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HEALTHY LIVING | Add potassium to your diet while cutting out the salt [page 8]
WEBSITE | Check the website for breaking GAME DAY JITTERS | Kentlake’s Steffin Church steps in at quarterback in win over news stories and weather updates. maplevalleyreporter.com or covingtonreporter.com FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2011 Kentridge [13]
YarrowBay projects approved with revisions BY DENNIS BOX dbox@maplevalleyreporter.com
The city of Black Diamond’s hearing examiner, Phil Olbrechts, released his recommendation of approval late Tuesday for YarrowBay’s The Villages and Lawson Hills development agreements with many pages outlining revisions, potential conditions and legal strategies for the City Council to consider. The 110-page document begins with, “For those who want to go straight to the point, the Examiner recommends approval of the development agreements if the revisions recommended in Section IX of this recommendation are incorporated into the development agreements.” Section IX recommends 24 revisions or “implement-
ing conditions” to the development agreement for the two projects. The recommendations include the staff providing more explanation concerning fish and wildlife buffers, language concerning mine hazard areas, parks, police and fire level of service and storm water monitoring. The opening pages of the document include four pages laying out many of the contentious issues surrounding the two developments and raised by residents who testified about perceived problems and potential impacts the projects would have on Black Diamond and the surrounding region. The two master planned developments would add about 6,000 residences with retail, office, light industrial, open space and recreational space. Olbrechts noted, “the citizens of Black Diamond have
undergone tremendous effort to ensure that the development agreements protect their community.” The hearing examiner also noted YarrowBay was, “very cooperative in addressing concerns expressed by the Hearing Examiner during the hearings on issues such as mine hazards and ambiguous development agreement terms, and in providing detailed responses to all of the concerns raised by the public.” Olbrechts wrote that the development agreements were a “powerful opportunity for the Council to look at the impacts of the master plan developments as a whole and to ensure that they will develop as intended and that all impacts are adequately mitigated.” The council will begin considering the development agreements 6:30 p.m. Sept. 21 at the Black Diamond Elementary.
Surprise homecoming Group helped lake go BY KRIS HILL khill@maplevalleyreporter.com
Matthew Estes could not stop smiling. Estes, a fifth grader at Glacier Park Elementary School in Maple Valley, got a surprise on Monday afternoon when his older brother, Army Specialist Garret Curtis arrived in his classroom. Curtis stood behind his little brother, whom he calls his “mini me,” and waited for the boy to turn around. Estes did a double take then leapt out of his seat to give Curtis a hug. “He’s home now,” Estes explained to his classmates, “and I’m very happy to see him.” Curtis is home for two weeks of leave at roughly the halfway point of a deployment in Afghanistan as a cavalry scout in the Army. “I like to be spontaneous and I miss him the most,” Curtis said. “I’m really close to him. I’d do anything for him. And I like to embarrass him.” Based out of For Carson, Colo., Curtis said he has thought about his brother the most while he’s been deployed and has more pictures of Estes than anyone else. While Curtis is home he plans to spend as much time with Estes as he can playing video games along with a trip to the Puyallup Fair. “I was just really happy to see my brother again and that I get to spend time with him before he leaves,” Estes said.
Reach Kris Hill at khill@maplev- Matthew Estes, a fifth grader at Glacier Park Elementary, hugs his brother Spc. Garret Curtis, who surprised him at school on Monday. KRIS HILL, The Reporter To view a slide show go to www. alleyreporter.com or 425-432maplevalleyreporter.com and to buy photos go to the Web site and click on the photo reprints tab. 1209 ext. 5054.
from cloudy to clear BY TJ MARTINELL tmartinell@maplevalleyreporter.com
In 1994 Diana Ludke and other residents who lived on Lake Wilderness had reached the breaking point. The once crystal clear lake had been overrun by Eurasian watermilfoil, an invasive aquatic plant. Not only did it give off a foul smell and an unpleasant appearance, it also made any use of the lake impossible. Fish could no longer survive because the oxygen in the water was consumed by the watermilfoil. Conditions had deteriorated so badly that Ludke and her husband were unable to get their boat more than 10 feet away from their dock before it got tangled up in the milfoil, and lifeguards had to pull the plants out with their bare hands so children wouldn’t get caught in them while they swam. “You couldn’t swim, couldn’t take a boat out, couldn’t use it at all,” Ludke said. “It had gone from pristine clear to worse and worse.” Finally, Ludke and 12 other Lake Wilderness residents got together and decided that action had to be taken. “We knew if we didn’t do anything it would turn into a bog,” said Ludke, who has
lived on the lake since 1973. “Everyone was anxious to do something and knew the direction if something didn’t happen.” Shortly after, Ludke and her fellow residents created the Lake Wilderness Preservation Association (LWPA), hoping to restore the lake’s appearance. The first step they took was to push for a county ban on internal combustion engines for boats on the lake. Then they formed a selective tax district called the Lake Management District, which applies only to those living within the watershed. Gradually, the LWPA began to see more and more action taken. In 1995, the LWPA and King County Surface Water Management Division jointly applied for a grant to develop a plan for long-term control of the watermilfoil. AquaTechnex, a biology firm which specializes in lake plant management, had divers map out the entire lake in order to determine the best way to clear out the watermilfoil. In the summmer of 1998, Sonar, an aquatic herbicide, as well as Aquathol, was ultimately used to target the milfoil. By 2001, the milfoil had receded substantially [ more LAKE page 5 ]