Looking north through the heart of where Marlene's house used to stand.
I went by Marlene Azar’s old place today to see how the last 24 hours of heavy precipitation was moving its way through the watershed. The area is flooded, as is usually the case, and the two homes nearest the creek are just inches above the crest. The owner of the home closest to the creek (on Raleighwood Lane) was working on his garage door so I stopped by for a brief chat. He’s lived in the home for 11 years, which means he moved in just about the same time as Marlene began to have water issues on her property. The water level around his home was pretty high but the inside was dry and that’s what really counts. He noted that the basin where his home is located is silting up at what seems to be an even more rapid pace than previously. Beavers and THPRD’s unwillingness to rid the area of them were at the root of the problem, he told me. Then he suggested I take a look at the two dams that lie less than .1 mile south of his back yard. “They span the entire bottom of the floodplain,” he said. That surprised me. Last time I looked (which has been a year or so) there were three dams in the park but only one of them of any size.
The upper dam is just visible on the right hand side of the photo.
When I pulled into the parking space at the main entrance to the park I was astonished to see (1) just how high the flood waters were in this area; (2) the size of the dam just north of the entrance (above); (3) the rim of a second dam of similar size that crosses the basin just 100 yards further to the south. Both dams were overflowing but neither appeared to be breached. The water was too deep for a wade so I was confined to shooting from a single perspective. When the waters subside and the ground dries out a bit I will go back and take some measurements.
After I left the park I traveled upstream a quarter mile north to part of a residential development called Laurian Grove.
One hell of a handsome rock, about 7 or 8 feet tall.
Development taking place across the street from the sign.
The newest housing near here dates from around 2008 and consists of large homes a million or more in value. The area lies just off Scholls Ferry Road and looks to be about 3.3 acres in overall size. A workman told me that four homes were in the process of going up on the upper portion of the open property. One of Sylvan Creek's tributaries drains through the northern section of the property (wooded area left side of frame). It's ravine is very heavily wooded and there's also a stormwater treatment area (fenced in bio-swale) located near where the channel crosses under 64th Place (outof sight to the left).
The upper rim of the developing area lies at around 400' but where the creek crosses under the bridge the elevation is 320' - a net drop of eighty feet in less than 800 feet. Pretty steep. The stormwater from this area flows for around 1500 feet before the tributary meets up with the mainstem of Sylvan Creek. The photo below was taken at the intersection of Sylvan Creek and SW 66th Avenue, about 300 feet upstream from that confluence. I'll try to talk to the home owner here someday and maybe get alook at what kind of rip-rap they've put at that corner. The elevation is right at 280 feet.
This is Sylvan Creek as it exits the culvert at the dead-end of Preslynn Drive, elevation 260 feet.
Barely visible through the small gap in the tree line on the left (photo below) is the roof of one of Marlene's neighbors. The flooded area in the foreground is an extension of the property on the north side of Raleighwood Lane that invariably floods during heavy rain events.
As far as I can tell Laurian Grove is not a LID project. If this is true, that's too bad for the creek. It will have lost another three acre chunk of its biological machinery. Interestingly enough the remaining trees and the stream figure prominantly in the development's brochure. It would be wrong to maintain that this development will add signifiacntly to the ongoing siltification of the bottom land at Raleighwood Park. But at the very least it will add more stormwater runoff to the equation and that won't help. At bottom it's a complex situation: You can't blame the beavers or the builders from doing what comes naturally; but if they keep it up and we don't find some solid fixes for both ends of the problem soon, the future of the properties adjacent to the bottom reaches of Sylvan Creek could be grim.
