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Local Ecological Knowledge of Flooding in the Madison Valley Neighborhood of
Seattle, Washington

by
Shawna McGarry

A Thesis: Essay of Distinction
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the Master of Environmental Studies
The Evergreen State College
June 2007

ABSTRACT
Local Ecological Knowledge of Flooding in the Madison Valley
Neighborhood of Seattle, Washington
By
Shawna McGarry
A history of flooding in the Madison Valley neighborhood of Seattle, Washington
dates back to the 1970s. The City of Seattle’s Department of Public Utilities
(SPU) is currently working on a long-term solution to this problem. Recent
storms are the most intense on record and the flooding has been increasingly
destructive. Local residents are extremely concerned that the long-term solution
is effective. Local residents collectively hold a great deal of knowledge about the
flooding problem based on years of first hand experiences. This research seeks to
obtain the Local Ecological Knowledge of the flooding problem in an effort to
supplement SPU’s engineering analysis. The methods for this research included a
review of community documents, historical research on the area, in-depth
interviews with residents, and observation and participation in community
meetings.
The results of this research provide evidence that Local Ecological Knowledge
does exist in this urban neighborhood and that this knowledge is important in
reaching a viable long-term solution. Specifically, the local participants were able
to define the problem, highlight the main sources of the problem, and provide a
variety of suggestions for the long-term solution that would increase the area’s
resilience to flooding. In addition, the Environmental Justice Paradigm provides a
meaningful framework for understanding influences on this problem over time
and today.

ii

This Thesis for the Master of Environmental Studies Degree
by
Shawna McGarry
has been approved for
The Evergreen State College
by

________________________
Karen Gaul, Ph.D.
Member of the Faculty

________________________
Date

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES……………………………………………..vi
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
December 14, 2006 storm event……………………………………..........1
Purpose of Research…….………………………………………………...3
Significance……………………………………………………………......4
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Local Ecological Knowledge………...……………………………………4
Urban Stormwater Management………………………………………......8
Environmental Justice………………………………………...………….10
CHAPTER 3 BACKGROUND
History…………….………………………………….…………………..13
Principal Stakeholders…….……………………………………………..23
Influential Policies.……………………………………………………....25
CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY
Research Paradigm……….……………………………………………...28
Research Process………….……………………………………………..30
Capture……….………………………………………………………….33
Interpretive Procedures…….……………………………………………34
Rigor………………….………………………………………………….36
Ethical Issues………….…………………………………………………37
CHAPTER 5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
How the flooding occurs………………….……………………………...38
Understanding of what contributes to the problem….…………………..40
Ideas for a long-term solution……………………………….…………...51
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION
Urban citizens and Local Ecological Knowledge…………….………….61
Adaptive Management in Madison Valley……………………………….62
Environmental Justice in Madison Valley…………………………….…63
Environmental Justice, LEK, and Sustainability……………………..…64
iv

BIBLIOGRAPHY………...…………………………………………………66-70

v

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Number

Page

1

Map of Madison Valley in Seattle ……………………………… 1

2

SPU’s Preferred Long-Term Solution Alternatives……………. 22

3

Storm drains in Madison Valley…………………………………46

4

Photos of prior drainage route……………………….………….. 54

5

Low Impact Development (LID) strategies……………….....…. 58

6

Map of Madison Valley Watershed…………………………….. 59

vi

Acknowledgments
I am extremely thankful to all of the Madison Valley residents who
participated in this research. This thesis was made possible by your valuable
participation. I learned so much from you about our great neighborhood.
I would also like to thank Seattle Public Utilities for their current work on
this project, for helping me to better understand the project through meetings and
project documents, and for their continued efforts to collaborate with the
Engineering Sub-Committee.
A huge thanks to my thesis advisor, Karen Gaul. I immensely appreciated
all the time you spent meeting with me to discuss this project and of course your
excellent editing. Your feedback was always open-minded, supportive and
understanding of where I was at in the process. You really kept me going.
A heartfelt thank you to my family for always believing in me,
encouraging me, and helping to shape who I am today.
And last but not least, so much credit goes to the consistent and helpful
support of my partner, Brian. Thank you for choosing a house for us in Madison
Valley, collaborating with me on this research, encouraging me to keep going,
and distracting me when I needed it. I could not have done this without you.

vii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
December 14, 2006 storm event
After record rainfall in the month of November, a major storm hit the
Puget Sound Region on December 14, 2006. Many areas throughout the region
sustained great losses that night. The Madison Valley neighborhood of Seattle,
Washington (Figure 1) was hit particularly hard by the rainstorm.
Between 4:30 pm and 5:00 pm a
torrential rain fell over the area, and
the sewer and stormwater systems
were quickly overwhelmed. As sheets
of rain fell sideways, the residents of
the Madison Valley neighborhood
observed standing water rushing down
steep streets, stairwells, hillsides, and
yards. “It was flowing like rivers.”

Figure 1

The newly built one million gallon

Map of Madison Valley in Seattle. Adapted
from Chris Goodman – History Link

detention pond filled up quickly with runoff and overflowed into the streets and
properties nearby.
The lowest-lying streets, alleys, and intersections filled with water, which
poured into yards and belowground basements. Many residents’ homes began
taking on surface water before 5:00 pm and people came outside franticly to get
help from neighbors. One resident whose basement ultimately filled up with five
feet of water noted that “a great deal of water was observed… coming pouring,
cascading down 31st, up over the parking strip, coming down the sidewalk, and
1

into the yard. I wasn’t paying attention to my yard, because my neighbor was
screaming for help, because their basement where they live was flooding.”
Fire engine sirens blared loudly as people worked to unclog storm drains.
By 6:00 pm many drains had been unclogged by residents and water started to
drain out of the streets back into the pipes. Unfortunately, this exacerbated the
problem for those whose basement sewer lines were backing up.
A windstorm followed later that night, knocking trees and power lines
down all over the region. The power remained out in Madison Valley for
approximately fifty-four hours. Many residents were outside walking around
during this time, checking on each other, helping neighbors carry damaged items
out of their basements, and sharing stories about what happened and what they
knew of the flooding problem. It was not until later on the following day that I
learned that one of my neighbors and acquaintances had died after being trapped
in her basement. Though some Madison Valley residents were aware of three
other situations where people were either pulled out or swam out of their flooded
basements, the reality of this frightening outcome and the media attention it
attracted helped the broader community to better understand the gravity of the
flooding problem in the area. In the first couple days after the storm, many
neighbors questioned whether they should move. One resident described the
emotional stress experienced by people after the storm:
It’s not New Orleans, but sometimes it feels like a smaller version
of that. It just goes on an on and on and you just want it to be over
and to believe it will never happen again… But for so many people
in the neighborhood, it was just a huge crisis. They had to go live
in hotels, Christmas was coming and they had small children. You
know our neighbors over here have two small children. They got
divorced because of this storm. The first storm, because there was
2

a lot of sewer-water downstairs, they had all the furniture and their
whole lives up on the top two floors and they just got more and
more stressed out by their living conditions. It totally screwed up
their relationship and during this last storm they were just at the
point where they are divorced now. The kind of stress it causes
when you’re trying to live your life, especially the people with
children… I think of the heartbreak of Kate’s death and at the same
time I was feeling also the heartbreak of so many of the people
living in this neighborhood who are really starting to worry about
their property values. And there are… still a lot of pretty lowincome people here. People that don’t have very many assets or
people who are planning on selling their house to finance their
retirement or something like that. And there was just this sense of
doom after this last flood… People were really depressed.
Purpose of Research
Fortunately, the following days also brought news that the City of Seattle
Public Utilities Department (SPU) had been working on a long-term solution that
would address the flooding in the neighborhood. At their public hearing on
December 28, 2006 SPU explained that the interim solution to control combined
sewer backups at 30th and East John Streets was two weeks from being completed
when the December 14th storm hit, and that it was now completed. SPU answered
questions from frustrated citizens and informed the crowd of four long-term
solution options that they were considering. As the days passed, I spoke with
many neighbors about their concerns over the flooding issue and what they
thought was causing the problem. Many of the issues voiced did not appear to be
under consideration by SPU’s project. Thus, the purpose of this research is to
obtain the local ecological knowledge of the flooding problem in an effort to
inform SPU’s long-term project planning. A secondary purpose of the research is
to consider what the environmental justice paradigm can add to this analysis.

3

This research draws from six months of participation and observation in
community hearings and meetings, reviews of community documents and
newspaper articles, interviews with residents and government officials, walking
and photo surveys of the area, and the benefit of having lived in this
neighborhood for three years.
Significance
The water management problem in Madison Valley has been neglected
since the1970s and some residents have been subjected to repeated stormwater
and sewer backups on their property as a result. Now that the City of Seattle is
taking action to resolve the problem, it is important that the experiential
knowledge of the residents is heard and taken into account in selecting a longterm solution. This research contains narratives from the residents that can
potentially help SPU better understand what has happened in the past and what
the residents hope the long-term solution will provide for the future. In addition,
it may help influence a solution that is more environmentally sustainable and
democratic in a growing region. It also may have implications for future land use
policies in this watershed and others as we plan for the more extreme storms that
have started to occur in recent years.
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Local Ecological Knowledge
The terms “local ecological knowledge” and “traditional ecological
knowledge” are used frequently in development and natural resource management
discourses even though their definitions are debated (Ballard and Huntsinger
2006). The definition used here for traditional ecological knowledge is “a
4

cumulative body of knowledge, practice and belief, evolving by adaptive
processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmission, about
the relationship of living beings (including humans), with one another and with
their environment” (Berkes, Colding et al. 2000). The term local ecological
knowledge is used to refer to local expertise of residents who may not have a
long-term relationship with the local environment, but nevertheless have local
wisdom, experience, and practices adapted to local ecosystems (Berkes, Folke et
al. 1998; Olsson and Folke 2001). Conventional scientific knowledge refers to
science and management based on the traditions of Newtonian science and the
expertise of government resource managers (Berkes, Colding et al. 2000).
Most traditional human cultures viewed themselves as a part of nature.
Although a shift back to this traditional view is taking place, Western industrial
societies have been the main exception to this worldview for the past four
hundred years or so (Berkes, Folke et al. 1998: 9). Ancient cultures and
indigenous peoples often have a longer-term relationship with their environment
than others. However, this does mean that indigenous peoples have a monopoly
over local ecological wisdom. There are cases of local, newly emergent, or newtraditional resource management systems which cannot claim continuity over
thousands of years, but which are based on local knowledge and practice that is
appropriately adapted to the ecological systems in which they occur (Smith and
Berkes 1993).
In addition, there is ample evidence that the use of conventional scientific
approaches alone in natural resource management has often been unsuccessful,
and in many cases has exacerbated resource management problems rather than
5

solve them (Adams 1986; Chambers 1997; Holling, Berkes et al. 1998). One
reason for this is that conventional scientific resource management had its roots in
the utilitarian and exploitative worldview that assumes that humans have
dominion over nature (Gadgil and Berkes 1991; McNeely 1991). Emerging
literature notes the potential of using the ecological knowledge of local resource
users themselves as a complement to scientific knowledge (Becker and Ostrom
1995; Berkes, Folke et al. 1995; Colding and Folke 2001; Nowotny, Scott et al.
2001; Ballard and Huntsinger 2006). This alternative paradigm for natural
resource management is based on the premise that a participatory or communitybased process, which integrates traditional and local ecological knowledge with
conventional science, will better achieve sustainable natural resource use and
biodiversity conservation (Huntington 1997; Sillitoe 1998; Berkes, Colding et al.
2000). Biophysical, socio-economic, and cultural/historical characteristics of the
immediate environment also play a role in determining long-term sustainability.
Thus, the knowledge of local residents is a valuable source of detailed
information on the changes in these indicators over time (Duffington, Gardner et
al. 1998).
The ability to adjust to changing environmental conditions is becoming
increasingly important in a world of uncertainty and surprise (Gunderson 1999).
Recent climate modeling results indicate that “extreme” events may become more
common in the western U.S. as rising average temperatures produce a more
energetic climate system (Tebaldi, Hayhoe et al. 2006). Current knowledge about
responding to climate change tells us that adaptation will be necessary to address
impacts resulting from the warming that is unavoidable from past emissions
6

(IPCC 2007). In addition, future vulnerability is influenced not only by climate
change but also by non-climate stresses that reduce resilience and adaptive
capacity. Resilience as defined here is the buffer capacity or the ability of a
system to absorb disturbances and changing conditions (Holling, Schindler et al.
1995). A recent report assessing the impacts of climate change on Washington’s
economy notes that policymakers should prepare for the possibility that the
economic costs of flooding in Washington will increase as temperatures warm
and climate change proceeds (Bauman, Doppelt et al. 2006). In addition, local
governments may need to reconsider design standards for stormwater collection
systems, bridges, culverts, wastewater collection systems, wastewater treatment
and other critical infrastructure in order to control the effects of higher volumes of
storm-related runoff. Lastly, early efforts to estimate the costs and feasibility of
retrofitting stormwater runoff and combined sewer overflow systems in urban
areas will be important (Bauman, Doppelt et al. 2006).
The most recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change note that sustainable development can reduce vulnerability to climate
change (IPCC 2007). Sustainability, as defined by the World Commission on
Environment and Development (WCED 1987), is development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs.
In the effort to address uncertainty there are many proponents of adaptive
management (Walters 1986). Local ecological knowledge is inherently adaptive
in its emphasis on interpreting and responding to feedbacks from the environment
that signal a need for change in management responses. Traditional survival
7

depended on this intimate understanding of place and ability to adapt. An
Adaptive Management approach today explicitly recognizes the existence of
uncertainty, documents hypotheses about the response of ecological systems to
management intervention, monitors actual responses, and adjusts to management
actions over time, rather than using existing knowledge and predictive models to
select a single “best” fit plan (Failing and Horn 2004). Adaptive management
addresses the unpredictable interactions between people and ecosystems as they
evolve together. Recognition of the importance of experiential knowledge is the
basis of the paradigm of adaptive management of complex ecological systems
(Holling 1978; Gunderson, Holling et al. 1995). For adaptive management to
work, knowledge and understanding of complex ecosystem dynamics needs to
become embedded in a network of institutions that can interpret and respond to
environmental feedback (Holling, Berkes et al. 1998).
Urban Stormwater Management
Cities throughout the world are faced with stormwater management
challenges. Stormwater overflows take place during heavy rains when the utility
piping systems that transport water to sewage treatment facilities are not big
enough to handle all the water entering, and water consequently backs up.
Traditional scientific methods for dealing with stormwater have not been
successful for a variety of reasons and a more adaptive approach is recommended
for urban stormwater management (Wanielista and Yousef 1993).
Cities typically have a mixture of infrastructure for urban drainage and
water pollution control. These various systems were conceived at different times,
planned with different philosophies, designed according to different criteria, and
8

built to operate differently. Thus, it is not surprising that as complete systems,
utility infrastructures have many problems, which require not one solution, but a
set of solutions. It is characteristic of larger North American cities that both
combined sewer and stormwater systems and separated sewer and stormwater
systems service a city. Typically, combined systems are found in the older and
more densely built urban core, while separated systems are found in more recently
developed areas (Adams and Papa 2000).
Two problems related to the operation of combined sewer systems are the
occurrence of combined sewer overflows and the occurrence of combined sewer
surcharge conditions resulting in sewer backup or flooding. Although the sewer
backup problem is not directly related to water quality problems at receiving
water bodies, it is indirectly related as the remediation of sewer backup problems
may compete with the remediation of water quality problems for funding (Adams
and Papa 2000).
An understanding of the principles and concepts of hydrology and
hydraulics is very important for the design and operation of stormwater
management systems. Hydrology is the study of waters and their occurrence on,
above, and below the earth’s surface. Methods to quantify the hydrologic
processes of precipitation, evaporation, transpiration, rainfall excess, runoff, and
infiltration should be known if we are to control flooding and pollution problems
in a technically efficient way. The study of hydraulics aids in explaining and
quantifying the movement of waters on or below the surface. The engineering
aspects of stormwater management also require an examination of the economic,
social, and political impacts of all projects. Thus effective stormwater
9

management requires an interdisciplinary body of knowledge for planning,
design, and operation (Adams and Papa 2000).
The engineering for the Madison Valley project is extremely complex due
to the steepness of the hillsides, the broad area of the drainage basin, and the fact
that the area is heavily paved and densely developed. In addition, social and
environmental factors have played a part in how utility infrastructures have been
implemented over time and will continue to do so. Due to the inconsistent nature
of stormwater management throughout history, it would be valuable for the local
residents to have a better understanding of the existing infrastructure in their
neighborhoods, so that they can provide input based on their intimate knowledge
of the area.
Environmental Justice
The environmental justice paradigm can provide an important framework
for considering how the flooding problem in Madison Valley affects local
residents and how SPU can connect social and environmental issues to its current
project. “Environmental justice can be understood as a local, grassroots, or
“bottom-up” community reaction to external threats to the health of the
community, which have been shown to disproportionately affect people of color
and low-income neighborhoods” (Agyeman 2005). A major influence on the
environmental justice movement is the issue of waste. The economy of the
United States developed rapidly and the immense production that takes place
requires a large amount of land for waste (Bryant 1995). Taylor notes that middle
class Whites and then working class Whites mobilized first to maintain the
integrity of their living communities by using zoning laws, legal challenges, and
10

other means. As a result, industry and governments responded by identifying
areas where there would be less resistance to Locally Unwanted Land Uses, and
these areas were often in people-of-color and low-income communities (Taylor
2002).
The landmark 1987 United Church of Christ study “Toxic Wastes and
Race in the United States” found that certain communities, predominantly
communities of color, are at disproportionate risk from commercial toxic waste.
This finding has been confirmed by later research (Bullard 1990; Bryant and
Mohai 1992; Goldman 1993). Some positive actions to address the environmental
injustices occurring in people-of-color-communities were 1) the First National
People of Color Environmental Summit in 1991 and the resulting formation of the
principles of environmental justice, 2) the formation of hundreds of
environmental justice organizations in the 1990s that influenced corporate
behavior, and 3) President Clinton’s Environmental Justice Executive Order in
1994, which mandated that agencies like the EPA incorporate environmental
justice considerations into their operations. This led to the EPA’s interim
guidelines to identify cases where disproportionate impacts from exposure to
pollution were present and also to the creation of offices and staff positions to
deal with environmental justice issues (Taylor 2002).
The environmental justice movement has expanded the dominant
traditional environmental discourse, based around environmental stewardship, to
include social justice and equity considerations. In doing this, the environment
takes on new meaning. It is no longer just the wilderness, but “where we live,
where we work and where we play” (Alston 1991). The environmental justice
11

movement has been effective at addressing issues of poor people and people of
color, who are disproportionately affected by environmental “bads” such as toxic
facilities, poor transit, and increased air pollution and who have restricted access
to environmental “goods” such as quality green spaces (Agyeman 2005).
Cole and Foster warn that the tendency to look for individual bad actors
obscures the forces at work in producing environmental racism by disaggregating
communities and institutions and isolating them from their social settings (Cole
and Foster 2001: 12). For a broader causal analysis and understanding, they
explain that we must look at the political economy of distributional outcomes.
This is meaningful since there are so many different factors that come into play
when a community is being exposed to more than their fair share of hazards. A
major policy level achievement of the environmental justice movement has been
its critique of expert-led processes in both risk assessment and research and its
ability, with help from those in allied movements such as health, to shape more
transparent, accountable, and democratically informed processes (Agyeman
2005).
Agyeman contributes to the environmental justice movement with the Just
Sustainability Paradigm (JSP) (Agyeman 2005). He believes that the
sustainability and environmental justice movements need to be bridged in order to
be more effective in reaching the goals of both. “If sustainability is to become a
process with the power to transform, as opposed to its current environmental,
stewardship, or reform focus, justice and equity issues need to be incorporated
into its very core” (Agyeman 2005: 6). The following history section will provide

12

details that link flooding in Madison Valley to the environmental justice
framework.
CHAPTER 3 BACKGROUND
History
The neighborhood known today as Madison Valley is centered on the
corner of E. Madison Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way E., which represents
the intersection of the main thoroughfares and the location of the business district.
This neighborhood name and its geographic demarcations were established fairly
recently. Thus, the following history is compiled from references to areas that fall
under the neighborhood’s current boundaries. The history is by no means
comprehensive, but represents landscape transformations, people, and events that
appear to have been integral in influencing what the area is like physically and
socially today.
1. Seattle
A brief environmental history of Seattle describes the social and physical
characteristics of Seattle that influenced the major environmental changes that
took place after Euro-American settlers arrived in Seattle in 1851 (Klingle 2001).
In cities with a great deal of water, attempts to improve upon nature with city
infrastructure have been very challenging (Klingle 2001: 14). The first EuroAmericans saw the landscapes that would become Seattle from the sea. These
travelers saw the region’s watery terrain as both a blessing and a curse, and the
first permanent colonists attempted to divide water from land in order to help the
area grow into a big city and to insure proper functioning of the city (Klingle
2001: 20-21).
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Beginning in the 1880’s residents and outsiders improved and
standardized the city’s diverse wetlands to reduce flooding, reclaim lands, and
build industry. These practices were in direct contrast with the Indian stories of
the landscape, which reveal how they organized their lives to match the rhythms
of the rivers rising and falling, the tides ebbing and flowing, and the lands
submerging and reemerging. In many areas of Seattle, humans have re-structured
nature’s plumbing by straightening rivers to control flooding. Over time, the
salmon born in the small creeks that drained into Lake Union found their
waterways paved over and converted into storm drains (Klingle 2001: 25).
In the early days of Euro-American settlement in Seattle, only an elite
group of people made the decisions about which areas of the young city would be
transformed. From the 1850’s through to the early 1900’s, residents of Seattle
toiled to solidify the boundaries between land and water. Out of these struggles
with water, Seattle’s spatial problems were recast as social and technical
challenges best solved by trained experts (Klingle 2001: 16).
2. Madison Valley
The last of the great glaciers, The Vashon, shaped Seattle’s Lake
Washington neighborhoods, including Madison Valley, approximately 10,000
years ago (Rochester 2001). Historically, the low-lying section of Madison
Valley was the bed of a salmon stream which flowed via a gully north to Union
Bay in Lake Washington through what is now the Washington Park Arboretum.
The stream crossed today’s East Madison Street at 30th Avenue East. This was
the natural drainage route for the drainage basin (Seattle 1975). The Duwamish
tribe were the indigenous people of metropolitan Seattle and they used the low14

lying area of Madison Valley as hunting, fishing, and gathering ground, while
their seasonal camps were at various locations along the shores of Lake
Washington (Rochester 2001). They were forced off this prime land in 1856
(www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/salish/duwamishhist.htm 2007).
Two early residents shaped the physical layout of what is known today as
Madison Valley. The first was Judge John McGilvra who settled 420 acres near
Madison Park in 1864 (Hitchman 1967: 7). McGilvra moved to the Washington
Territories after President Lincoln named him United States District Attorney for
the Washington Territory. McGilvra’s influence on the area comes from the
housing he helped create and the recreational facilities near Lake Washington he
developed which brought people to that end of town. At the time McGilvra
purchased property near Lake Washington it was considered far outside of the
city. To provide a connection to town and to promote his real estate development,
McGilvra spent $1500 from 1864-65 to clear and construct the Lake Washington
Wagon Road from town to his property on Lake Washington (Greenblat 1997).
Today that former wagon road is known as E. Madison Street. This road became
a popular by-way for summer visitors as Madison Park grew to be a vacation
destination. Due to increased activity on the road, McGilvra started a cable
railway company and built a trestle through the core of Madison Valley in 1889
that ran over the salmon stream and gully and headed to the shores of Lake
Washington (Bagley 1916). Stagecoaches ran from Elliott Bay to Lake
Washington every two minutes in the summer time (Kim 2001).
The next major settler to the area was William Grose who bought twelve
acres from Henry Yesler in 1882. Born in Washington D.C. in 1835, he was the
15

son of a free Black restaurant owner. Grose moved to Seattle via California and
British Columbia in 1861 and his wife Sarah and two of his children followed
soon after (Taylor 1994). After working initially as a cook in local establishments,
he bought property, built rental houses, and owned and operated Our House
restaurant and hotel in downtown Seattle. The twelve acres he bought for $1000
in gold spanned from 23rd Avenue to 27th Avenue and from Olive St. to Howell St.
Although the wagon road had been cleared over twenty years earlier, the
northeastern end of the city where Grose bought his land was still mostly
undeveloped and heavily forested until the Madison Cable Railway was added in
1889. Bears inhabited part of the forested area during this time as well (Mumford
1980).
Mr. Grose used his property as a ranch and continued to live downtown
until the fire of 1889 destroyed his hotel. After the fire, he moved his family to
the ranch and he and his son George operated a truck farm. After moving to E.
Madison St. William Grose, (and after his death, George), began selling land to
other Black families, which resulted in the development of Seattle’s first stable,
working class African American neighborhood (Mumford 1980). By 1900, with
the largest concentration of Black homeowners, the emerging African American
middle class aspired to live and own in East Madison (Taylor 1994). America’s
entry into World War I (1917-1919) encouraged new, modest housing to be built
in Madison Valley for the influx of shipyard workers (Rochester 2001).
The following oral history provides anecdotal memories of the stream and the
beginnings of the community that settled what is now known as Madison Valley:

16

[T]here was several streams of water that came up from Lake
Washington… well, all the streams that came up as we knew 'em,
they came up through and they went into Lake Washington, that is
draining from the City of Seattle. And there was one that came
through the Arboretum… then. It still does, but it's underground
in… oh, a five foot concrete pipe now. And it came up down in
through where… East Madison; at the time they called it Coon’s
Hollow. And the reason they called it that, there was a enterprising
fellow here name Presto. And he turned himself into a… got a job
as a land salesman, one of the big companies at the time. And he
plotted - the company did - platted this all down in that East
Madison district, they plotted that out into lots. That used to be, oh
three or four farms down there. And they plotted that out into lots,
and he had the job selling those lots. Well, then he went around
and knocked on the door of every minority person in Seattle that
had a dark face and tried to sell 'em lots down there. And they
bought lots and started buying, building houses down there.
And… so it was 99% minorities lived down there… And this here
stream run up through there and it was quite a little stream. It run
up through there, oh, it run up around to where… East Union
Street is now. And the salmon would come up there, and we
would go down there with our bicycles, and had a pitchfork and a
gunnysack. And we had a little bulls-eye lantern. …And it showed
a pretty good light, and we would shine that in the water. And
we'd see one of these salmon coming along and we'd take the
pitchfork and spear 'em and take 'em out… and put him in the sack.
And when we got four or five of those salmon in the sack, why
then we'd… tie it on to the front of our bicycles and then go on
back. Go home” (Moss 1975).
As a result of the valley becoming more developed, a 54-inch sewer line
was constructed down the route of the gulley and continued to the Montlake
District. This is the combined trunk sewer which serves this area at the present
time (Seattle 1975). In 1915, with the passing of the cable car era, a land-fill was
created across the gulley in an effort to replace the Madison Street trestle and
form what would become the permanent automobile road (Seattle 1975; Taft
1993). The landfill effectively dammed the natural drainage route. The salmon
stream dried up and the remaining trickle of water was routed through a pipe to
the Washington Park Arboretum (Rochester 2001). The elevated road also
17

blocked Madison Valley residents from being able to walk directly to the wild
growth that would later become the Washington Park Arboretum (Rochester
2001).
In 1923 informal covenants prevented Blacks from buying property north
of E. Madison St., which soon led to formal covenants restricting the selling of
property to Blacks in many sections of the city (Mumford 1993). The 1940s were
a tough time for Madison Valley as the area was in economic decline. There were
neighborhood brothels and some homes sat empty. The turmoil of the 1960s and
1970s was felt here and with the “white flight” to the suburbs during these years,
Madison Valley remained primarily an African American neighborhood. The
headquarters of the Black Panther movement was just ten blocks away in
Madrona (Rochester 2001).
3. Forward Thrust
On February 13, 1968 voters in King County approved Proposition 6, a
bond proposal also known as Forward Thrust. Forward Thrust was a major works
program with bond proposals for parks, transportation, community housing, water
issues, and more (Burrows 2003). Forward Thrust sewer separation bonds
totaling $70,000,000 were made available to finance storm and sanitary separation
projects for areas of Seattle which had problems with sewer backups, overloaded
combined sewers, and overflows to beaches and water bodies. Eighteen thousand
acres of land in Seattle were designated for this project. Lake Washington North
was the name of the project in the Madison Valley drainage basin, which
reportedly covered over one thousand acres and was isolated from the nearest
receiving water body (Lake Washington) by a high ridge on the east and the
18

Arboretum on the north (Seattle 1975). The Draft Environmental Impact
Statement (DEIS) for Lake Washington North Unit 1, Contract 2, Harrison Street
Tunnel (1975) notes that the first steps had already been taken towards sewer
separation in Lake Washington Unit 1. The two completed areas were
temporarily being discharged into the existing combined trunk sewer line at 30th
and East John. Further separation contracts could not proceed until a method of
transporting the storm water already collected and the additional amount
anticipated from the remaining contract areas to Lake Washington was developed.
The preferred alternative in the 1975 DEIS would have tunneled stormwater to an
outfall in Lake Washington via Harrison Street at an estimated cost of $3,600,000.
Other alternatives were considered in this DEIS, including a drainage
route through the Arboretum via a long pipe or through the natural drainage
channel, which would have required alterations to the existing streambed. The
estimated cost for this alternative was $4,525,000, but public sentiment against
disruption of the Arboretum combined with the studies being conducted on
minute organisms found in the streambed essentially precluded the use of any
route through the Arboretum.
Another alternative analyzed in the DEIS was a 5.5 acre holding basin,
which would be located west of the Martin Luther King School, bounded by East
Republican Street on the north, East Harrison Street on the south, Dewey Place on
the west and 32nd Avenue East on the east. The environmental impacts for this
alternative were high as well due to the need to remove 40 homes and find
equivalent housing for those households. A noted positive of this alternative was
that if there was ever a need to treat stormwater runoff before allowing it to
19

discharge into the lake, this receiving basin would provide a practical location for
accomplishing this. An ongoing loss of $14,000 to $20,000 per year from the lost
taxes on the homes was forecasted. This alternative was expected to cost
$3,600,000 (Seattle 1975).
The DEIS considered the Do Nothing alternative and stated that:
Without a storm outfall for the system, there is a possibility that
there could be backups and flooding on the combined sewers
upstream from the new temporary connection at 30th and East John
which must be used until the outfall system is activated. This
inaction would nullify the will of the voters who authorized the
project of sewer separation (Seattle 1975).
The primary goal of this project was to upgrade the quality of the lake by
removing stormwater from the combined sewers and in turn reduce the number of
overflows of combined sewage into the lake (33).
It is unclear exactly why this project was never completed. An unofficial
Madison Valley question and answers letter from SPU to the flood victims in
2004 reports that this segment of the project was rejected by Seattle citizens
because it was too expensive. Environmental concerns over the health of Lake
Washington have also been noted (S.P.U. 2005). At the Greater Madison Valley
Community Council meeting on February 21, 2007 City Councilmember Richard
Conlin stated that a failed bond measure was the reason the project was not
completed.1
It would be valuable to know when this vote did take place and what it
was competing with, but regardless of that information, the outcome of the initial
1

A public disclosure request to the City Clerk’s office was made in March 2007 to find out more
information on the failed bond measure that precluded the finishing of the stormwater separation
project at 30th and East John Streets, including the date and possibly the financial extent of the
bond. No response was received.

20

phase of the drainage separation project in 1973 created a scenario where
stormwater is conveyed to the valley floor very quickly. The only discharge from
this area during storms has been a 60” Combined Sewer (CS) line which does not
have sufficient capacity to convey stormwater and wastewater from the basin
north to the Arboretum and the King County CS line (S.P.U. 2005). As a result,
stormwater and sewage has backed up into streets, yards, and basements since the
1970s on average every four years (S.P.U. 2005). The repeated backups and
flooding and the severity of the more recent storms have resulted in the
community’s loss of trust in the City to provide basic services (S.P.U. 2005).
4. Current SPU Project
Due to this history of flooding and a large storm on August 22, 2004,
Mayor Greg Nickels and Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) committed to
implementing a project that would address the inadequate utility infrastructure in
this area. On December 28, 2006, SPU completed the interim solution phase of
their project. The interim solution condemned five properties and created a one
million gallon detention pond. In addition, flow control gates were installed to
direct stormwater into the pond rather than the CS line until there is enough room
in the CS line to drain the pond. Unfortunately, this phase was two weeks from
completion when the December 14, 2006 storm hit, so the CS line at 30th and East
John backed up again. The one positive outcome of the December 14, 2006 storm
is that it provided SPU’s project engineers with needed volume and flow data for
their analysis and modeling of the long-term solutions to the utility problem.

21

The drainage area in Madison Valley is approximately 790 acres
(CH2MHill 2007). Long-term solutions are currently under review by SPU
(Figure 2). The preferred alternatives that were presented during the December
28, 2006 community hearing have changed a bit as a result of further analysis
based on the December 14, 2006 storm event as well as meetings with other
government agencies (ESC 2007). An alternative previously called Alternative B
was taken off the preferred list after the engineers learned that King County’s
Combined Sewer line under the Washington Park Arboretum reached capacity
during the December 14, 2006 storm. The fact that the King County line

Figure 2. SPU’s Preferred Long-Term Solution Alternatives. Alternative A represents a
covered tank in place of the current detention pond area at 30th & E. John. Alternative B
represents a conveyance pipe from the existing detention pond to an underground tank at
Washington Park. Alternative C represents a conveyance pipe from the detention pond to
Lake Washington. Adapted from Seattle Public Utilities.

22

surcharged on December 14, precludes any long-term solution that would convey
additional stormwater from Madison Valley directly into the King County line
during a storm (S.P.U. 2005).
Alternative C, which entails tunneling stormwater along Harrison Street
directly to Lake Washington, was added to the list of alternatives after the
December, 14, 2006 storm. However, this alternative is much more expensive
and time-consuming due to regulatory requirements at the state and federal level.
In addition, there are challenges to getting the majority of the stormwater into the
conveyance pipe. As a result, at the May 31, 2007 SPU reported that they do not
think it represents a viable long-term solution alternative (ESC 2007). In May
2007, SPU completed the computer model they will use to analyze the options
and are currently considering Option A and Option B. In addition, they are
considering the benefits of diverting the Northwest lobe of the drainage basin
north to Washington Park, so that there is less stormwater coming to the
combined sewer line at 30th and East John (See Figure 6).
Principal Stakeholders
It is important to identify the stakeholders in a project like this to get an
understanding of who SPU and the Madison Valley community will need to
negotiate with in order move forward with a long-term solution. The following
list represents the stakeholders of which I am aware. There is some overlap of
members within these groups.
1. The Madison Valley residents are a primary stakeholder due to damage
and losses in their homes and property from the CS line backups and the

23

excessive surface street runoff mentioned above. An effective solution to the
problem is vital to the well-being of the community.
2. Seattle Public Utilities is the agency working on the long-term solution
and is responsible for studying engineering feasibility and obtaining the land,
permits, and funding for the project.
3. An organized group of flood victims who have made claims for
damages are known as the Madison Valley Victims Association (MVVA). This
group formed after the August 2004 storm and continues to meet to support each
other, share information regarding the claims process, and consider their legal
options. Members of this group have expressed a loss in the value of their homes
due to the flooding problems.
4. The Madison Valley Engineering Sub-Committee (ESC) formed upon
request by the community as a result of the loss of trust in the City. This group
consists of SPU and community representatives and the meetings are open. In
regularly scheduled meetings, the SPU project team provides progress updates
and the community members provide feedback as representatives of the
neighborhood. John Frech of BHC Consultants was previously the community
liaison employed by the City to provide an independent opinion and engineering
translation to the community representatives. As of May 10, 2007 John Frech had
to step down from this position and the new community liaison is John Rogers of
CH2MHill (ESC 2007).
5. The Seattle Parks Department is a stakeholder since the long-term
alternatives under consideration involve a detention tank and/or conveyance pipes
to be built under the soccer field at Washington Park.
24

6. The Washington Park Arboretum is a stakeholder as it represents the
historic natural drainage for Madison Valley, which some would like to see
restored.
7. King County Public Utilities is a stakeholder as SPU’s CS lines feed
into the King County CS line located under Washington Park. The King County
CS line then runs northwest to West Point Treatment Plant where the combined
storm and sewer water is treated before being released into Puget Sound.
8. The Greater Madison Valley Community Council (GMVCC) is the
local neighborhood association. They hold monthly meetings where residents of
the area have historically expressed concerns, which are on occasion conveyed to
City leadership by letter. The group uses the Valley View newsletter as its main
mode of communication with residents today. The members all volunteer their
time.
9. Greg Nickels, the mayor of Seattle, and the City Council members have
political power in Seattle and thus are stakeholders as well.
Influential policies
There are many policies that come into play in the analysis of a long-term
solution to the flooding in Madison Valley. Some of the following policies have
been mentioned in meetings with SPU. Some are policies that I or other Madison
Valley residents believe influence the problem and should be considered in the
long-term solution of the flooding problem. Undoubtedly, there are many
additional policies and regulations that affect SPU’s long-term solution analysis
and implementation of which I am not aware.

25

First, SPU has a Wastewater Comprehensive Plan with a drainage and
wastewater level of service that strives for: “No side-sewer backups in private
residences due to inadequate SPU conveyance systems” (S.P.U. 2005). The
storms which cause flooding in Madison Valley do not qualify under the
parameters of this Comprehensive Drainage Plan level of service because they are
very short duration storms (10-30 minutes) as compared to the more common
intermediate duration storms (24 hours), which generally do not cause flooding.
However, SPU’s current project seeks to deliver an improved drainage service in
Madison Valley that meets the Comprehensive Plan level of service (S.P.U.
2005).
Any project that would send stormwater into a waterway must get permits
that meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. When stormwater is
pumped into Lake Washington it can have negative affects on the water’s
ecosystems. Today, if stormwater was to be piped into Lake Washington, as was
the plan in the 1970s, the regulatory process would be more rigorous. SPU is
required to consult and get permit approval from the Washington Department of
Ecology, US Fish and Wildlife, NOAA Fisheries, US Army Corp of Engineers,
and the Native American Tribal governments in order to release stormwater into
Lake Washington. The State Environmental Protection Act (SEPA) requirements
would have to be met. In addition, the National Environmental Protection Act
(NEPA) process would likely need to be followed due to salmon’s status on the
federal endangered species list (ESC 2007). Today, stormwater has to be treated
before entering Lake Washington. Constructing a treatment facility that meets

26

today’s standards on land directly east of Madison Valley would be more
expensive than the construction of the piping system itself (ESC 2007).
The Growth Management Act (GMA) is a policy that affects development
in Washington State. The GMA mandates that counties, and the localities within
them, adopt comprehensive plans to regulate growth by creating denser urban
areas that limit suburban and rural sprawl (Martin 2002). Portion of the hillsides
west of Madison Valley have consequently been re-zoned for multi-unit housing.
As a protective measure, the GMA also demands that infrastructure keep up with
development: “public facilities and services necessary to support development
shall be adequate to serve the development at the time the development is
available for occupancy and use without decreasing current service levels below
established minimum standards” (RCW 36.70A070). Generally this code applies
to traffic infrastructure, but logically it would also apply to utility infrastructure in
and around new construction. The GMA also encourages policies that require
developers to pay impact fees that will help pay for public facilities and services
required to meet the needs of new developments. These fees are passed on to the
buyer in the price of the dwelling (Martin 2002).
Seattle Public Utilities decides what utility infrastructure is necessary on
newly developed properties to capture storm and sewer water (Regan 2007).
Thus, their policies affect how much more storm and sewer water from new
construction is routed to 30th and East John.
Seattle Department of Planning and Development sets limits on the
percentage of a property that can be impervious (or not able to absorb water). In
the Madison Valley drainage basin, these percentages have an influence on the
27

quantity and quality of stormwater runoff that flows to the low-lying sections of
the valley.2
CHAPTER 4 METHODS
Research paradigm
Based on the research goal of obtaining the knowledge held by local
residents that could inform SPU’s current utility project, I employed methods
from the fields of community based action research and qualitative interviewing.
Community based action research (CBAR) employs a collaborative approach to
inquiry that endeavors to give people the means to take action to resolve specific
problems. CBAR favors participatory procedures that enable people to
investigate systematically their problems and issues, in order to formulate
accounts of situations and to devise plans to deal with the problems. It makes use
of techniques and strategies commonly used in behavioral and social sciences, and
uses terminology that is accessible to both professional practitioners and
laypersons. It is designed to encourage an approach to research that potentially
has practical or theoretical outcomes and provides conditions for continuing
action through the formation of a sense of community (Stringer 1999).
Action research has much in common with other traditions including
practitioner research, action inquiry, action science, and community development.
CBAR works on the assumption that all stakeholders whose lives are affected by
the problem under study should be engaged in the process of investigation. By
sharing their diverse knowledge and experiences, experts - professional and

2

I contacted a public disclosure officer and employees at DPD to find out the impervious surface
limits in the Madison Valley region, but did not receive a response.

28

laymen - can create solutions to their problems and, in the process, improve their
quality of life. As stakeholders collectively investigate their own situation, they
build a cohesive vision of the reality of the issue under study (Stringer 1999).
CBAR seeks to change the dynamics of research so that it is noncompetitive, non-exploitative and enhances the lives of all those who participate.
Cooperation and consensus making should be the primary orientation of the
research activity. It seeks to link groups that are potentially in conflict to attain
viable, sustainable, and effective solutions to their common problems through
dialogue and negotiation. By including people in decisions about programs and
services that serve them, practitioners extend their knowledge base and
considerably mobilize the resources of the community. This can create the
potential to alleviate many interconnected problems (Stringer, 1999).
The CBAR process presented here is derived from the interpretive
research processes suggested by Denzin and Lincoln (2000) and Rubin and Rubin
(2005). It is based on the assumption that knowledge inherent in people’s
everyday, taken-for-granted lives is as valid and useful as knowledge linked to
concepts and theories of the academic disciplines or bureaucratic policies and
procedures. The intent is to concede the limitations of expert knowledge and to
acknowledge the competence, experience, understanding, and wisdom of ordinary
people. It seeks to “give voice” to people who have previously been silent
research subjects.
CBAR coupled with qualitative interviewing is an optimal method for this
research project because there is a large body of anecdotal knowledge held in the
Madison Valley neighborhood that is not readily available to the engineers
29

working on the long-term solution. The City’s records on prior flooding in homes
and yards is not readily accessible prior to the late 1990’s (DeBoldt 2007; Regan
2007). Since this problem dates back to at least the early 1970s, it would be
valuable to compile data from residents on frequency and levels of flooding over
the years (DeBoldt 2007). In addition, since the current project only began in
2004, data on flow and depth of water in the area is limited (ESC 2007). Since
the residents have an understanding and recollection of how the flooding
phenomena have changed over time, this research attempts to supplement the
monitored data with experiential observations.
The residents have an awareness of: 1) How often their homes and yards
have flooded since they have lived in Madison Valley, 2) Where the excess water
that gets into their homes and yards is coming from, 3) Whether this problem has
gotten worse, 4) If so, why they think it is getting worse, and 5) What a successful
long-term solution requires.
Research process
1. Position of the researcher
I have been a resident of Madison Valley since 2004 and have experienced
a small amount of flooding from combined sewer backups in the basement during
the 2004 and 2006 storms and surface water flooding in the yard in 2006.
2. Traits of key participants
In order to begin research it was necessary to identify the key participants.
When conducting qualitative research by interview, it is important to find
participants who are experienced and knowledgeable of the flooding problem.
Experience in this research comes from having relevant, first-hand experience
30

with flooding. Knowledgeable participants were those who have lived in Madison
Valley for over twenty years and residents who have been active in the
community. Only talking to residents whom I already knew would not have
provided a balanced and accurate picture (Rubin and Rubin 2005). However, the
first few participants selected were the neighbors with whom I was acquainted,
who had flooded on multiple occasions and expressed detailed observations and
understanding of the problem.
Next I contacted representatives of the Greater Madison Valley
Community Council and the local newsletter, the Valley View, to inform them of
the project. As a result of this contact, a box of archived neighborhood
documents with a section on “Flooding” was provided for the research.
Reviewing the archived neighborhood documents provided a better understanding
of who had lived in the neighborhood for a long time and who had taken time to
be actively involved in the community. From this review of documents, a list was
constructed with names of people who qualified as key residents for a first round
of interviews. The yearly Madison Valley spaghetti dinner and pancake breakfast
events took place soon after this review and I was able to meet some of the key
residents at these social events and schedule interviews. During the first few
interviews other people were suggested as potential participants due to their
proximity to the flood zone, their membership in the Engineering Sub-Committee,
and/or their length of residency in Madison Valley.
Presenting the research project at the Greater Madison Valley Community
Council meeting on February 21, 2006 provided more volunteers and referrals for
interview participation. Additionally, joining the Madison Valley Engineering
31

Sub-Committee meeting on February 22, 2006, provided an opportunity to meet
residents who have been actively involved in representing the community through
their membership on this committee. These residents had already done substantial
work with the City’s engineers, studying the interim and long-term solutions.
3. Interview Preparation
To prepare for this research project and the interviews with residents, I
met with Linda DeBoldt, SPU’s Project Specifier for the Madison Valley project,
to learn more about the interim project and long-term solution plans. I also met
with John Frech, the independent engineer/community liaison, to get a better
understanding of how the interim solution works. In addition, I worked with
Guillemette Regan, Seattle Public Utilities Public Disclosure Officer, to try to
understand what effects combined sewer overflows in Madison Valley have on
Lake Washington and to inquire about when the bond measure failed. These
meetings were all very helpful.
4. Interview Participants
Residents have a vested interest in a long-term solution. Their response to
this research project has been positive and many people were willing to spend
valuable time, sharing their understanding of the problem and what they believed
would constitute a solution. Ultimately, fifteen residents were interviewed for
this project. The length of time these participants had lived in Madison Valley
ranged from three to fifty-five years. The interviews generally took place in
participants’ homes, and were recorded. Some of the participants have more at
stake than others as they have received more frequent and intense flooding over
the years. However, since the goal of the research is to find out what residents
32

know about the area they live in, all viewpoints are equally relevant. All
interviewees were informed that their names and addresses would be kept
confidential. Due to the fact that some residents have asked SPU to compensate
them for a loss of property value and have expressed that they may sue for this
loss of property value, I did not want interview participants to feel intimidated
about talking openly about their flooding experiences for fear that it would have
any negative effects on their specific home’s value.
Capture
This study used interviewing, data collection, and data analysis procedures
suggested by Stringer (1999), Lincoln and Guba (1989), Denzin (2000), and
Rubin and Rubin (2005). The questions that were asked of the interviewees
included:
1. How long the resident had lived in Madison Valley.
2. How many times their properties had flooded and to what level.
3. How the water reached their property.
4. How their property had been modified to deal with the excess water.
5. What they thought were the biggest contributors to flooding.
6. Which of SPU’s alternatives they preferred.
7. What other ideas they had for a long-term solution.
8. Whether they would like to see SPU involve the community.
9. What they would like to know more about for their own analysis.
10. Whether they thought there was anything the residents of Madison Valley
should do to advance their preferred long-term solution.

33

The interviews were recorded with a Sony Walkman and generally lasted
one hour or more. They were conducted from February 19, 2007 to April 5, 2007.
A couple of the participants drew the water’s overland flow on a map of the
Madison Valley basin. One participant took me on a walk to show how the water
moved through the streets and backyards.
Other data collection included compiling news articles on the flooding in
Madison Valley from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Times. Copies
of the Seattle Star, the Madison Park Times, and the Valley View newsletter that
contained flooding articles were provided by residents. The Greater Madison
Community Council provided documentation of flooding from the 1990’s and
early 2000’s. Community Council files prior to the 1990s are no longer available
as they had reportedly been stored at the now closed Martin Luther King, Jr.
elementary school and were destroyed by an administrator.
After interviews I spent time walking around the neighborhood to find the
wet areas mentioned in interviews. Sometimes I took a camera to photograph the
scenes as a way to make the narrative descriptions more meaningful. Lastly, I
have attended all of the Engineering Sub-Committee meetings since February to
stay apprised of SPU’s progress on the engineering analysis of the project and to
learn more from the community representatives about the ideas and priorities
expressed by community members.
Interpretive procedures
Established procedures enable researchers to reduce, condense, or distill
information, so that significant features of people’s experience become available
in a readily accessible form. This section describes details of procedures used for
34

this reduction process. In general, these forms of analysis establish categories and
key elements of experience that provide the framework and content of accounts
that form the results section of this research. Denzin and Lincoln (2000), Guba
and Lincoln (1989), and Rubin and Rubin (2005) informed the way I went about
constructing the evaluation of information that follows.
In order to expand the current state of knowledge held by SPU with an
additional construction of knowledge based on the local knowledge in the
neighborhood, I developed a list of the major themes that came up in the
interviews and created codes or abbreviations for each theme. Then as I read
through the transcribed interviews the codes were added where appropriate. I was
then able to pull together all the different responses related to one category. After
I had categorized the responses, I organized the categories around broader topic
areas (i.e. definition of the problem, major contributors to the problem, ideas for
solutions to the problem, desire for community involvement, and environmental
justice concerns). When possible I endeavor to use the actual language from the
interviews to share the knowledge. The thick descriptions from the interviews
provide vicarious experience, which may challenge the current constructions of
the flooding problem and lead to new, more broadly informed constructions of the
problem and solution to flooding in Madison Valley (Geertz 1973; Guba and
Lincoln 1989). There are many ways to organize information and to put together
an interpretive constructivist evaluation. The order used here is what appeared
most logical to me.

35

Rigor
1. Credibility
Credibility of the participants was originally established through my own prior
relationship with them, through their community involvement, and/or by referral
from other trusted residents. I spent an hour or more with the participants in each
interview. When recurring themes were voiced I listened carefully to see if
people were corroborating observations.
2. Transferability
In reading the narratives provided, readers in other neighborhoods
throughout the country who are experiencing problems due to out-of-date
stormwater systems may find similarities. The narratives may also be recognized
by other neighborhoods in the Puget Sound that are experiencing flooding and
would like to see a broader knowledge base involved in the construction of the
problem and solutions. The research will hopefully demonstrate that local
ecological knowledge can provide valuable insights in urban areas that are
situated in built and modified natural environments.
3. Dependability and confirmability
Though my situation as a resident in this neighborhood is unique, I believe
that if this method was employed by others, similar results would be obtained.
4. Limitations
A limitation of this research endeavor was that home ownership in
Madison Valley has changed dramatically since the 1970s when the combined
sewer backup problem is believed to have started. Valuable residents who hold
key historical knowledge no longer live in the neighborhood or have passed away.
36

Additionally, there are many existing residents who would be valuable research
participants for this project, but due to time constraints, I was only able to
interview fifteen residents to construct this body of research. Lastly, though the
research methods used in this project were inspired by Community Based Action
Research, I was unable to fulfill the “action” element of this method, meaning I
have not gone back over the results with the interview participants to define a
combined vision of the problem and possible solutions. I believe in the value of
creating cohesive goals and plans within the community and with SPU and hope
that as I continue to be involved as a community resident and not a student, there
will be more time to work on creating goals for this project that are collaborative.
Ethical issues
Ethical issues were addressed in the Human Subjects Review Application
process at The Evergreen State College. I decided that it would be best to keep
participants identities and addresses confidential, so that they would feel safe in
sharing what they knew. Participants were also informed ahead of time that the
interviews might cause anguish to those who have experienced great losses from
the flooding of their property and/or their neighbors’ properties. All participants
were informed that they were welcome to a copy of the thesis when it is complete.
CHAPTER 5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this section, results from the interviews, community documents, and
Engineering Sub-Committee meetings are synthesized and broken down by
subject. Narratives are included as much as possible, since the goal of the
research is to establish the residents’ knowledge of the problem. At the end of
each subject area, possible points of future discussion are suggested.
37

The first thing I inquired of interview participants was whether their home,
yard, or basement had flooded and how and when that had happened. Everyone
had experienced water in their basements and yards, except for one local
participant, who had friends and family members who had since the 1960’s.
How the flooding occurs
There are a variety of ways that the water enters people’s basements in
this area. Some get it seeping through the cracks in their basement during or after
rains because of saturated groundwater. One person noted, “As the water plate
would rise, the water would literally bubble up through my basement foundation.”
Many houses have sump pumps and drainpipe systems to convey the groundwater
seepage to the utility system, their yard, or the street before it reaches their
basement floor. In the heaviest rains, “if there’s enough stormwater in the system,
the sump pumps will fail and some people… have water coming back out into
their [basement] drains, especially if they don’t have a check valve.” The third
way is when water “comes over the sides of people’s foundations or down
through stairwells and rushes into the basements.” This water consists of surface
runoff and/or combined sewer backup from pipes in the streets. A long-time
resident described how during the heaviest storms the water would “pop those
caps off the middle of the street and water would spew up like a fountain five or
six feet up in the air. It is just a big fountain of water spewing up.”
Some properties retain water in the backyard during the winter. One
resident dug a hole in her backyard for water retention and in the winter “this area
fills up with water like a pond.” Her neighbor has a sump pump in his yard that
goes out to the street to help with drainage. On the blocks that had very low-lying
38

yards, many residents have filled them in with dirt or compost to help keep things
dry. One resident explained that, “A lot of the people on this block for many
years have been putting fill in their backyard… If you looked at the height of the
backyards over time it looks like a checkerboard. People are just trying to build
above. I guess the clay is what causes us to have standing water.”
Another resident who used to have standing water in her backyard in the
wintertime changed the landscaping.
There was just grass back there. What we did is we removed the
fences, plowed up the grass and re-landscaped and created in
essence a huge drainage. We’re putting in rock, using it to create
paths and a patio area and the base of that is gravel and sand. Most
of our drainage problems went away because of that.
The variety of methods that residents have used to deal with water on their
property is one example of the local ecological knowledge (LEK) that exists in
this area. Situations on any given property are unique and inspire a multitude of
techniques for keeping basements and garages as dry as possible. This experience
on personal property contributes to a keen observance of water throughout the
drainage basin. Many of the participants were additionally able to describe the
areas in the neighborhood where they had seen the most standing water.
The majority of the residents I spoke with had flooded at least twice
recently: on August 22, 2004 and on December 14, 2006. A few had flooding in
their basements and yards dating back to the 1970’s. The majority of the
participants in this research did not have finished basements. Thus, their losses
were not as great. However, one resident who has lived in Madison Valley for
twenty years and had not flooded prior to December 14, 2006 lost “family
heirloom photos from the 1900s and her great grandfather’s desk that he sat in at
39

the bank.” Those who do have finished basements lost much more and have
made claims to have their basements repaired. However, many of the antique
items may not be compensated for under the insurance guidelines. Some
participants expressed strong opinions that there “should not be finished
basements in the lowest points.”
This is a contentious issue since many of the residents in Madison Valley
rely on their basements as living space and suffer when it is not usable. However,
until the long-term solution is implemented there is still danger that finished
basements will be damaged again. In the Engineering Sub-Committee meetings,
we are discussing emergency plans that include methods to: 1) drain backyards
during medium storms, 2) alert people when the detention pond is beginning to
fill up, and 3) sandbag homes and garages. The community representatives have
suggested ideas for these emergency practices based on their knowledge of the
area that SPU engineers have found helpful.
Understanding of what contributes to the problem
1. Natural features
A second question posed in the interviews asked what the participants
thought was the main contributor to flooding in this area. A common factor
identified was the steepness of the hills surrounding the valley.
The essential part is that we’re at the bottom of the valley.
Naturally water’s going to run downhill. You’ve got Capitol Hill
around us and Madison Park.
SPU has also spoken to this point, pointing out that the average grade of
surfaces in the drainage basin is 10% (ESC 2007). Poor draining clay soil was
also acknowledged as a contributor. Many participants took their observations of
40

the natural features of the area that encourage flooding a step further and noted
the prior history of the streambed here and their concern that the blocking of its
route at Madison Street is a major problem during storms:
This is an old streambed. A stream used to run down here and
along Madison, so from what I know of what SPU has done
historically there’s not a lot of way for water to get out of the
valley once it comes down. So when we get a lot of runoff coming
down from all the hills, it runs in the valley and has nowhere to go.
Another participant shared that:
There were photos of the area before these roads were elevated or
built up a little bit that show that there was an intermit stream at
the bottom of the valley every year, every rainy season basically.
So these streets, because they’re built above the level of the
valley… the natural drainage of the area was totally closed off.
Usually out in rural areas there are culverts under them. So these
are dams with no culverts under them. It’s been really interesting
to us why that wasn’t part of the temporary solution, to open up the
natural drainage. I think we’re especially sensitized to this now
after Hurricane Katrina. Because I’m a geographer and taught
physical and environmental geography, I’ve always been interested
in these kinds of issues about natural drainage. But it was really
frustrating that instead of doing something that is more natural…
like for instance… daylighting the stream in the Ravenna Creek
project, why nothing like that was discussed here at all. Like it’s
always been an infrastructure thing. They’re always going to build
bigger and bigger pipes, bigger and bigger holding things and why
haven’t there been different considerations like that? The City
created these dams and so basically we’re behind a dam every
summer… the 200 and 300 blocks especially… We just imagine
that somehow or another anything that approaches the Arboretum
is sacrosanct. So they’re not going to do anything to help this
neighborhood if it does anything that the Arboretum doesn’t want,
because it’s our precious jewel. Like anywhere else, it [the water]
might do some damage but it’s insignificant. [A]long the
streambed, there are streambed plants; it [the Arboretum
streambed] doesn’t seem like it’s that fragile in that sense. For
millennia, every so often, a bunch of water went through it. I think
you definitely want to protect it. You want to make sure there’s
nothing unnatural happening to it, but I don’t see why there would
be.

41

The residents of Madison Valley are definitely concerned about the manmade dam under E. Madison Street and solution ideas for this problem will be
presented in following sections. The sentiment that the Washington Park
Arboretum or the soccer field present barriers to protecting the homes in Madison
Valley is something that many participants were concerned about. They would
really like to see the City departments work together on this to find a solution that
makes sense for the neighborhood and the Washington Park Arboretum.
2. Environmental Injustice
As noted above in the history section, Madison Valley was an African
American and lower income neighborhood for most of its existence as a
developed area. SPU’s research into this problem for the current project has
established that there have been ten storms that have caused combined sewer
backups in the vicinity of 30th and East John since the separation of stormwater
pipes was implemented in the early 1970s (S.P.U. 2006). Though the August
2004 and December 2006 storms were the most intense in recorded history, there
is a sentiment among some residents that the reason the City is finally working on
a project is because in 2004 the racial and economic make-up of the neighborhood
had changed and that this was evident at the community hearing after this flood.
One participant described the social history of the neighborhood:
It was the first working class black neighborhood in Seattle. And
there are a lot of people, our Black neighbors, who are living in the
houses they were born in. These are like multiple generation
households where the house was built by a grandparent of
somebody that’s still living in that house, all over the
neighborhood.

42

Another participant pragmatically stated:
The old saying is that the majority of the people when it was first
happening in that area were African American and you know race
does play an issue. They weren’t going to get any attention until
there was a significant number of European Americans in the
community. Then it becomes an issue.
A resident who grew up just a couple miles away was appalled that she
had never heard of the flooding problem even after doing thorough
research when buying her home.
Historically that had been a poor neighborhood and so the
City never had a fight from anybody. But when things
happened in my parent’s neighborhood on Capitol Hill,
they were fixed immediately and this never would have
been a recurring thing you know… over a 30-year period.
This never would’ve happened.
One participant also suggested that economic standing as well as race was an
issue.
This was traditionally a Black neighborhood… So if you have a
flooding problem, whose going to worry about it? You’re poor
people - that’s what comes with the land. You have flooding
problems. I mean the same thing is happening now in East King
County and East Snohomish County where poor people live and
many of them have huge flooding problems. They had huge
flooding problems this past winter…out on Highway 2. Their land
floods - you have no relief. If you look at whose wading through
the mud it isn’t people of wealth. But I think the problems are just
becoming greater and greater.
When reviewing the community documentation on flooding it was easy to
understand why people would feel this way. After the flood in 1996 that caused
damage to approximately 27 homes, a response letter from a law office to the
Madison Valley Community Council states:
For the past 10 years, commercial development along Madison
Avenue and adjacent communities increased the drainage/sewer
capacity in the Madison Valley area. Twelve inch pipes now drain
43

into the Valley’s six inch pipes, causing severe property damage.
Title insurance companies are claiming that the area is not within a
designated floodzone. Owners are unable to claim an insurable
loss.
The City or King County are in the process of reviewing
engineering studies. Both municipalities are claiming no
responsibility to the problem (Tate 1996).
An additional letter sent by the Miller Park Neighborhood Association to Seattle
City Council member Jane Noland the following year wrote on behalf of a group
of Madison Valley residents described as “mostly “older” and mostly African
American” who attended a monthly Madison-Miller Urban Village planning
meeting to express their concern about the chronic sewage backup problem in
their basements. This letter notes:
As it seems such a disgusting and chronic problem, I wanted to
make sure you [are] aware of it, and ask your advice on how to
resolve it. I was also concerned that, as they claim it is a 20 year
problem, it may be an example of the Central Area being ignored
by the City (Taylor 1997).
The author of this letter did receive multiple responses from the City that they
were working on the problem and that a 380,000 detention tank had been put built
under 30th Avenue E. to help with storage capacity in the early 1980s (Buntine
1997).
These narratives serve to establish that social and economic factors more
than likely contributed to this problem not being resolved earlier. Local
governments are pulled in countless directions for addressing problems and until
2004 they had “gotten away with” just paying small claims over the years when
big storms caused sewage backups. Now that the City of Seattle is working on a
solution, it is important that the community members continue to be involved in

44

the planning process to help ensure that future utility infrastructure and
development in this area be planned in a way that is sustainable and does not
represent “another band-aid” fix. Though I have not done a statistical analysis of
the distribution of flooding problems across demographic groups in Seattle,
intuitively it seems fair to say that this was a clear case of environmental injustice.
At this point in time, I find it appropriate to keep social equity in mind when
considering other challenges and contributors to the problem.
3. Surface Water Runoff
Another contributor to the problem suggested by the interview participants
was inspired by the most recent flood. The December 14th storm brought the
issue of surface water runoff to the forefront of many people’s minds due to the
situation on their own properties. Many participants responded that they
witnessed the water moving down the hills and that it was largely unable to get
into the storm drains because they were too small, not in ideal locations, clogged,
and/or the pipes themselves were already full. Since the most recent storm took
place toward the end of the standard workday, many residents were already home
or traveling home during the storm and were able to witness it.
One resident who bicycled home during the December 14, 2006 storm
witnessed the surface water’s movement down the hills on and stated:
The biggest problem is runoff, which the City hasn’t addressed.
Why are the sewers becoming overwhelmed with volumes of
water? It’s not just rain. It’s because we’re getting rain from
Madrona, Capitol Hill, Denny-Blaine, and Lake Washington
[neighborhoods]. I think we could’ve handled the storm we had
this last time... I only got water because the sewers reached
capacity. And that’s happening because all the water is running
through this area and no one addresses that. If the city got four

45

inches, Madison Valley got double that because we’re taking it all
on.
This resident did some follow up work and submitted photographic
documentation of what he sees as an inadequate stormwater collection system
(Figure 3).

B

A

C

D

Figure 3. Storm drains in Madison Valley. (A) General position of storm drains. (B & C)
Representation of clogged storm drains. (D) An out-of-date smaller drain. Circles represent
location of storm drains.

Some of the participants noted that their basements flooded for the first
time on December 14, 2006 and that the amount of water that entered basements
from the outside was greater than the amount that came up out of the utility pipes.
One resident noted the relationship between the surface water problem and the
long-term solution alternatives:
The rate at which surface water comes down here is a serious
problem for the drains here… Even after the flood here [on
12/14/06], we saw a very heavy rainstorm right in front of the
[Essential] Bakery. We saw water coming out of the storm drain.
It wasn’t even raining that hard, but the water was coming out of
the storm drain because the sewer system there was completely full
and water was gushing out and down onto the street. The problem
with these detention plans is if they still involve saving the
46

stormwater here… in these big tanks… You can still wind up with
surface flooding, which is how we get a lot of our rain. It’s not
going into drains. The drains are clogged or it just bypasses the
drains and it suddenly just winds up being everywhere.
On the same subject, a few people brought up the issue of the storm drains
not being cleaned often enough.
Something that is clearly a factor adding to the flooding is the lack
of the City in clearing the falling autumn leaves from the storm
sewers. The storm sewers on Madison from MLK to the
Arboretum Soccer Field were overloaded with leaves, so water
backed up. The water pouring down Madison Hill, west of MLK
had no place to go. Some of the neighbors around 2820 East
Madison went out and cleared the leaves a few times, to let the
water drain into the storm sewers, but more leaves came and
clogged the storm sewers. During the autumn falling leave season,
in flood prone areas, the city service staff should proactively come
around and sweep up/vacuum up the curbs and storm sewers on a
regular basis, to prevent future backups of water. When there was
a flood in the summer, two years ago, there were no leaves around
clogging the storm sewers, and the street didn't flood like the most
recent flooding incident.
The observations that the residents have made regarding the surface water
runoff issue provide another example of LEK of the problem. They were able to
witness the December 14, 2006 storm event and compare it to past events. The
engineers have water flow and volume monitors placed throughout the area,
which is necessary for their engineering models. As a complement to this, many
residents could provide experiential knowledge of where the most flood prone
street surface areas are from their observations walking around the neighborhood
and from living through the last storm and other less intense rains. Another factor
in the surface runoff problem is the size of the pipes. Something that the residents
could use a better understanding of is how big the pipes in Madison Valley are
and whether this is a major part of the problem. I recently learned that the pipes

47

under E. Madison Street are twelve inches in diameter (CH2MHill 2007). This
does not sound big enough for such a major thoroughfare that is so steep and
densely built up. This leads to the next major contribution to flooding voiced by
residents.
4. Development and loss of permeable surfaces
A contribution to the flooding problem that was voiced repeatedly in
interviews was the observation of rapid construction of dense housing units on the
hillsides to the west of the lower-lying streets in Madison Valley and the
corresponding loss of permeable surface or absorption. Almost all participants
referred to housing development as a factor in the increased range of the flooding.
The following three passages were the most detailed explanations of the
understanding of this problem.
I think the second big contributor is all the development on East
Capitol Hill from here marching down to Jackson. But there has
been significant development on this one swath of land that I
would say is bounded by East Union and East Madison Streets and
goes up to 18th or 17th (to the top of the hill), where… what were
homes with trees with some yard, becomes: the houses removed,
the trees are removed, and these four pillars that are called
townhomes are constructed and they sit on a concrete pad… they
sit in this little bowl so all the runoff goes into the central basin and
into the City’s storm system which runs down the hill and gets held
down there, but there’s no natural absorption. It’s like the City is
permitting developers to eliminate the natural absorption process
or the natural slowing down of runoff. They’re totally behind
development infrastructure, they just are. Developers can work
faster than the City can, because they’re just doing these little units
and the City has to take this long view and plan and find millions
and millions and millions of dollars to create drainage
infrastructure. And, they haven’t done it here.
Another participant looked at it in a mathematical way:
There’s a point at which the ground can handle you putting a
building there, right? The surrounding vegetation can handle the
48

rainwater and you don’t wind up ultimately flooding. And then
there’s the point at which your ground is 50% paved and 20%
covered with houses, or 70% impervious surface. You’re relying
on the 30% left to absorb rainwater, plus the gutters. If you change
that from each lot being 20% covered by a house to 40% covered
by a house, now instead of having 30% of the land absorbing
rainwater, you’ve only got 10%, so you’ve cut 2/3 of your rain
holding vegetation by allowing that intense development.
This resident agrees and thinks that the developers need to be held to higher
standards and that environmental impacts need to be assessed cumulatively:
With all the development, my issue is that the developers are just
developing over problems instead of fixing them. We had two
houses that were built in our neighborhood and they kept getting
that daylighting of the stream that comes down Helen [Street]. For
years we grew up with that thing so that when it was winter or
when it snowed it would just be a sheet of ice. It was a given,
always. There was always that dripping water. So they re-directed
it back in the sewers. But they’d think that they’d got it and it
would just pop up somewhere else. It was a demon spring to
developers. Some developers would only do patch work, enough
to get the building done and then leave the problem to the owner
once they’re gone. We don’t know how they did it and whether
it’s a long lasting remedy.
The issue that I have is that with all the development and stuff
that’s going on, when the developers do their analysis and impact
studies, even with the runoff and traffic and everything else, you
need to start looking at it from a cumulative perspective. I think
that may be some of the problem. They’re going, “Well, we do an
impact statement.” But, it’s just for that one [property] alone.
They’re contributing to a bigger picture. And that bigger picture is
affecting other people. And there’s so much development going
on and… it’s a cumulative effect. It’s a nightmare.
It is important to note that most of the participants expressed that they
were not opposed to density, but that they did not think the loss of unpaved land
was being adequately mitigated for in new construction or remodel construction.
In addition, the added wastewater when a single-family dwelling is increased to
four and six unit townhomes appears dangerous when there is already a clear

49

understanding that the utility system is under-capacity during storms. Many
people added that the intense development of the area coupled with climate
change is what is causing the problem to get worse. Though, the residents think
that it is obvious that unmitigated dense development is a large contributor to the
problem, this is not something that SPU’s project team talks about. It is hard to
know how apprised of the growth they are. There appears to be an urgent need
for coordination between Seattle Public Utilities, the Department of Planning and
Development, and the community so that this project will be effective for the
long-term.
5. Global warming effects on storms
More than half of the people I interviewed mentioned global warming as a
factor that will exacerbate the problem. Though no one knows exactly what kind
of effects warming will have on our area, the residents understand that there is an
even greater frailty within the system than was previously unknown. Many would
like a better understanding of how global warming will be accounted for in the
planning process.
I realize these are unusual events, but we’ve had enough of them
now that they’re not so unusual and I think that’s the real concern that the City’s got to deal with the reality of what we face today
and like I said it’s not just what’s happening when we have these
events, but the prospect that these events can become more
prevalent through global warming.
Another participant suggested revising the rainfall probability models:
If you look at it, these things are getting progressively worse. Our
water tables and our rain levels have risen significantly. We’re
talking about the greenhouse effect here, so we need to take that
into consideration. So I would much rather have too much [storage
capacity] than too little. That may be one thing they need to do…

50

is do a study of the rainfall increase and do a probability study of
going forward what would be a probable increase.
The concern over global warming effects on flooding is shared by Seattle
Public Utilities (DeBoldt 2007; Regan 2007). I think that it is extremely relevant
to the type of solution that is selected. The residents want to feel safe in their
homes when it is raining hard, but some have also expressed a desire for a
solution that works more naturally with the environment. Some of the residents
also expressed the educational benefits of more natural solutions. The following
section presents some of their ideas.
Ideas for a long-term solution
In addition to the residents’ knowledge of the contributors to the problem,
they had a lot to offer in terms of ideas for the long-term solution. In this section,
the residents’ opinions of the current long-term solution alternatives will be
analyzed and then I will present some of the additional modifications they think
are important.
1. Opinions of SPU’s current long-term solutions
Since SPU had already developed three preferred long-term solutions,
which are currently being modeled with the most recent storm data, I asked the
participants if they had a preference in terms of these alternatives (See Figure 2).
For some, there was a preference for Option C, which tunnels the stormwater
directly east to Lake Washington. To these residents, Option C represents the
most effective solution and as stated earlier it represents what was initially
planned during the Forward Thrust stormwater separation project. A long time

51

resident let me know that part of his preference for this option was that he
understands that it would work.
I would be totally guessing about any of them, unless they take that
big pipe and run it straight on out of here. The other ones I would
be totally guessing because just as that water came in this time, if
those pipes are not big enough to get it out of here, it’s got to go
somewhere and it comes back out into our yards. But, I do know
that the bigger pipe would go right straight through here into the
Lake… It’s just that they [the storms] are getting bigger, so I want
them to get it out of here.
Many of the participants in this research felt that the current regulations on
draining stormwater into Lake Washington would make it too costly and timeconsuming of a solution. Additionally, although SPU added this option back to
the list after the December 14, 2006 storm, recent consultations with the
regulatory agencies and an SPU-wide engineering forum held on the Madison
Valley project have led the project team to the conclusion that this option is not
cost effective and may not be the best at capturing the water. SPU shared that the
cost of tunneling and treating the stormwater is estimated to be over $80 million,
that there is a risk this alternative might never get approved by the permitting
agencies, and that there are engineering challenges related to directing the
majority of the water into the conveyance pipe (ESC 2007).
Overall, interview reactions to Option A were lackluster or negative.
Some people questioned whether the water will actually get into the tank due to
the poor storm drain catchment capacity exhibited on December 14, 2006. Others
were concerned that it would retain the hazard of overflow flooding in this area.
Part of the reason Option A is not popular is due to the fact that the new detention
pond filled so quickly on December 14th, 2006. One person observed:

52

Having seen the detention pond… going up and overflowing
makes me nervous about creating another detention pond; because
where’s the first place it’s going to go? We’re essentially the
overflow and I’d hate to see that happen again… The idea is that
we want to increase the output.
Another resident expressed concern for the morale and livability of the
neighborhood.
On a worst case basis, the City may decide given budget
constraints, we’ll just build a huge pond or buy out a whole block
or two, build these underground tanks, rather than pump it out into
Lake Washington or pump it out into someplace else. Yeah, maybe
they have to buy out more of the neighborhood to do it, but that
will end up being a cheaper and maybe quicker solution and, it
might be one that people buy into just because it’s cheaper and
quicker. But what will that do to the greater neighborhood to
know that they’ve condemned and made one center of the
neighborhood basically an industrial processing plant for the storm
system?
Many participants believe that Option A is preferable to SPU because it’s easier
to get done:
I think they know they could get the big tank done fastest. But that
still doesn’t take the large volume of water out of the valley. I
think they heard that we want to fix this as soon as possible, but
hopefully from the last meeting they took away that we want a
good solution and we’re willing to wait.
In terms of effectiveness, Option A may be viable, but in terms of overall
quality of life in the neighborhood, I got the impression that people would prefer
to see some changes in the overall infrastructure that would not require so much
of the sewer and waste water in the drainage basin to be routed to 30th and East
John. These ideas will be discussed further below.
The majority of the participants who I met with preferred Option B,
because it represents a solution that gets the water out of Madison Valley, but
won’t have as many permitting barriers as Option C. One participant expressed:
53

I like Option B, but in strategic locations, they need to construct
bigger storm grates… Bigger grates linked into the piping of
Option B and create little burms like they have on the east side in
Medina.

A

B

C

D

Figure 4. Photos of prior drainage route. (A) The Madison Street Trestle as it appeared from
2 Park in 1912. Adapted from Seattle Municipal Archives. (B) View of E. Madison
Washington
Street from a similar location in Washington Park in 2007. (C) View from the opposite side on
30th Ave
. E - looking north at the filled in area under E Madison Street. (D) The creek in the
Washington Park Arboretum which runs north to Lake Washington. Photos B, C, and D taken in
2007 by author.

2

2. Natural drainage features
Many participants, though not all, voiced a need for more natural drainage
facilities in addition to Option B. This was an area where local knowledge is very
apparent and residents were passionate in their desire to restore some of the
natural water features to the area in an effort to provide a better buffer to flooding
in the low-lying areas and to re-connect the neighborhood with the Arboretum
(Figure 4). Residents have seen and read about restored streams and more natural

54

stormwater filtering methods in other parts of the City and do not understand why
these options have not been discussed in Madison Valley.
The solution I see is taking that pipe basically through the
Arboretum down the traditional drainage. Like before the trestle
bridge was filled in that created this dam… I would think that
given all the things that are going to happen in the next twenty
years it could be sensible to take the water out that way and do
something similar to what you see with Ravenna Creek and other
drainages in the Seattle area where you do a combination of above
ground and below ground drainage and retention, sort of a
restoration of original hydrology coupled with traditional detention
and drainage methods and send it out to Lake Washington in that
direction. Work with the Arboretum and the Parks Department
restoring wetlands. You probably can imagine that it was a swamp
or very swampy and you still have that creek running through.
You could basically enhance and expand the wetland that starts at
Lake Washington and just bring it up the Valley. And you could
provide some overflow capacity, punch a hole through the dam to
create a passage for water; create a passage for people and
overflow in storm events so you don’t have it pooling down there
at the bottom.
Another resident suggested a way to alleviate the need for tanks as much
as possible by filtering the stormwater more naturally on its historical route north
to Lake Washington.
I wouldn’t detain the water there at the Arboretum. Why detain it,
why not run it through a series of burbling wetlands and send it on
down to Lake Washington? Because as it is right now all the
overflow just gets dumped anyway through the pump system, so
why not filter it through a series of wetlands? In the Arboretum
there are places that could be temporary wet areas as it goes down.
There are already a series of wetish areas. We only have these big
storms once in a great while. Why not take all the surface water
runoff and just let it drain to where the ball field is? They could
even dig out the ball field and make it a little lower than it already
is. It could still be a soccer field and it could be a huge flat area
and since oils stick to organic matter as the water flooded out
through there it would be filtered. Maybe they’d have to re-chalk
or re-grade the field, but it’s no big deal compared to having to redo everyone’s basements or build a gigantic tank. Better to open a
stream there because there used to be a stream there anyway.
Since Capitol Hill also has a problem and Madison Ave. does too,
55

put the water on the side of the soccer field. There’s also a huge
grassy area on both sides of the soccer field. Either one could be
lowered to just hold water for when it floods. What bothers me
about that is that you have to accommodate every single thing that
you’re doing. You can have a playfield anywhere, so have it all
open.
One participant felt very strongly about the need for restoration of the
prior stream:
I really feel the only way to keep people safe is to buy out a
portion of that area and put back in a natural river that has a hole
and goes back under Madison and if it needs to flood out
somewhere, it’ll flood onto the playfield… [T]he water needs to
go, it needs to get out. And the only sensible thing to do is to
create that natural exit for it again… [I]t would have to displace a
lot of people and I just hate even saying that, but I just don’t want
to see another person die. Because we knew it was going to
happen and it did. And whether they prove that it has something to
do with this issue or not, it’s all related. It’s just a disaster. I really
don’t see a win in this situation. I think the only way that it’s
going to be able to be fixed completely is again either to eliminate
basements in that neighborhood and replace basements with a
second story or buy out a whole line of houses all the way down to
Madison and create a natural river again or natural creek.
In reading old issues of the Valley View, it is clear that this desire for a
water and pedestrian passage under Madison Ave at 30th and E. Mercer has
existed for a long time. It would be extremely valuable for the residents in this
area to know that when water runs down the hills in heavy storms that it has
somewhere to go. The added ability to walk directly to the Arboretum would also
be invaluable for residents of all ages.
This idea has been looked into to some extent by the SPU team. They
have already faced serious resistance from the Washington Park Arboretum and
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the idea of allowing stormwater to enter the
creek in the Arboretum. Considering how much research is being done on

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stormwater and wetlands, the idea of filtering overflow water through wetlands in
this area could provide an educational research area close to University of
Washington. The SPU team appears to be more confident that they may be able
to work with the Parks Department on an overflow area below the soccer field
(ESC 2007).
3. Additional suggestions for a long-term solution
a. Development Mitigation
Many residents are aware of low impact development (LID) strategies that
help to mitigate stormwater runoff. Since dense and highly paved development is
such a concern, a few participants provided suggestions for what can be done to
protect the homes in Madison Valley from increased stormwater runoff. The first
suggestion involves a program for cisterns. This participant noted that people
could catch water in them in the winter, and by mid-July they would likely have
used most of the water on their yards, so there would be room in them again for
the summer storms.
We don’t need to catch 3 million gallons; we just need to catch
some of it. If you catch 500,000 gallons in people’s cisterns and
another 500,000 gallons slowly inside the little shark-fin shaped
storm swales all over the hillsides, you’ve increased the quality of
life all over the place; you’ve reduced the cost of processing
stormwater and people’s water bills, because they’re going to be
watering their yards with it. And at the same time they can build a
smaller project.
A cistern program already exists in the Wallingford/Fremont
neighborhood, so this may be something that a group of residents could find
funding for. In addition, we would need to educate the broader neighborhood on
the environmental and neighborhood benefits of putting in cisterns. LID

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techniques for slowing down stormwater and filtering it through swales are
becoming more prevalent in cities and towns nationwide (Figure 5). These
features help connect social and ecological systems by giving humans a better
view of nature as it moves through a developed area.

A

B

Figure 5. Low Impact Development (LID) strategies. (A) Street swale with overflow
catch basin and curb spillway. (B) Vegetated street swales. Arrows point out the area
where stormwater can enter the swale.

b. Re-distribution of stormwater pipes
After seeing SPU’s map of the piping infrastructure, many participants felt
that some of the utility pipes should be re-directed so that less of flow comes to
30th and East John (Figure 6).
If they take the storm drains that come down Madison and divert
them directly north, then that’s a lot of water that’s not going to
enter this valley… If you think about it all the new buildings going
in on Madison, the Safeway apartment buildings… that all puts
water straight into the storm drain system. That’s a lot of water
that rapidly enters the storm drain system and to expect it to hook
directly into these drains here, we’re going to need more capacity
and we’re going to have a higher chance of surface flooding. If
they put it to the north of Madison, it’s not attached to the pipes
that come south of Madison… It’s this juncture at 24th and
Madison. That’s a mistake. It doesn’t have to be that way. If they
did that and the same thing with the water coming down 32nd that
could be a lot of water that no longer enters this valley.
At the ESC meetings on May 10, 2007 and May 31, 2007, SPU reported
that they are going to analyze the possibility of re-distributing the water that

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comes from the Northwest lobe of the piping system in their engineering model to
find out if this presents a viable element of the long-term solution. This response
from SPU helps to validate the concept that the knowledge and ideas held by
residents can be helpful to the project.

Figure 6. Map of Madison Valley watershed drainage basin. The drainage basin is shaded
in green. The orange lines represent the Combined Conveyance system. The blue lines are
the Stormwater Conveyance System. All lines lead to the combined sewer line at 30th and E
John represented in red. The area circled is the section that residents do not think should be
routed to 30th and E John. The small arrows represent the direction of the hillside. The
bigger arrow represents the suggestion that this storm and waste water be re-directed north
toward the Washington Park soccer field.

c. Information and public involvement
A problem that many residents emphasized was the lack of
communication about the interim and long-term solution planning that has been
going on since August 2004. I have learned through the interviews and attending
ESC meetings that people who made claims for damages after the August 2004
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storm and those that were in the direct vicinity of 30th and East John did receive
communication about the project in the form of mailings. The people who I
interviewed who fell in this category were pleased with the communication and
hoped it would continue. However, many of the people I interviewed had not
received any information or notice of meetings even though they lived close by
and had dealt with significant amounts of water on their property.
I’ve never received anything in my mail from SPU saying, “We’re
talking about drainage issues in Madison Valley and here are
some. I’ve had no communication, but my neighborhood is one of
those that flows into the drainage and any solution is going to
effect me, either as a ratepayer or as somebody who’s going to
have to change what I do with my stormwater to deal with their
detention pipes.
In the interviews I asked people what kind of information they would like
SPU to provide on the project and most stated that they would like more
information on the alternatives, since it is often hard to get in the public hearings
as some people are still dealing with the immediate need of getting their damage
claims settled. One active resident encouraged SPU to put together a website that
can be referenced in emergencies and that can allow people to stay apprised of
what is happening on the project. A website has since been created and hopefully
it will provide the more detailed information residents are looking for.
They need to be able to explain things in a way that the regular
person can understand it... Put together a 3 or 4 page explanation
of the differences, advantages and disadvantages of this and the
impacts the different alternatives will have on construction and
demolition and combination and whatever.
Another resident noted:
I would like to be around the edges on the engineering details
when they’re studying the flow of water and all that kind of stuff.

60

There isn’t enough information. This fundamentally alters all of
our lives.
One resident offered a suggestion on the quality of response to public input that
he would like to see:
If they compiled the different kinds of major suggestions and don’t
discount them immediately and actually listen to them, and provide
some real data behind it, so people can counter them, then I think
people will feel like they’ve been heard and don’t have to fret
around day after day that the City’s not doing anything or the
City’s not responding. Because if you propose what you think is a
reasonable thing and it just seems to fall on dead ears and there’s
no real response back then it’s just frustrating and you feel like the
process isn’t working. And maybe it isn’t working, but at least we
should have proof that it’s working or not working.
Though there were different opinions regarding SPU’s prior
communication of the project based on where one lives, there was general
agreement that people would like as much information as possible on this project
from here. Since December 14, 2006, more people in the broader Madison Valley
area understand that this is a major problem. Although it is experienced the most
in the lowest parts of the valley, the whole watershed contributes to the problem
and would benefit from information on the project in order to consider what can
be done higher up to mitigate effects during big storms.
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION
Urban citizens and Local Ecological Knowledge
In reviewing the interview narratives, it is apparent that the residents of
this urban neighborhood possess ecological knowledge of the local environment
and the flooding problem that could be helpful to the engineers on this project and
other concerned local residents. Many of the participants in this research have a
clear understanding of how water moves through their own properties and have
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developed a variety of methods to keep their homes as dry as possible. In
addition, the participants in this research observe the entire watershed in detail
due to their day-to-day experiences in it and their concern for the health of the
area they live in. They observe their local surroundings in a broad, holistic
context and are capable of developing theories about the long-term viability of
human influences on the physical environment. As human communities shift to
an understanding that we are a part of the natural environment, not separate from
it, the value of the knowledge of long-term residents will hopefully be
increasingly recognized. This knowledge provides newer residents and engineers
with a multi-faceted environmental history of a particular region, which can help
highlight changes that have decreased an area’s resilience or capacity to buffer
surprise weather events. In addition, historical environmental narratives have the
power to create deeper connections between humans and the land in which they
live.
Adaptive Management in Madison Valley
Adaptive management is an iterative process and involves a two-way
feedback between the management and environmental conditions (Berkes, Folke
et al. 1998). In a compact, urban area like Madison Valley many complex and
unpredictable interactions exist between local governments, ecosystems, and
individual citizens as they evolve together. Due to this complexity, a more
adaptive approach to water management is appropriate for SPU’s project in
Madison Valley.
Residents have observed feedbacks such as overflowing storm drains,
water tables that seep up into basements, and the historically marshy conditions in
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Washington Park and in their own yards. If SPU’s long-term solution only
involves bigger pipes and tanks, the ability of local citizens to contribute
experiential observations will be severely challenged. As a result, as the planet
gets warmer and population in this region grows, it will be much harder for the
community in this watershed to understand when the utility infrastructure is
reaching a breaking point as it did on December 14, 2006. An example of
adaptive management is represented in utility projects in Seattle that have
employed methods to allow some portion of stormwater to flow above ground.
The restoration of natural streams and creeks is helping residents to understand
how much water moves through their home region. If people do not see the flow
of any water, they are less likely to think about monitoring the stability of their
foundations, retaining walls, and storm drains as they degrade over time due to
the natural movement of water, trees, and falling leaves.
A shorter-sighted solution that attempts to define the ecosystem at a
certain stage of natural change and does not allow for feedback mechanisms will
block out environmental variability and the ability to perceive smaller feedbacks.
This invites larger and less predictable feedbacks at a level and scale that threaten
the functionality of the whole drainage basin. Thus, a key factor in successful
adaptation to the variables of climate change and population growth in Madison
Valley will be the presence of appropriate feedback mechanisms which provide
an opportunity for management decisions that can be monitored to influence the
next set of decisions. A few historical factors that challenge the environmental
feedback process in Madison Valley include the dam under Madison Street and a
heavily paved watershed. However, the severity of the surprise storm event on
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December 14, 2006 has triggered increased learning on the part of the local
citizens. Many residents recognize the need for a re-designed water management
system in the Madison Valley watershed that offers opportunities for feedback
and adaptation that will ultimately help the local residents and government
agencies to create a more sustainable neighborhood.
Environmental Justice in Madison Valley
As stated earlier, the environmental justice framework helps us to interpret
the historical context of the flooding problem in this area. Now that the
inadequate utility infrastructure is being addressed, we can use the environmental
justice frame to look closer at other factors that exacerbate this problem.
Residents have noted that the rapid loss of permeable surfaces on the hillsides in
recent years combined with more storm and wastewater from high-density
development has increased the volume and likelihood of flood events in the lowlying sections of the watershed. Continuing to allow this loss of absorption
without creating and communicating a plan for mitigating it is today’s
environmental injustice. The residents of Madison Valley understand the need for
density and the curbing of sprawl. However, it is not appropriate to move forward
on this goal before infrastructure is in place to protect an established
neighborhood that is already susceptible to flooding.
Environmental Justice, LEK, and Sustainability
The Madison Valley residents who mobilized and went to meetings to
express their frustration over the flooding of their basements with combined water
and sewage paved the way for the City’s current project and the whole
community can be thankful for that. Since the community has been successful in
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garnering the attention of the appropriate agencies to help address this
environmental problem, obtaining the LEK of the community is an important next
step. In Madison Valley, the community and SPU will be better able to define a
solution that all stakeholders can accept, if there is an open exchange of
knowledge between parties. Involving the entire drainage basin in
communications regarding the project may solicit valuable knowledge and
suggestions. In addition, the larger community will develop a better
understanding of the problem and may understand the need to capture stormwater
on their property. Some authors believe, “sustainability will be achieved, if at all,
not by engineers, agronomists, economists and biotechnicians but by citizens”
(Prugh et al in Agyeman 2005:5). Government policies and regulations alone are
not capable of creating sustainable communities. The creative ideas for an area
will more naturally come from those living in that community. Thoughtful
modifications will need to be made by citizens as well as governments to help
create urban neighborhoods that are resilient to the changes encouraged by global
warming and higher population density.

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