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Lower Bear Creek Natural Area Habitat Enhancement Project Determination of Non-Significance under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA)
The King County Water and Land Resources Division (WLRD) plans to enhance in-stream habitat and habitat-forming processes by placing 12 trees into a reach of Bear Creek located within the Lower Bear Creek Natural Area. The trees will add instream structure notably absent in this reach, provide instream cover and promote pool formation and gravel substrate sorting. The trees will be cut on-site from a dense, 5.5-acre forest stand that contains several hundred trees. The trees selected are all Douglas firs less than 20” in diameter at breast height and all located in close proximity to other trees so that their removal will have minimal effect on canopy coverage or ecological functions.
The specific trees to be cut were selected in consultation with a King County staff forester. Guidelines for selecting the trees were developed to ensure that their removal has minimal effects on the health of the forest and its ecological functions. Winches and pulleys will be used to drag the trees to the stream channel so that no heavy equipment will need to enter the sensitive riparian and wetland areas near the creek.
This project will be open for formal public comment under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) from March 1 through March 14, 2011. The Determination of Non-Significance, with instructions for submitting comments, and the Environmental Checklist may be downloaded from this page.
SEPA documents are provided in Adobe Acrobat format. For help using this format, please see our software help page.
For questions or comments about the Lower Bear Creek Natural Area habitat enhancement project, please contact Laird O’Rollins, Senior Ecologist and Project Manager, Ecological Restoration and Engineering Services Unit.
The King County Water and Land Resources Division (WLRD) plans to enhance in-stream habitat and habitat-forming processes by placing 12 trees into a reach of Bear Creek located within the Lower Bear Creek Natural Area. The trees will add instream structure notably absent in this reach, provide instream cover and promote pool formation and gravel substrate sorting. The trees will be cut on-site from a dense, 5.5-acre forest stand that contains several hundred trees. The trees selected are all Douglas firs less than 20” in diameter at breast height and all located in close proximity to other trees so that their removal will have minimal effect on canopy coverage or ecological functions.