Reasserting the Place of Nature in Seattle’s Urban Creeks - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 131

control, landslide mitigation, aquatic resource protection-water quality,
and aquatic resource protection-habitat. SPU has issued three Compre-
hensive Drainage Plans to date (1988, 1995, and 2004). Each of the plans
place an increasing emphasis on water quality and habitat protection due
to a variety of state and federal laws relating to environmental protection,
notably the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. 28
It is only since the late 1990s that the municipal government has offi -
cially recognized urban creeks as an element of the city's drainage networks
and has made a concerted effort to improve water quality conditions and
restore habitat. However, there have been many nongovernmental efforts
since the 1960s to change the conveyance logic of urban drainage in the
city, initiated by community activists who want to improve the conditions
of their neighborhoods. The activities by community activists to reorient
drainage patterns in Seattle suggest that the municipality is not the only
urban environmental manager. The grassroots work of residents reorients
urban nature in ways that are strikingly different from the municipality's
technomanagerial approach.
Restoring Nature in the City: Carkeek Park
One of the earliest and most noted neighborhood projects focusing on
urban creek restoration in Seattle involves Piper's Creek in northwest
Seattle. The Piper's Creek watershed is in the Broadview neighborhood
and is the third largest in the city, comprising 2.5 square miles of drain-
age area. The watershed is unique because of its multiple high-gradient
tributaries couched in steep ravines, with much of the creek located in
Carkeek Park. The remainder of the watershed is dominated by residential
land use with an overall impervious surface coverage of 57 percent (typical
for Seattle's residential neighborhoods) and relies on a ditch-and-culvert
drainage network. 29
Carkeek Park opened in 1928, eight years after the last old growth tim-
ber was logged from the land and a year after the last salmon were spotted
in the creek. 30 In subsequent years, the municipality improved the park
with a series of trails and shelters, supplemented in the 1930s with help
from the federal Civilian Conservation Corps program. Creek restoration
activities began in 1965 when neighborhood resident Nancy Malmgren led
a Girl Scout group on an expedition in the park and discovered a severely
degraded creek. Malmgren initiated an informal volunteer creek restora-
tion program and her persistent efforts eventually led to the formation of
the Carkeek Watershed Community Action Project (CWCAP) in 1979.