Edmonds City Park Restoration Area

A Little History of Edmonds City Park Restoration Area

(A very brief story of the process of bringing an unusable boggy drainage ditch into a native restoration site for all to enjoy.)

Before there was a park, or even a town, a small stream pulling water from the surrounding hills, brought water to a large marsh that sat between the town and the Sound to the west. Over the course of many years, the area now known as Edmonds slowly became a city, and the land around the stream became one of the city’s first parks. Subsequently, as the park usage grew, the stream was diverted into underground sumps and pipes to accommodate roadways, turf playfields, and even a wading pool. The original channel was moved and changed to accommodate park use needs. To maneuver water flow issues, catch basins were installed to divert the now unwanted ground water run-off in the high-use areas of the park into the wetter, under-used area around the stream. This area now remained wet most of the year, and, became rather neglected. The stream became hard to see from all the weeds and blackberry bramble growing hard to obscure it. The little flow of water had become so diminished that it was downgraded from the somewhat respectable title of “stream” to the inglorious title of “drainage ditch”.     

Before picture-drainage ditch area on the left

But Not All Was Lost

Picture of the seep on the hill

The stream was not fully forgotten. Parks maintenance personnel saw the state of the stream and wanted to make a change. Sadly, lack of funding and other priorities kept dreams of restoration from moving forward. However, in 2017 a new seep appeared in the small slope nearby and caused a larger than normal amount of water to drain into the swale below. The turf area around the stream became completely impossible to maintain. This new inundation of water into the site happened to coincide with the needed removal of the old wading pool. The chance for a change had arrived and a plan was hatched to rehabilitate the entire area. Perhaps the drainage ditch could become a stream once again! 

The Process 

The actual work of the stream and wetland rehabilitation has taken many years. Approval for the project was required from all necessary City departments, various maps were drawn, and scope-of-work meetings were scheduled before the actual work could begin. Physical work on the site began in the summer of 2018 and has been done in several phases over the past five years. In the first phase of the project, invasive species and other weeds were removed, stream channel rocks were re-established, and the turf grass was covered with new soil and arborist chips. In the second phase, a pathway through the site was plotted out, old stumps and other woody debris were brought in, drainage was installed to keep the new pathway from becoming too soggy to use, and more arborist chips were added to keep the weeds from finding their way back. In phase three, many native plants were installed and the old Rhododendrons were pruned. Lastly, in phase four, a small bridge and a protective cedar fence were installed to help complete the project. The stream is now clear and free-flowing once more.