Hamm Creek agreement signed

King County Executive Ron Sims today signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a $3.5 million project to daylight the last 1000 feet of Hamm Creek and to create a new intertidal area for juvenile salmon. This project is a culmination of a restoration which began 20 years ago as a trash and litter clean up. Assistant District Engineer Col. Richard Conte, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell, National Marine Fisheries Regional Administrator Will Stelle, community leaders and federal, local and tribal government partners joined Sims in a ceremony at Seattle's Hamm Creek. "This agreement will give us a healthier Hamm Creek and stronger salmon runs," said Sims. "The solid partnership that makes this project possible can serve as a model for the future as we work together to take better care of our environment." This summer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will begin building a creek bed for the stream that currently flows through an underground pipe. The three-year project includes creation of an intertidal area where the creek flows into the Duwamish River. It gives young salmon migrating from the Green River a place to feed, rest and acclimatize to salt water before heading out to the ocean. Virtually all Duwamish estuaries have disappeared. The last 1,000 feet of Hamm Creek flows in a pipe under a six-acre Seattle City Light substation at West Marginal Way South. In April, King County purchased an easement across the site for $750,000, in cooperation with the Elliott Bay/Duwamish Restoration Program. Today's signing of the cooperative agreement with the Corps of Engineers allows the Hamm Creek daylighting and estuary restoration project to begin this summer. King County purchased the easement as part of its contribution to the 1991 legal settlement reached by the City of Seattle and King County (then Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle) with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington State Department of Ecology, the Suquamish Tribe and the Muckleshoot Tribe. The $24 million settlement called for projects that included sediment remediation, habitat development, real estate acquisition for habitat restoration purposes and source control measures. The easement will be owned by King County and will satisfy part of King County's agreement to provide up to $2.5 million in real estate for habitat restoration.

Curtis Tanner of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service welcomed King County Executive Ron Sims, Assistant District Engineer Col. Richard Conte, and a number of local and environmental leaders to mark the signing of an agreement between the County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make Hamm Creek healthier and safer for migrating salmon. King County Executive Ron Sims celebrated the culmination of Ham Creek restoration efforts in the daylighting project. Sims described how in three years an unearthed Hamm Creek, which currently flows through an underground pipe, will run through a riverbed built by the U.S. Corps of Engineers and serve as an intertidal area for salmon to acclimatize to salt water before heading to the ocean.

Updated: May 18, 1999