The vast majority of Discovery Park was once covered with buildings – typically military barracks or offices. Most of these have been demolished, although many still remain, including the Nike building, building 653 and the Capehart housing units. In addition, there are many sites that used to contain military buildings and pavement but have had no significant restoration efforts applied to them. Examples of this type of restoration challenge include the old theater site, the old ball field near Capehart and the triangular shaped parcel of land just south of Capehart. Most of these sites contained buildings, parking lots or roads in the past that were removed but without significant restoration efforts to follow with the presumption that "mother nature" would take over and self restore. Predictably, this approach has been less than successful. Generally speaking they are now infested with the usual mix of invasives like Scots Broom and Himalayan Blackberry and very little native plant life. Their ability to support habitat is low. And they represent an ongoing source of invasive seed production, threatening the rest of the Park.
When return of the 500 Area was announced in the mid to late 1990s (to include demolition of all 24 barracks and removal of all pavement), members of the Friends of Discovery Park and the Discovery Park Advisory Council decided to lend their support in making restoration of this parcel a priority, and to hopefully to improve upon the previous method of restoration. Coincident with the announcement were several public input meetings for the development of a Vegetation Management Plan for the Park by Jones and Stokes. These public meetings further galvanized public support for an effective approach to restoring this site.
The 500 Area is a 9 acre site occupied for many years by the US Army Reserve. It contained approximately 24 old wooden barrack buildings. Historic aerial photos show it to be part of a much larger complex of barracks which extended nearly to Emerson on the south border of the Park. In the early 1990’s, Discovery Park advocates (including Bob Kildal and Heidi Carpine) worked closely with the City and Senators Slade Gorton and Patty Murray to allow transfer ownership of this parcel to the City once the Army Reserve was finished with it. Once members of the Advisory Council learned that a specific date of property transfer had been decided upon, we realized this could represent a new opportunity to improve upon the old scrape-and-walk approach. DPAC applied for and received a Small and Simple grant for $10,000.00 from the City’s Department of Neighborhoods. After interviewing several firms, the landscape architect firm of Charles Anderson was selected. Three public input meetings were held, after which a restoration plan for the site was developed and approved by the City. Meanwhile, the US Army subcontractor began demolishing the buildings, hauling away pavement and removing fuel oil contaminated soils. The original plan was set to cost nearly $1 million. However, when it became apparent the demolition costs were going to be less than originally budgeted (!), the US Army agreed to fund some limited restoration with the left over funds (approximately $300k). Charles Anderson re-worked and downscaled the plan to bring it within this much tighter budget. It was submitted to and approved by the City. The minimalist plan funded by the US Army markedly reduced the overall number and variety of native plants available to be planted, and implemented other cost saving changes like less coverage by wood chip compost (hogfuel).
Details of the 500 Area restoration plan are available elsewhere including at the Discovery Park library. Briefly it called for the creation of 24 “cells” built in the outline of the old barrack buildings. These cells would contain a large variety of native plants, bordered by weed control fabric, which would eventually spill out of the cell and repopulate the surrounding areas with a large variety of diverse native plants. Because of the cost saving considerations above, the wood chip compost was only used on approximately 40% of the parcel, restricted to the northern end. The southern end of the parcel received no composting material. Alder was planted throughout the composted area in the north end of the parcel, in between the cells. No alder was planted in the south end, just the native plant “cells”. All planting was completed in mid winter 2002.
By early spring of 2003, the development of several large pools of standing water occurred as the result of heavy spring rains. These seasonal wetlands were felt to represent ideal and very unique (to the Park) wildlife habitat to many observers. Unfortunately the water covered portions of the trail, leading to many complaints by the public. Additionally, there was concern by City experts as to the stability of the slope on the eastern edge of the parcel. All of these issues led to the City to demand of the Army Reserve to put in place an extensive network of drainage tiles, removing most standing water from the site. This was done the following year.
The 500 Area today, 4 years later:
The following are subjective observations and are not supported by careful data accumulation. Nonetheless, there are some clearly evident trends that are worth looking at. First, the alder have been phenomenally successful, many growing from 4-6 feet tall to over 20 feet tall in just 4 years. As a result, the area planted with alder enjoys a relatively dense canopy during the hot summer months, providing cool shade to the understory, as well as a thick layer of decomposing alder leaves every fall. Secondly the native plant cells have been allowed to become overgrown with invasives. The weed control fabric has not controlled any weed growth, rather, represents an impediment to weed removal. Once the weeds grow through the fabric, they are extremely difficult to pull and eradicate. Thirdly, the southern end of the parcel (which received no compost layer or alder over-planting) has much less shade and canopy and is much more invaded by weeds. Lastly, the heavy invasive seed load from the Nike building site and the entire western margin of the parcel has rapidly moved into the previously open 500 area.
So what have we learned from this experience? Obviously, a more detailed analysis could and should be done, but here are my “back of the envelope” thoughts.
First, what did we do right?
1) composting – the “hogfuel” used has been very successful in reducing the ingrowth of invasives, though not 100%. Comparing the composted area of the site with the non-composted area is very instructive. The south end is nearly overgrown with non-native grasses, Scots Broom and Himalayan BB. The north end is relatively free of invasives. In fact, many native pioneers are sprouting up in the area.
2) use of alder – the nitrogen poor soil present when pavement is removed seems to be ideal soil to plant alder in. As many others have stated, alder is an ideal short lived restoration tree. It’s rapid growth, extensive shade production and soil nitrogen fixation capabilities are perfect for a damaged site like the 500. It’s clearly working very well.
3) residual mature trees – during the planning process, several DPAC members went with Parks personnel on a walk through the site, examining the existing trees for the presence of disease and need for removal. Many trees were considered “unhealthy” by Parks staff and felt to be good candidates for removal. Objections were raised and nearly all of them allowed to remain instead. Remember - these trees spent most of their lives growing between buildings and parking lots with many limbs removed to prevent damage to the buildings. As a result, many of them are sickly and prematurely aged. Despite this, they have provided an ideal seed source for the restoration process. A great example of this can be found in the northern end of the parcel where a battered and beaten hemlock has dropped seed producing hundreds if not thousands of hemlock seedlings in a single year.
4) early planning – What was most surprising to citizens involved in the process was the complete lack of planning on the part of Parks. It was this element that spurred us to work as hard on this project as we did. It’s not clear what would have happened had DPAC not taken the initiative and gotten a plan started, but it’s doubtful we would have had as positive outcome as we did.
5) leveraging - a small grant of $10k was turned into a major restoration project worth more than $300k from the US Army. The City was given at no charge (or very small one) a restored parcel – with very little effort on follow-up (see below). A clear demonstration of what remarkable yields a small but propitious investment can produce.
6) use of outside expertise – the use of an outside landscape architectural firm brought skills, experience and expertise to bear that Parks does not have. Outsiders bring fresh perspectives to the job that are frequently quite useful.
What did we do wrong?
1) invasives on the margin – like so many projects in the Park, invasives covering the hillside just west of the 500 area were not removed. As a result, their seed production dropped on the previously “clean” 500 area, contaminating the project.
2) weed control fabric – although the cells seemed like a good idea, the placement of weed control fabric has only hindered removal of the weeds invading the cells. For whatever reason (lack of hogfuel?), Himalayan Blackberry has aggressively moved into the cells and grown into the fabric, making it almost impossible to remove entirely. Rather than representing native restoration potential, they’ve become invasive problem areas.
3) poor cooperation between Parks staff, DPAC and outside consultant – from nearly the beginning, there seemed to be very limited input from Parks staff – or at least limited communication of concerns to either DPAC or the landscape architect. The assumption that all of Parks agreed and supported the plan based on the official Parks approval of the plan was not valid.
4) lack of followup – because actual ownership of the property remained in the hands of the Army for several years afterwards, Parks staff was reluctant to perform the much needed followup maintenance that was presumed as part of the plan. This also became an issue when individual volunteers organized their own work parties in the area. Volunteers were told not to do any work in the area because of liability concerns.
Conclusions:
Projects on this type of scale are not easy. They present many logistical, financial and organizational challenges that test the capacity of any organization. The current 500 Area reflects all of the conflicting demands that are on our City Parks staff and budget. Unfortunately, we have more, not fewer of these in our immediate and intermediate future as a Park community. It is mandatory that all parties (Parks administration, local Parks staff, citizen advocates and non-profit groups) sit down in a non-confrontational manner well in advance of the action and hash out groundrules for the restoration process. It takes very little to send a complex process like this sideways. The natural habitat of Discovery Park is threatened. We can’t afford anything less than success. And we as the public, have both the right and responsibility to see to it that it happens.
