Groups unite to oppose pipe project

Members of Manchester’s Committee to Restore Duncan Creek have informed Kitsap County officials there are now two groups fighting a proposed new pipeline project designed to end road flooding and reduce stormwater flows into Duncan Creek.

Many Manchester residents learned of the project for the first time last Tuesday when Dave Tucker, program manager for Kitsap County’s Surface Stormwater Management (SSWM) and Mike Michael, the lead engineer, discussed the project at the April meeting of the Manchester Community Council.

The project would replace piping to Manchester’s Main Street Stormwater Drain and move the drain to discharge north of the northernmost dock at the Port of Manchester.

The 36-inch diameter pipe would be laid underground down to the beach’s three-foot tide level and then surface for discharge.

Stormwater currently drains at the south end of the dock, high on the beach.

The existing discharge pipe at Pomeroy Park will be removed and the Port of Manchester parking lot drain will be attached to the new discharge, Tucker said.

Approximately 30 feet of the pipe will be exposed rising 36 feet above the beach level. Concrete anchors will be located at 10 intervals to hold the pipe in place. Only 15 feet separates the North float of the dock and the proposed pipe location.

In a letter to Kitsap County’s Randy Casteel dated April 30, Janice Shaw and David Kimble, both members of the Committee to Restore Duncan Creek requested an appointment to convey directly the committee’s concern about “the negative ecological effects/impacts of the changed plan.”

According to Shaw and Kimble, many residents and MCC members have expressed concerns over the negative esthetic appearance of the county’s proposed plan, but their group “remains concerned about the biological effects to marine life and of course to potential human contact with increasing stormwater discharges and it’s nearshore impacts upon protected surf-smelt production relative to returning salmon and cutthroat throat into Duncan Creek. Also the shortage of water entering Duncan Creek is a major environmental concern.”

According to Kimble, he and Shaw will meet with Casteel on May 12.

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