The frustration mounts each year for Mike McCaughan as he watches Mill Creek flood the yard and street outside of his home on Kennebeck Avenue in Kent.
“It floods constantly two or three times a winter,” McCaughan said Wednesday as stood next to the creek, just east of Mill Creek Middle School and south of James Street. “The creek turns into a river two or three times a year.”
McCaughan joined about two dozen Kent residents at a city meeting Tuesday to find out about projects the city has planned to keep Mill Creek from becoming as unruly as it has been in past flood episodes.
City crews plan to start projects in 2010 to improve dams, culverts, pipes and detention ponds in an effort to end the Mill Creek flooding.
In the last major flood, in early January, the city had to close James Street near Central Avenue and 76th Avenue South between South 212th and 228th because of flooding resulting from melted snow and heavy rainfall.
“The water was above my knees on the road in front of my house,” said McCaughan, who also had to pump water out of his basement during that event.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Kent officials assured residents the work on the creek will be accomplished.
“This is a high priority,” said Larry Blanchard, city public works director, at the meeting. “Now we get on to getting projects done from property acquisition to completion of construction.”
City plans call for raising the Upper Mill Creek Detention Dam by as much as 5 1/2 feet. That would increase its capacity to hold back water by 50 percent, said Mike Mactutis, city environmental engineering manager, during Tuesday’s project presentations.
The dam sits at the upper portion of the creek near 104th Avenue Southeast and Southeast 272nd Street.
The plans also call for adding a second drainage pipe at the Kent Senior Activity Center, to route water under Smith Street in order to open the creek’s channel.
Mill Creek turns north at the senior center and runs parallel to Kennebeck Avenue to James Street.
On Lower Mill Creek, the city plans to widen the channel, re-route the creek and provide more flood storage.
“We plan to get construction going in 2010,” Mactutis said. “Some projects will be longer and others shorter. But two to three years is a good estimate for each project.”
The sooner the better, said McCaughan.
“I think that’s good but it’s down the road,” the Kent property owner said. “All of us homeowners want to know what can be done for next November.”
McCaughan moved in 1990 to the Mill Creek neighborhood. The flooding used to be even worse, he said, but noted it’s still bad.
“It’s frustrating because it’s the same problem over and over,” he said.
Residents created about a 3-foot bank along the east side of Mill Creek by piling sandbags over the years, McCaughan said. But that’s not enough to stop flooding during heavy rain.
To solve the flooding problems on 76th Avenue South, city officials plan to divert water to the Green River Natural Resource Area. The 300-acre, city-owned property is designed to help retain floodwater, and sits west of 64th Avenue South between South 228th and South 212th.
City officials will work with officials from the State Department of Ecology and State Department of Fish and Wildlife to get permits for the Mill Creek projects.
Funds for the projects will come in part from the city’s storm-drainage rate increase, which goes into effect starting April 1. The Council approved the rate increase in December to help fund drainage-system projects. The storm-drainage rates will jump about $28 per year for each customer.
“These projects in the plan have a high rate of success,” Blanchard said.
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