On Tuesday night, Save our Trail published a letter that it presented it to the Kirkland City Council and Sound Transit describing significant environmental concerns with the Cross Kirkland Corridor transit plans. The letter was prompted by a memo issued by the city of Kirkland’s Planning and Building Department, which contained a city-commissioned report by The Watershed Company that documented wetlands, salmon-bearing streams and wildlife habitat along, near and under the Trail. The city’s memo, which detailed planned updates to Kirkland’s Critical Area Ordinance (due by June 30), outlined how buffer zones for wetlands and streams will significantly increase with the new regulations. It also described mandatory mitigation sequencing rules that state that avoidance of modifications of wetlands and streams is the primary guiding principle if a “practicable or feasible alternative” is available.

Based on the documented wetlands, Save our Trail applied current and revised buffers to portions of the trail and found that, in multiple cases, large portions of the corridor would be unavailable for development. In fact, there were multiple locations where wetlands surround both sides of the trail, creating buffers that are in excess of the 100-foot wide corridor. In addition, the Save our Trail letter points out that the mandatory mitigation sequencing regulations that specifically state mitigation is not allowed if a “practicable or feasible alternative” is available apply in this case, given Sound Transit’s E-02 Bus Rapid Transit on I-405 proposal.

The letter, as well as documentation to support this, can be found at  www.saveourtrail.org

Rose Dennis, Kirkland