be true, but it’s an incorrect leap to assume that the city then has to provide parking for people without driveways.
“Pilot project”. Translation to non-BS language:
“We don’t have enough money to actually address an issue, or we can’t get our vision approved because it would piss off too many of the peasants, so we’re going to put up something small that makes it appear we have actually have a solution, or at least a plan, and then after it fails we’ll walk away and blame it on someone else.”
It does in large parts of Seattle that were built a century ago long before sewage treatment was even thought of as needed. Not all pipes are sewers, and not all sewers are in pipes.
The zoning requires a certain number of open spots on the street, but I never said the ones in front of your house are yours. It’s public parking for all.
I live on 28th and these things are fucking eyesore. Plus some ass driver nearly took my wing mirror off just last night because he refused to pull in and let me pass on the now traffic congested 28th. Total disaster.
This project is designed to take water off the streets…that is the impervious surface in question. Driveways in most Ballard homes have generally been in place for decades and have not been “built” by the homeowners. Stop this blame game with use of the word “you”. Most residents want this project to succeed, but it is not working as planned, even at this early date. At last nights meeting, the City repeatedly admitted fault in design and execution. We are trying to hold their feet to the fire so that they get it right.
I installed a rain garden in my front and back yard through this program. It is BEAUTIFUL and performed perfectly this winter. Whereas I have had a wet basement twice in four years, it remained dry this winter.
I cringe when I pass by the roadside gardens. The design seems to be super poor both aesthetically and functionally. Nobody paid attention to this program, so it felt like an ‘invasion’. We all should have been more engaged in the process from start to finish. Maybe SPU didn’t engage the community in enough creative ways to get people to pay attention or maybe it was apathy, maybe a little of both. Either way, what SPU gave us didn’t work as intended, so we need to go back to the drawing board. We don’t need to scrap the gardens, we just need ones that function properly and look (A LOT) better.
I’ve seen some misinformation on here, so let me clarify a few things:
-These gardens are funded by a Federal grant. Ballard and other parts of Seattle do have combined sewer systems. Our stormwater goes into our sewer. Because of the age of the sewer system and the huge population spike of our neighborhood (tons more sewer!), they overflow easily. We have to build a big new system in the next decade or so. The size of facility and the scope of the system depend on how much surface water we can limit from entering the system. So, if we don’t figure out how to naturally deal with our surface water, then we can all expect a hefty tax levy to pay for a massive system.
Let’s give the idea of rain gardens more of a chance. It’s obvious they aren’t working well right now, but there’s no reason to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. They need to be redesigned and our community needs to be more involved in that process.
ponds cream. share an address to back up your claim that homes DO have at least one off-street parking spot.
“you” guys just want your ninety foot wide streets so you can park the five cars you own.
I haven’t heard one valid complaint. not one.
it’s all about you man!
you couldn’t be more wrong ballardguy.
did you go to high school chemistry class? ever hear of evapotranspiration?
You couldn’t be more clueless. I’m speechless really.
Residential zoning doesn’t require any spots on the street, but it does require them on the private property being developed. New developments might require street parking when the street is being built at the developer’s expense, but the city is pretty much fully developed now so that’s kind of a moot point anyway.
There is still nothing anywhere that states that the city HAS to provide any on street parking of any kind, anywhere.
No alley access? What street is this?
I know that there are a few houses here and there that either removed their garage and driveway for more landscape, and some that were split off from lots and were able to get variances, but a whole block with no driveways or alley?
Right. Because the City should completely disregard the impact that their asinine projects have on the peasants who have to suffer living with them. Screw the homeowners! Who needs ’em?
“Because of the age of the sewer system and the huge population spike of our neighborhood (tons more sewer!), they overflow easily.”
SO STOP SHOVING THOUSANDS MORE CONDOS – AND ALL THEIR SEWAGE – INTO BALLARD.
what impact? the fact that you can’t park 3 cars in front of your house?
that you have 4″ of water (oh boy!) in front of your house to attract those nasty mosquitoes and give you and your family west nile virus?
face it. there are NO legitmate ‘impacts’ to homeowners. you folks will just have to “suck it up” or should I say “siphon it” for the rest of us who choose to pave our entire lots.
I lived for many years in one of the houses pictured above next to a poorly draining raingarden. I agree with the comments about the generally poor draining qualities of the hardpan beneath Ballard. However, there are more complex and very local hydrology issues going on. The curbstrip on the north side of that lot was hard and quite dry and the grass went brown right on schedule in July. The curbstrip on the east side of the lot, just on the other side of the sidewalk, was always soggy in the winter and grew green grass right through August. I always suspected there may be a spring there and I’m not surprised that a hole dug below grade would fill with standing water–perhaps permanently. While I applaud the effort to keep rainwater out of the sewer, I think the only solution for that location is to fill it back in and plant grass again.
I lived for many years in one of the houses pictured above next to a poorly draining raingarden. I agree with the comments about the generally poor draining qualities of the hardpan beneath Ballard. However, there are more complex and very local hydrology issues going on. The curbstrip on the north side of that lot was hard and quite dry and the grass went brown right on schedule in July. The curbstrip on the east side of the lot, just on the other side of the sidewalk, was always soggy in the winter and grew green grass right through August. I always suspected there may be a spring there and I’m not surprised that a hole dug below grade would fill with standing water–perhaps permanently. While I applaud the effort to keep rainwater out of the sewer, I think the only solution for that location is to fill it back in and plant grass again.
that would still be better than having a hundred foot wide street.
why was 28th so wide? trolley car or some nonsense I bet.
They aren’t ugly, and I like swamps (wetlands).
Hmm, a mosquito problem in the winter time. Yep, I’m often fighting off the swarms in Seattle.
I wish you were “writeless” as well as speechless. You’re negativity is adding nothing to this discussion.
ponds creme wins the troll award for this thread!
Ponds cream, you must really be an angry & unhappy person. And to have to resort to slamming Scandinavians on being cheap, that really is foolish of you. Most were poor hard working people when they came over like my Parents & Grandparents from Norway. And no I never did have chemistry in High school, but I was taught manners & respect for others.
Yep. We should cut down whole forests and build new developments with new roads, new sewer lines, new bus routes, new lanes to the highways, etc. Yep, that’s a much better solution.
The problem with the “rain gardens” (mosquito breeding ponds, if you ask me) is that, at least in the Sunset Hill area, the soil is hardpack clay. It doesn’t perc, period. A while back, I did an ad-hoc perc test in my yard, digging an 2-foot deep hole and filling it with water (mid-summer, about as dry as one could expect). Two days later, it was still mostly full.
Make you wonder if the geniuses behind this plan bothered to do a perc test or soil analysis to evaluate the permeability of the soil in the area.
“Of course this is what tax dollars are meant for!”
For building neighborhood swimming holes?
SPU wants to reduce the peak storm water runoff from the impervious street surface. Water from roofs mostly goes directly into the soil (and unfortunately into basements). A more important question might be how do plants in the soil deal with hydrocarbon laden street runoff, or does this pollution just buildup in the Raingarden surface soil?
My understanding is that SPU has not in fact followed design standards much at all in this Ballard project. I’ve read 3 of 6 soil bore hole reports. Their drainage rates per hour, perc test results do not conform to WA State DOE, Seattle DPD specs that water should not pond longer than 24 hours. Members of the neighborhood are now consulting with soil experts and SPU seems to have tailored this projects specs to fit their needs not the neighborhoods or the enviroments.
Are they in front of your house? You hate developers, … fine we agree about something. The rain that falls on our house, my neighbors house, his neighbors house … etc goes into the soil. His driveway is crowned in the middle, so is ours, 99% of the rain falling on it flows into the planting beds, my wife makes me weed regularly. The Raingardens SPU and you love are supposed to mitigate roadway storm water runoff AND provide SPU’s employees longer term employment by collecting Federal stimulus dollars via the WA State DOE. I have read the 20 page DOE grant proposal. Would you like to guess what each 25′ x 11′ Raingarden cell cost …..about $17,000 each.
We want them to work too, but due to soil conditions and many other important details they probably can’t….. at least as currently designed. Some have suggested what I consider to be reasonable alternatives which we’re exploring. You should go to the neighborhood Raingarden blog for better info.
Having read the grant proposal SPU submitted via WA State DOE for federal stimulus dollars I calculate the cost per RainGarden cell (approx 25′ x 11′) to be roughly $17,000 each. And by the way the 20+ page document might be called a grant, but it is really structured as an interest bearing loan of $1.7 million. It is unclear exactly how much of the principle SPU (us) will have to repay, but indications are not less than 50% over 20 years at 2.5% interest, and it could become the entire amount…. I am trying to determine the exact financial details thru public information requests.
The Raingardens are more precisely spec-ed as “Bioretention Ponds”. They smell pretty bad now when the pond scum is cold, imagine how they would alter the enjoyment of your own property once they enjoy a nice warm spring and summer day after it rains. Retaining storm water to reduce peak flows is a public good, but these don’t do that because they don’t work. Did you notice the asphalt plugs installed in the Raingarden entry points. Those are there for a reason. As it stands only negligable to non-existant street runoff is being captured, because the ponds would just overflow back out into the street and down into the storm sewer. And all this for a cost each of $17,000, not including the cost to fix them and pump them out when they fail…. again…..and ….. again. Full employment for SPU contractors.
“Often attached right to your sewer line” — If that were actually true, you would actually be correct. Walk down your block and count the number of roof downspouts connected to a sewer line and not draining right near the house into the soil, then post here again.
As one engineer to another, I agree that most technical problems can be solved and would like that to be the case for storm water retention, but SPU’s current solution is a bit pricy at $17,000 per cell (approx. 25′ x 11′) and in our experience SPU management are now in PR management mode. The SPU engineers seem reasonable enough individuals to me, but management wants this to be a war of delay and attriction with the neighbors adversely effected. Unfortunately, for both them and me, I have the resources and patience to engage in a long march. Like other engineers I find it difficult to walk away from problems that I believe deserve a good efficient solution.
So it is always winter here in your mind and/or never rains in the spring or summer. Of course winter may have no mosquito issues but the winter and late fall bring periods of frequent rain which creates new problems. The Raingardens are very expensive and do not work. That is the issue as I see it. SDOT likes them as traffic calming obstacles, but that introduces problems related to safety when cars speedup to shoot thru the narrow gap in an effort to be courteous and not delay a car at the opposite end of the traffic calming retriction. The law of unintended consequences.
I have read 3 0f 6 existing SPU contractor soil bore hole test reports and am trying to obtain all the other reports including the 20+ smaller trench(?) tests. A friend with soil analysis expertise was astonished upon reading the reports that SPU went ahead with the Raingarden project. She believes the tests show SPU ignored WA State DOE specs, Seattle DPD guidelines and enviro industry standard practice and just crossed their fingers. Bioretention Ponds (what the Raingardens really are) are supposed to drain in 24 hours with soil that percs at a rate of 0.25″ minimum per hour. The tests show the perc rate was worse than this and we have suspicions SPU only released the best results (I do not know this for a fact yet, however I am in the process of filing a public disclosure request and will know much more then.).
In private conversations with an SPU engineer, I was told SPU’s goal for the Ballard Bioretention Ponds was an approximate cost of $16 -to- $20 per gallon of storm water retention capacity. Vaults that retain stormwater cost between $20 -to- $40 per gallon of retention capacity. The current Ballard Ponds are inching up toward $38 per gallon. I have begun measuring the dimensions of the Bio-Ponds to help evaluate alternative solutions and in doing so my own rough estimate is a current cost per retention gallon capacity of $33 for the existing as-is SPU configuration. I am trying to beat that cost with a design around $5 per retention gallon capacity.
At the Feb 2nd SPU public meeting with residents, several people stood up and testified that prior to construction of the Bioretention Ponds they pleaded with SPU engineers to look more closely at the local soil topology, saying many experienced residents and contractors had huge problems with clay and water table issues in the neighborhood.
One fellow remarked that North Ballard was known by older folks as the land of 7 springs due to all the natural places the water table breached the surface. Creeks flowed and water springs were common here back-in-the-day, but SPU steadfastly insisted that their tests would prove the Bio-retention Ponds would work just fine as designed.
I submit the evidence suggests strongly otherwise. Neighbors who have tracked this issue longer than I tell me these same SPU engineers are actually no longer working on the project. Do not know if they have been re-assigned or were just part-time contractors.
At the Feb 2nd public meeting between SPU and the neighborhood this exact issue was raised quite effectively by Karrie a neighbor who presented a 25 min Powerpoint dealing with Bio-retention Pond problems. Neighbors meticulously measured pond water levels and obtained averaged weather data covering the same multi-month period. The result showed only one day in a typical January would allow the ponds to be water free … if they worked as designed. Actual measurements for the month prior were similarly distressing. 3 days of drain time is NOT feasible unless it is OK for the ponds to be full most of the time during the winter months. And oh, by the way, the WA State DOE criterio for Bio-retention Ponds specifies that they drain fully in 24 hours, not 72. In fact we are trying to figure out why SPU was allowed to use a 72 hour drain time. Portland, Seattle DPD and many other states including WA all cite 24 hours as the standard. Maybe SPU did actually read their soil bore hole contractor reports and hoped upping the drain time to 3 days would be enough. Unfortunately, we know it still wasn’t sufficient.
These are expensive mistakes that the community needs to help fix to anyone’s reasonable specifications…. or insist they be removed.
I agree with your general sentiment, however neighbors traveled to the other Seattle Raingarden sites SPU cited as working beautifully and found none of them were the same design as ours by a wide margin. None were built in front of any houses. They were installed on city owned land adjacent to roadways replacing existing wide ditches, had no curbs, were generally much bigger in size (visualize a small marsh) . Nobody cared that they might smell because the prior old ditch smelled too and besides the new Bio-Ponds were not in front of anybody’s house.
Apples and oranges. There are rumors (I’ve not confirmed as yet) that Portland’s experience with bio-ponds took a turn for the worse shortly after installation and in addition these look quite different from Ballard’s (which I can attest to). For starters the Portland RainGardens are not ditches, below sidewalk level, they are like nicely maintained RAISED parking strip plantings that I see on my walks in the neighborhood now, in front of neighbors who’s gardening skill I envy.
These water ditches will not be rectified by tweaks, I fear and they will never look like the Portland “RainGardens” I was shown photos of over a year ago at my Sustainable Ballard meeting. I liked those, but not these.
The federal stimulus “grant” money is actually a loan of initially $1.7 million, funneled thru the WA Dept of Ecology. I have read the original 20+ page grant application and it is still unclear to me, at this date, just what part of the loan is expected to be repaid over the 20 years at 2.5%. However, I am trying to get a definitive answer to that important question, since SPU wants to build many more of these bio-retention ponds in Ballard.
The rough cost per “retention cell” (approx 25′ x 11′) I estimate at $17,000 each and might hold about 500 gallons when full. If ….if my back of the envelope calculations are in the ballpark then the main SPU criteria of cost per gallon of retention capacity is about $33. The original target cost per retention capacity gallon was supposed to be around $16 – $20, while fully lidded retention vaults(?) cost $20 -to- $40 per gallon capacity.