Key Messages for WRIA 8 Letter RE: Williams Pipeline Proposal to Cross the
Cedar River with Gas Pipeline at Rainbow Bend Site
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Explain the WRIA 8 Salmon Recovery Council and the listing of Puget Sound Chinook as
threatened under the ESA. The WRIA 8 Chinook Plan was ratified by all 27 jurisdictions and
approved by NOAA Fisheries as a chapter in the Puget Sound Chinook Recovery Plan.
We understand that as part of the South Seattle Delivery Lateral Expansion Project for Puget
Sound Energy that you have selected the Rainbow Bend site owned by King County’s Water and
Land Resources Division as your preferred alternative for crossing the Cedar River.
Based on the limited information we have seen, the current proposed pipeline alignment and
shallow depth in the floodplain appears to be in direct conflict with the planned restoration
project on the Rainbow Bend site. In 2013, King County is planning to remove the levee on the
upstream side of Rainbow Bend and restore natural river processes on the site, including
channel migration, accumulation of large wood, side channel development and floodplain scour.
Cedar River is our highest priority area for recovering ESA listed Chinook salmon in the greater
Lake Washington watershed. The Rainbow Bend Floodplain Restoration project is identified as
high priority in the WRIA 8 Chinook Plan and, at 40 acres, is our biggest opportunity for large
scale, process-based restoration on the Cedar River. The project is also identified as a high
priority in King County’s Flood Hazard Management Plan and the Cedar River Basin Plan.
A tremendous amount of work and expense has gone into this project to date. Over the last ten
years, more than $12 million in federal, state and local grants have been raised to acquire this
site and relocate flood-prone residents in order that it can be restored for both its flood hazard
reduction and salmon habitat benefits. A frequently flooded mobile home park and nine homes
were purchased and removed from the property. The residents of the mobile home park were
assisted with relocating to other housing.
The salmon recovery grant funding used to help acquire the site has strict rules about how the
property can be used. Outline rules that say that King County would have to acquire another site
of similar ecological value for the same purpose per the rules. There is no other site like this on
the lower Cedar River.
We understand that to do this project you will need a permit from the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. Given the need for federal review of this project and its impact on a
planned restoration project to benefit Chinook salmon, we expect that this project would trigger
a Section 7 consultation with NOAA Fisheries.
Your website and fact sheet for the project describe open house meetings in 2010 and 2011
related to the pipeline expansion which we were unaware of and would ask that Jean White,
WRIA 8 Coordinator, be informed of future public meetings related to this project, particularly
as it relates to the crossing of the Cedar River.
We urge you to evaluate alternative pipeline alignments to avoid the Rainbow Bend site and
other planned floodplain restoration sites along the Cedar River.