Sound Transit’s light rail plan would destroy slough, historic home

Sound Transit is planning on constructing a portion of its light rail and transit station (the East Link rail project) through the Mercer Slough Nature Park along Bellevue Way. Naturally, the prospect of permanent environmental damage to a treasured nature park has stirred opposition.

A group of concerned Bellevue community leaders, including Geoffrey Bidwell – who co-founded the committee to establish the park in the 1980’s –  are challenging the exemptions to Bellevue’s environmental codes which city staff issued to Sound Transit late last year without appropriate public review.

The 89-page petition to the State Shorelines Hearings Board argues that Sound Transit’s plans for East Link will cause permanent damage to the slough. It also claims that the Bellevue City Council was “not aware of the [environmental] impacts when it signed a memorandum of understanding with Sound Transit for the project.” The latter argument is important because the memorandum was the “basis for approving a shoreline development permit and variance for the project.”

The Seattle Times points out that the most recent designs for the East Link rail project include “plans for building walls, trenches and water-management systems that the petition claims could make Sound Transit’s preferred rail route more harmful than previously thought to both the slough and the 86-year-old Winters House at the edge of the park.” The Winters House is a public building and is the only building in Bellevue on the National Register of Historic Places. The historic home most certainly would be severely damaged by a “light-rail trench a few feet away from its main entrance.”

It’s important to note that Sound Transit’s current light rail plan technically runs through the slough, not along side it as the agenda and its supporters claim.

Sound Transit expects to begin East Link construction next year. The state’s Shorelines Hearings Board will hear the petition, issued against the city of Bellevue, Sound Transit and the Department of Ecology, in late April. The Seattle Times reports that the “board could take until the end of June to issue a decision.” After that, “either side could then appeal the decision in court.”