Our Green/Duwamish

Thanks to everyone who was able to attend out September 17^th partner meeting. Each time we gather remotely I learn something new about how to engage with everyone. It appeared to be a very successful use of our online platforms, and I’m excited about further exploring the use of breakout rooms at our November 12^th meeting.

For those of you who were unable to attend, we used a large portion of the meeting to discuss our goal recommendations. The Goal recommendations are a high-level summary of the efforts we will need to consider implementing in the next couple of years. Combined with our existing actions, the recommendations will help us achieve our desired future state for each goal and get us closer to realizing our vision for stormwater management in the watershed.

We are incorporating feedback on the recommendations and adding it to the Implementation Plan now. A final draft of the plan will be available by the end of October, and we will plan on celebrating our collaborative success in November at our next partner meeting.

We are also looking for photos of the watershed that we can use in the Implementation Plan. This is a great opportunity to showcase some of your work in the watershed. We are looking for pictures of wildlife, recreation, restoration, and construction to name a few. If you have a photo you’d like have included, please email me directly.

There are a lot of exciting things happening in the next couple of months. One that I’d like to highlight is the Duwamish Alive festival and Green-Duwamish Journey:

This year you can participate in a self-guided activity, visiting the natural areas of the watershed to learn about the ecosystem, wildlife, history, and culture.

This is a great activity for kids, and you can win prizes!

Look for more information online at www.duwamishalive.org.

Be safe and be kind.

Todd

Greetings!

The three months between meetings has flown by. The OGD team at King County has been working tirelessly to consolidate all of the amazing contributions to the Implementation Plan we’ve received from our stakeholders.

I want to take a minute to say ‘Thank You’ to all of you who were able to carve out some time for individualized and focused conversations centered on refining content and tying up loose ends. The quality of the Implementation Plan will be better because of your commitment and contributions. We anticipate having a completed draft available for your review at the stakeholder meeting on September 17^th.

Progress towards a beta version of the mapping tool continues on track. During this interim period, the mapping subgroup was able to meet and provide valuable feedback to help Christian Nilsen at Geosyntec advance the development of our mapping tool. A link to the base layers we’ve been planning to use can be found here. The technical memo detailing the mapping tool’s features and needs is available for download, and can be found below. Please email Todd Hunsdorfer with any feedback you may have about the direction we’re headed for this mapping tool.

Our agenda for the September 17^th stakeholder meeting will be focused on providing brief updates from our subgroups and refining the list of Implementation Plan recommendations provided by our stakeholders – over the last several months. We plan on using some new interactive ways of engaging during this remote workshop, so get excited!

I sincerely hope everyone is staying healthy and safe and having a wonderful summer.

Be well,
Todd

Greetings, 

The Our Green Duwamish Stakeholder Group continues to make progress on articulating the actions that will bring us closer to realizing a future built on clean water. The Implementation Plan describes current conditions in the watershed, and identifies  existing and future actions required to improve them. We are still on track to provide the Stakeholder Group with a draft version of this Implementation Plan in September 2020. Now we need some feedback from you! 

Do you have ideas for action(s) in the watershed that could lead to real improvements? 

Take this survey. 

This survey is one way we are collecting ideas for future recommended actions that Stakeholders can take in the next 5 years to move closer to achieving our goals and overall watershed vision. The survey will remain open until June 25. 

Stay safe and be kind.  

Sincerely, 

Todd 

Greetings!

I wanted to use this forum to provide a quick update for those that couldn’t make it to our stakeholder meeting on February 13^th.

Together we:

1. Discussed how our co-designed content is being used in the Implementation Plan
2. Gathered feedback about the Implementation Plan outline
3. Built a table describing the strengths of our organizations
4. Heard an update from the Mapping Tool and Coordination Subgroups
5. Discussed the 2020 Work plan

We have some heavy lifting to do in the next 3 meetings. We are hoping to build out the content of the Implementation Plan by goal area before the end of June, and have a completed draft by September of 2020. In addition, we are planning to have a ‘proof of concept’ mapping tool to assist our partners with decision making and permit compliance by the end of the year.

2020 is going to be very busy for all of us, and I continue to be optimistic. We are doing more together.

Please email if you have any questions. It was great to see so many familiar faces at the Green Duwamish Symposium yesterday. What a fantastic event!

Cheers,
Todd

Happy New Year!

Last year was incredibly productive and critically foundational to the work we have teed up in 2020. I would like to thank everyone who participated and provided feedback on all the products we co-designed.

In 2019 we:

1. Created a 2-year work plan (and we’re still on target!)
2. Adopted Co-Design strategy
3. Compiled and discussed early mapping tool ideas
4. Initiated Coordination and Mapping subgroups
5. Designed a Public Input tool for gathering more feedback
6. Created an Implementation Plan outline
7. Committed to an adaptive management approach
8. Reestablished recurring blog posts
9. Drafted an informational website
10. Agreed on our Desired Future States for each goal area
11. Brainstormed metrics to track progress in each goal area

We are also very excited to be recently invited to participate in the Green – Duwamish Watershed 2020 Symposium. I hope you see you at this symposium on February 24^th, 2020!

At our next stakeholder meeting (Thursday, February 13) we will continue working on our Implementation Plan for those actions needed to improve the watershed. If you would like to learn more, please email me directly.

If you would like to follow our progress, subscribe to this blog post, and engage as we transform the watershed together.

Cheers to 2020!

Todd

Happy Fall!

Another very productive stakeholder meeting is in the books. Thank you to all who were able to attend.

At the Oct. 10^th meeting we were able to generate ideas for the future state of goals 5, 6, and 7, and comment on the draft of our future states for goals 1, 2, 3, and 4.

In general, feedback was very positive and aspirational – exactly the kind of energy we need to continue our progress developing the implementation plan. If you’d like to see or comment on the draft versions of the future state goals, you can do so using our public input tool.

The meeting also included presentations about King County’s Land Conservation Initiative and a Stormwater Pollutant Heatmap being developed by The Nature Conservancy and Geosyntec. It was interesting to consider how these projects overlap and support the goals of Our Green Duwamish. We also heard some quick updates from the Regional Coordination and Mapping Subgroups.

If you’re interested in learning more about those subgroups and are considering new opportunities to engage with the larger group, please feel free to reach out to Todd Hunsdorfer.

We are close to concluding Phase II of Our Green/Duwamish which kicked off in January 2016, where the Watershed Advisory Group identified four focus areas that could use additional effort to help improve watershed conditions.

The greatest level of effort during Phase II was focused on defining values and priorities for a watershed-wide approach to stormwater management which culminated in a Watershed- wide Stormwater Strategy. View the report and appendices at the links below:

• DRAFT – OGD Watershed-Wide Stormwater Strategy March 23.2017
• Appendix A – List of Workshop Participants
• Appendix B – Workshop Agendas
• Appendix C – Potential Measures of Success
• Appendix D – Preliminary Equity & Social Justice Evaluation.

In addition to this, the project team finalized white papers documenting current efforts underway in the remaining three priority areas. View  the white papers at the links below:

• Developing a watershed-wide open space plan:Final Our Green Duwamish Open Space Plan White Paper
• Integration of watershed climate resilience activities:Final Our Green Duwamish Cllimate Resilience White Paper
• Improving air quality to advance public health: Final Our Green Duwamish Air Quality White Paper.