West Seattle, Washington
12 Thursday
The team from 1 Green Planet (a nonprofit) was already very busy when we stopped by the fall “Recycle Roundup” at Fauntleroy Church minutes after it started this morning. This pickup truck full of big recyclables followed several vehicles that already had come through and dropped off their contributions to the recycling drive. It continues till 3 pm, so you have time to go see what you have in the basement or the storage unit or wherever – as long as it’s listed here as the type of item they’ll accept – and take it to the church parking lot at 9140 California SW.
(WSB photo from last April’s Recycle Roundup)
This Sunday brings another chance for you to recycle no-longer-needed and/or no-longer-working electronics, among other things, as Fauntleroy Church hosts another of its twice-a-year Recycle Roundups with 1 Green Planet. Check the list on the official flyer – it’s a LONG list! – those are the items you’re welcome to drop off in the church parking lot, 9140 California SW, between 9 am and 3 pm on Sunday (September 23). Last time around, participants dropped off a record 16 tons of recyclables!
It’s a world of bargains until 3 pm today – and again 11 am-2 pm on Sunday – at Fauntleroy Church‘s 2nd-Time Sale. And it’s not just the small stuff – volunteers are excited about the barely used furniture donated this year:
The small stuff’s there too, of course. Commemorative spoons, anyone?
And it’s never too soon to get ready for Christmas:
Fauntleroy Church is at 9140 California SW. And NEXT weekend, it’s where you’ll find the twice-yearly Recycle Roundup – start stacking up your electronics and more now (but don’t bring them to the church parking lot until Sunday 9/23, 9 am-3 pm).
Two weeks after a letter from the Fauntleroy Community Association (noted in our coverage of FCA’s August meeting), SDOT has moved the school-zone lights on southbound Fauntleroy Way, near Gatewood Elementary, to address visibility issues. (Compare the photo above to the one in our August 14th story.) This is the same area where a speeder-detecting camera is scheduled to be in operation this fall, as first reported here earlier this month. One glitch, though – Phil Sweetland from the FCA board, who’s been monitoring the issue, says the new location is, while more visible, is south of the old one – therefore closer to the school, giving drivers less time to react. He had suggested a change northward (further from the school) and even has put together a PDF with a montage showing the difference.
The electronics/etc. Recycle Roundups sponsored by Fauntleroy Church for West Seattle/White Center residents continue to grow in popularity, so we’re giving you early warning about the next one, in case you’re getting ready for a round of end-of-summer cleaning – September 23rd, 9 am-3 pm. Watch the church website for a list of what they’ll take and what they won’t.
ADDED: We have a copy of that list now – see it here.
Every so often, a Seattle Parks property gets extra attention via what the department calls a “jamboree” – with staffers from all over the city deploying to the chosen park. The next one is Lincoln Park, as discussed at the Fauntleroy Community Association‘s board meeting this week. Parks manager Carol Baker came to the meeting to share some early details:
First of two reports from tonight’s Fauntleroy Community Association board meeting:
(WSB photo added Wednesday afternoon)
While FCA board members say they’re fine with the Seattle Police plan to install a fixed speed-monitoring/ticketing camera in the Gatewood Elementary school zone on Fauntleroy Way, they say the current southbound warning light needs to be moved. (That point also was made in comments on our Sunday night story about the forthcoming camera.) Ahead, the letter FCA is sending to the city:
Lots of work going on in the vicinity of Washington State Ferries‘ Fauntleroy terminal. The crane in the photo above just arrived today, and it will be doing work for King County’s Barton Pump Station Upgrade Project, which got under way earlier this summer on the north side of the dock. Meantime, a crane that had been working on the ferry dock itself has now departed. Kevin McClintic photographed it on Monday:
This one WAS a ferry-system project. WSF’s Marta Coursey tells WSB, “During a recent bridge inspection, a pile was discovered missing under the timber trestle due to loss of pile embedment. The area was closed while an emergency contract was developed and materials were procured. The work began on Monday to drive two steel H-piles and remove one timber pile.”
(UPDATED TUESDAY AFTERNOON with cause of fire)
2:29 AM: If you’ve been hearing the sirens, there’s a fire response at apartments in the 9100 block of 45th in Fauntleroy (map). More to come.
2:36 AM UPDATE: The fire is “tapped,” according to the scanner. It’s in the end unit of a garden-style apartment building.
2:55 AM UPDATE: Firefighters have been working to make sure the fire hadn’t spread beyond the apartment where it began. As for whether anyone was hurt, the incident commander is deferring comment until the public-information officer arrives.
3:47 AM UPDATE: SFD spokesperson Kyle Moore says a woman was found dead inside the apartment where the fire broke out – after the fire was knocked down, firefighters found the body of what Moore described as an elderly woman, about 10 to 12 feet inside. (added) Here’s his briefing, unedited:
They’re still trying to find out what started the fire; so far, Moore said, it appears to have started in the living room, which is where the victim was found. He said she was a longtime resident of the second-floor unit, to which the fire was contained. The fire was called in by neighbors, who, according to Moore, banged on the door to try to see if the woman was OK – but got no reply.
4:32 AM: One more note – the address of the building has been corrected from the original dispatch; it’s in the 9000 block of 45th SW, not the 9100 block. We’ll update this story later when there’s new information from investigators.
2:02 PM UPDATE: Investigators say the fire was started by “improperly discarded smoking materials.” Here’s the update on SFD’s Fire Line site. Cause of death and identification will have to come from the Medical Examiner, possibly later this afternoon.
Down the driveway from the fence in our photo’s foreground, Cove Park north of the Fauntleroy ferry dock is now closed for about two years of construction work, as King County starts major work on the $24 million Barton Pump Station Upgrade Project. That includes site preparation – removing Cove Park’s artwork “for safe storage,” relocating the beach driftwood, and putting up a safety fence. (The park is to be restored after the project, following extensive talks with the Fauntleroy Community Association.) The county says work hours generally will run 7 am-5:30 pm. But they are NOT anticipating ferry-lane closures during this initial phase. Once the project is done, the pump station’s capacity will be 50 percent more than it is now, with all-new equipment, including an emergency generator.
(By next spring, the small “fry” in this bucket will be as big as the “smolt”)
Following last week’s report about May salmon releases involving 560 students visiting Fauntleroy Creek, steward Judy Pickens has news that a record number of coho smolts (“teenagers”) have been counted as they headed for saltwater:
Between mid-March and early June, Dennis Hinton, Pete Draughton, Steev Ward, and Gail Cucksey checked upstream and downstream traps daily to document how many smolts were leaving for nearshore habitat in Fauntleroy Cove. This number is the best gauge of how healthy creek habitat is for juveniles, who spend a year in freshwater maturing into the size (3″-5″) they’ll need to survive in Puget Sound.
A total of 157 made it out this year. That’s more than 5 percent of the eggs reared for Fauntleroy Creek in 2011 through the Salmon in the Schools program. In the wild, survival from eggs to smolts is substantially less, so this is a positive stewardship story for students.
Last year, volunteers documented 147 smolts leaving the park but only 37 making it the three blocks downstream. For this reason, State Fish and Wildlife authorized carrying smolts caught in the upper trap downstream to improve survival.
The next big monitoring period comes this fall, when volunteers watch for mature coho returning to spawn.
A guilty plea today for 20-year-old Angelo Felice, who, 16 months ago, was arrested and charged with the Fauntleroy stabbing murder of a man best known by his vaudeville name, Hokum W. Jeebs. Felice was arrested while spotted walking in eastern West Seattle after someone saw him climbing out of the Kilbourne Park ravine near Jeebs’ home the morning after the murder – as detailed in this WSB comment – and reported the sighting to police. Today, Felice pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of 2nd-degree murder, which carries a potential sentence of 10 to 18 years, but court documents say prosecutors will recommend a sentence of 140 months – just over 11 1/2 years. Felice had moved to Seattle less than a month before killing Jeebs; he had juvenile convictions for burglary and assault. (2011 photo by Jill Schmieder of Altena Photography, for WSB)
(County rendering of Cove Park, after the Barton Pump Station project)
From last night’s Fauntleroy Community Association meeting: The latest timeline for the start of major work for the Barton Pump Station upgrade project – which will close Cove Park north of the ferry dock for about two years – plus, neighborhood traffic/parking concerns related to school commuting via ferry – read on:Read More
Since there had been utility work in the Barton Pump Station (right) vicinity not long before last Sunday’s power problem led to a 46,000-gallon overflow into Puget Sound, we’ve been following up to see if that work had anything to do with it. Apparently not, according to both King County Wastewater Treatment Division and Seattle City Light.
While they have not pinpointed the problem’s cause and may never be able to – it apparently was triggered by a short power surge – here’s the likeliest scenario, according to SCL’s Scott Thomsen: Last Sunday at 3:18 pm, about 15 minutes before they got a call from the county about the pump-station problem, they had “a brief interruption on a (major) transmission line” – an osprey flew into a wire. Thomsen says that’s unusual for an osprey, and SCL wildlife biologists were sorry to hear about it, as the utility has been working to accommodate ospreys, which think utility poles are great places to nest, reminiscent of the tree snags they prefer in the wild. Meantime, as reported here last night, health authorities gave the county the all-clear to reopen the overflow-affected beaches after four days.
Back on Sunday afternoon, we showed you the signs (photo left) that had just gone up after news of an hour-long overflow from the Barton Pump Station north of the Fauntleroy ferry dock. Tonight, King County Wastewater Treatment Division says health agencies have given the all-clear for the closed beaches to reopen. King County’s announcement late today adds: “The volume of overflow into Puget Sound was estimated at 46,000 gallons. Tidal conditions and water pressure contained a substantial amount of wastewater inside the outfall pipe, which enabled crews to use submersible pumps to capture and return a significant amount of wastewater back to the pump station so it could be conveyed to the West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle.” A two-year upgrade project that’s about to get under way at the pump station includes an emergency generator; recent preparation work had involved the power system in the area, but the county hasn’t yet said whether the Sunday failure – blamed on a “failure of the main breaker,” according to spokesperson Annie Kolb-Nelson – was related to that at all.
Fauntleroy Creek‘s 2012 salmon-fry-release season is over – already! (Seems like just yesterday we were there for the first one of the season.) The photo is courtesy of Tara Slinden, forwarded by creek steward Judy Pickens, who explains:
West Seattle Elementary fifth-grader Eqra Mahamed took great delight in feeling the coho fry in her cup during a field trip to Fauntleroy Creek in May. She helped rear the fish, from eggs to fry, through the Salmon in the School program. Volunteers with the Fauntleroy Watershed Council led 16 field trips during which 560 students, preschool through seventh grade, released 2,500 fry to cap their study of salmon, habitat, and stewardship.
Each spring, volunteers also track the outbound salmon smolt, and expect to have this year’s final report soon. Then in the fall, the salmon are welcomed home – most years, with a special ceremony (here’s our 2011 coverage).
6:35 PM, FIRST REPORT: Just as King County gets ready to start a 2-year project to upgrade the Barton Pump Station north of the Fauntleroy ferry dock – with work to include a backup generator – we have word there’s been an overflow because of a power failure. County spokesperson Annie Kolb-Nelson says, “There was a power interruption that occurred around 4:30 p.m. and it caused the pumps to shut down, which led to an overflow that started about 20 minutes later.” She says crews are on scene but she is not sure the overflow has been “contained” yet, adding, “Our biggest priority is to protect public health. We’ve posted the boat access area near the pump station as closed, and we’re working with our Environmental Lab crews to determine tidal directions. Doug Marsano from our Community Services group is heading out to assist with public notification. We also notified health and regulatory agencies about the overflow and will monitor water quality over the next several days.” More as we get it.
7:54 PM UPDATE: Just back from checking out the scene at the station and neighboring Cove Park. Added photos – top photo is the “closed” sign posted at the beach; the one above this paragraph is the hatch to the pump-station operations area, from which a worker emerged and told us she’s working on it. That’s corroborated by both Kolb-Nelson via e-mail and Marsano, who was pulling up as we were walking away from the station. He says they’re hoping most if not all the overflow was contained to the outfall pipe and can be recovered via submersible pumps they’ve brought in. The overflow itself was stopped within just over an hour from its start; they’re still trying to find out what caused the power interruption.
An all-day traffic alert for the Fauntleroy ferry dock and vicinity is one of two events making news today regarding the just-about-to-start Barton Pump Station Upgrade Project. The map above, provided by King County, shows how the north-side lane on the dock will be out of commission today, 6 am-4 pm, for electrical work related to the project. Here’s the official flyer, which notes there’ll be a flagger on hand to make sure traffic keeps moving, on and around the dock.
Then tonight at 6:30 pm, anyone and everyone interested is invited to a community meeting for updates on the 2-year construction project just before major work begins, bringing not only traffic effects, but also the closure of the Cove Park pocket beach north of the dock, as the underground station gets 50 percent more capacity, a new generator, and other upgrades. The meeting’s at Fauntleroy Church, 9140 California SW (here’s the online version of the postcard that brought first word of the meeting two weeks ago; here’s a county news release with an overview).
Admiral and North Delridge have neighborhood-pride gear, and now Fauntleroy does too. The new hoodies marking this year’s 10th anniversary for the Fauntleroy Fall Festival are available for purchase at Fauntleroy Church and were “modeled” last Tuesday, during the monthly Fauntleroy Community Association board meeting. They were also sold that night during the dinner fundraiser at Endolyne Joe’s, with part of the proceeds benefiting the festival, and Judy Pickens reports that $1,820 was raised that night, between dinner and raffle tickets. October 14th is the date for this year’s festival, and proceeds from hoodie sales also go toward keeping it free for festivalgoers.
Also discussed at last week’s FCA board meeting was the impending Barton Pump Station expansion project north of the ferry terminal, and Cove Park stewardship afterward; association leaders continued the conversation the next day in a followup meeting with Doug Marsano from King County. Marsano told us at the time that the exact start date for construction, and the closure of Cove Park, was not yet finalized, but it’s expected to be by the time of a community meeting that’s just been announced for May 30th, 6:30 pm at Fauntleroy Church (9140 California SW).
P.S. If there’s something you’d like to see FCA discuss, there’s a new e-mail address you can use to reach them – fcaagenda@earthlink.net.
Crews have been working on bus stop, roadway, and sidewalk changes along the West Seattle RapidRide route for the past few months – almost everywhere but at the Fauntleroy ferry dock, but the date for that work to start is now set. Just in from Metro:
Some big transit improvements are coming to the Fauntleroy Ferry Dock in West Seattle.
Beginning May 11, King County Metro Transit will begin a month-long project to install a variety of improvements to accompany the start of the RapidRide C Line this fall. Those improvements will include two new RapidRide stations, lighting, information kiosks displaying real-time bus arrival times and 5 electric charging stations for vanpool and public use.
Improvements will also make boarding the bus easier. An additional bus bulb will be added at the northbound RapidRide station to provide for a larger boarding platform. Other amenities will provide better access to and from the ferry terminal area for pedestrians and people with disabilities.
Construction work is expected to occur weekdays between the hours of 6:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. and may cause periodic traffic disruptions. During intensive construction periods, flaggers or police officers will be on hand to keep traffic moving, especially during peak travel times.
While construction is underway, bus riders will be directed to a temporary southbound bus stop on Southwest Wildwood Place. While the northbound bus stop will be less affected, riders will occasionally need to use the bus stop just to the north on Fauntleroy Way Southwest at Southwest Trenton Street.
New features, such as shelters, benches and lighting, will be available for immediate public use when construction is complete. Other improvements, such as electric vehicle plug-ins and real time bus arrival information, will be phased in over the next several months.
The RapidRide C Line begins operation Saturday, Sept. 29.
(Sunday photo by WSB editor Tracy Record)
Another successful dropoff event this past weekend – more successful than ever, in fact! Judy Pickens just shared this wrapup of how the Fauntleroy Church‘s Recycle Roundup on Sunday (WSB coverage here) turned out:
The West Seattle peninsula is surely sitting higher in the water today after residents brought a record 16 tons of recyclables to Sunday’s Recycle Roundup hosted by Fauntleroy Church and 1 Green Planet. With that much stuff returning to the resource stream, more cars surely fit in the garage and a few marriages may have been saved!
The crew packed every truck available with 16 tons of almost everything imaginable, from infant car seats to elder scooters, computers to fencing. To thank the church’s green committee for organizing the free event and providing a “Green Ideas” handout, recyclers tossed just over $1,400 in the donation basket.
The church will announce the fall event date soon so that area residents have ample notice to start sorting.
(Added 11:46 am: The 1 Green Planet team this morning in the early going)
Last time the Fauntleroy Church Green Committee brought 1 Green Planet to West Seattle for a “Recycle Roundup,” the recycling company’s trucks went away with 14 tons of electronics and other items. 9 am-3 pm today, they’re back, and will be set up in the church parking lot (9140 California SW) again awaiting your recyclables. If you haven’t checked it yet, here’s the list of what they will and won’t accept. It’s a free service (though the Green Committee will accept donations if you’re interested in helping them cover their costs).
Another reminder, while you’re in the Earth Day” mood today – NEXT Sunday (April 29th) is the Fauntleroy Church Green Committee‘s next event with 1 Green Planet, coming to West Seattle for another “Recycle Roundup.” 9 am-3 pm in the church parking lot that day, come drop off your stuff. The church’s website has the list of what you can bring that day to be recycled – see it here. Yes, they will accept your items for free.
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