May 14, 2002

Environmental Watch: Floyd Snider McCarthy adds two

SEATTLE -- Alan Wolfson and Mike Romain have joined Floyd Snider McCarthy Inc., a Seattle-based environmental consulting firm specializing in management of complex projects.

Wolfson, a forester and economist, has expertise in land use, strategic planning, natural resource management and property development. Prior to joining Floyd Snider McCarthy, Wolfson held a senior-level program management position with Foster Wheeler Environmental Corp. in Bothell.

Romain brings four years of environmental engineering experience to Floyd Snider's expanding technical services practice. He has worked on numerous research and consulting projects involving soil vapor extraction, liquid phase contaminant removal systems and bioremediation. He comes to Floyd Snider McCarthy from Brown & Caldwell where he held an associate engineer position.

City holds traffic circle beauty contest

SEATTLE -- Seattle Transportation is now accepting nominees for the first Seattle Traffic Circle Garden Contest.

Seattle residents can nominate any of the city's 800 traffic circles for the award. Nominations may be made for a single traffic circle or a neighborhood cluster. Beautified curb bulbs, triangles and medians are also eligible.

All entries must meet Seattle traffic safety standards, with plants no higher than 30 inches and limbed trees providing visibility for motorists. Prizes include gift certificates from area nurseries and green gardening groups. The grand prize winner will receive a trophy.

For more information call Liz Ellis at (206) 684-5008 or go to www.cityofseattle.net/td/trafcirc.asp. In addition to SeaTran, the contest is co-sponsored by the city's Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle Tilth and Northwest Garden News.

KEECO signs $100M China deal

LYNNWOOD -- Environmental technology firm KEECO has signed agreements with Sichuan Anxian Yihe Constructional & Chemical Group Co. in China to treat contamination from sodium dichromate production.

The contracts have a value in excess of $100 million, the Lynnwood-based firm said. The agreement was signed during the first U.S.-China infrastructure development meetings being held during the Asian Development Bank annual meeting in Shanghai.

The meetings brought together Chinese government officials and U.S. firms and their Asian affiliates to promote the use of the bank's technical and financial resources in the development of new public and private infrastructure in China’s poorer regions. KEECO said such a cooperative effort could not been possible without the support of the Asian Development Bank and provincial and local Chinese officials.

KEECO specializes in providing silica microencapsulation treatment technologies used for the control of heavy metals in water and soils.

Group pushes for Renton-to-Rainier trail

MAPLE VALLEY (AP) -- A grass-roots group called Friends of Rock Creek Valley hopes that within about a decade century-old trails once used for railroads will be linked to form a system reaching all the way south to Mount Rainier National Park.

They call the trail network The Renton-to-Rainier Corridor. They're trying to identify existing trails and connect them while working to protect sensitive wildlife habitats.

Their vision: that one day, people can park their cars in downtown Renton and hike or bike all the way to Mount Rainier National Park, some 50 miles south.

The rocky, wooded path follows an old Danville Railroad line from more than a century ago. Trains used to roll along the tracks there, hauling old growth logs to sawmills. It is a popular outdoor destination for hikers and equestrians.

Last fall, the National Park Service awarded the Friends of Rock Creek Valley a federal "grant" -- basically the promise of technical assistance from a Park Service trails planner and support staff -- to study about 30 square miles of the Rock Creek Valley area.

Another goal is to identify potential routes for extension of King County's Cedar River Trail through the Rock Creek Valley study area.

The Cedar River Trail would connect with a future trail that would then link up with the Pierce County Foothills Trial, which is now under construction. That trail eventually will be tied to trail systems in Mount Rainier National Park.

Did volcanic rock cause dike failure?

LONGVIEW (AP) -- Ancient lava tubes in the rock foundation of the dike at the Cowlitz County Public Utility District's power canal may have caused a breach that washed out a section of a highway and destroyed a powerhouse last month, a report has found.

In a preliminary report, the PUD's consulting firm said the dike's failure was "likely associated with flow" of water through the tubes under the dike's foundation.

"Flow from these lava tubes may have led to piping erosion of the natural formation underlying the power canal," said the report based on the findings of engineers from the firm of CH2M Hill.

The report also said engineers found open cavities in the foundation below the breach area, where lava flows had apparently deposited trees. The area is just south of Mount St. Helens.

A canal that channels water from one Lewis River dam powerhouse to another failed April 21, washing out a spur of Washington 503 and destroying one of the powerhouses. The failure also uprooted transformers, spilling 22,000 gallons of mineral oil into Yale Reservoir.

There were no injuries and no power outages related to the break between the two Swift Dam powerhouses. The dam is one of three on the river owned and operated by PacifiCorp of Portland, Ore., also known as Pacific Power.

$37M deal to preserve Big Sur land

MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) -- Nearly 10,000 acres of pristine land along the northern end of Big Sur will remain untouched by developers as part of a $37 million deal financed by the state and a regional parks district.

The agreement, announced Thursday, involves the purchase of Palo Corona Ranch, a 10-mile stretch of redwood forests just south of Monterey. The state will contribute $32 million and the Monterey Regional Parks District will chip in $5 million.

Telecommunications billionaire Craig McCaw, owner of the property, sold the land to the Big Sur Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy on May 1. Those groups plan to sell the land to the state.

Gov. Gray Davis said buying the ranch "provides the last crucial connection for a wildlife corridor that extends from the Carmel River to the heart of the central coast