Close Stormwater Catch  Basins

 

There is a series of stormwater catch basins throughout the Gulch. Two of these basins are actually in Puget Creek itself. We are working with the City of Tacoma to close off the first of these two catch basins and allow the flow to remain in the creek, as would naturally occur. While we don't expect the flow to increase much when we close it, we will need to monitor the changes to ensure that any additional flow won't adversely impact the private landowner downstream.

 

We would monitor the flows for approximately five years to calculate flow fluctuation over a period of years rather than months. When it has been determined that all has gone well with the first closure, we can proceed to close the next catch basin and monitor that project as well. This will eventually solve the problems caused by the loss of flow volume resulting from water being diverted into the basins rather than continuing into the creek.

 

We expect this project to succeed based on the fact that the fishway, installed in 2003, was made to handle larger flow volumes than are currently found in the creek. During the installation, we had foreseen the need to close these catch basins and considered the additional water flow that would result from such action.

 

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