A case of mistaken identity
If you’ve been to Hidden Beach you know that it’s a sandy beach. It is not a wetland.
This is sand, not wetland!
But at some point, the E. Harrison Street End (what we all know as Hidden Beach) was erroneously identified by the State as wetland. According to the State of Washington, "Wetlands — commonly called marshes, swamps, or bogs — are land areas that are saturated or covered with water for at least some part of the year."
This mistaken identity has been in place on State wetland maps for some time and it hasn't really mattered. We all walk down the path, remove our practical Seattle footwear, dig our toes into the sand, take a swim, take a nap, talk to neighbors.
Where wetland vs. beach matters is when submitting an application to restore and protect public land from encroachments. That's when we *may* be required by Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI) to conduct a new wetland delineation survey. This is an unfair burden for our rag-tag fleet of beach-going volunteers who maintain Hidden Beach.
That said, we're working with SDCI to acknowledge this case of mistaken identity. The current designation is obviously wrong (plus "Hidden Wetland" doesn't have the same ring to it). We hold out hope that reason will prevail — but also know that sand can quickly become quicksand when lawyers and encroachments are involved.
Next time you're down at the beach, grab a handful of sand and let it run through your fingers while repeating this mantra: "this is sand, not wetland!"
East Harrison SSE mistakenly categorized as wetland
Our research shows that public entities in Washington State, with online mapping services, including the City of Seattle and the State Department of Ecology, have shared erroneous wetland mapping designations over their public online portals.
We requested map source materials for our particular “wetland” (please see our attached map), but were told that this data was unavailable, or that government entities share data (without verifying the veracity of the data) and cannot always provide the source.
In 2017, a professional Wetland Delineation Report was prepared by Northwest Environmental Consulting LLC for this site and they concluded that the site DID NOT meet the test of a wetland; this record is in the public domain. The hydrology here cannot support a wetland designation. No substantive changes have occurred on this property since 2017, yet SDCI requests another Wetland Delineation Report, claiming that a report is valid for 3 years and the old report is out of date.
And we repeat:
We understand that Seattle City is working to correct their mapping systems.
We also know that they have spoken with ECA Environmental Critical Areas staff about this issue.
None of these actions corrects the current request that our citizens group bear the cost of conducting another study based on a falsely mapped data set.
The map below shows current erroneous wetland coding for East Harrison Shoreline Street-end.
The photo below shows that the area in question is clearly a sandy beach, and not a wetland.
P.S. Many thanks to Arborist Daniel Collins’ steady hand helping maintain the trees at Hidden Beach and in crafting the letter to SDCI to correct the wetland designation.
