Eastside playfield supporter launches turf fight
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Turf farms? They drip silt into salmon streams, he says.
And those co-op gardens and hobby farms? Not genuine agriculture, he argues.
The point of his critique is that Clayton, a Woodinville hydrogeologist and soccer dad, is trying to convince King County politicians that parks would be more environmentally and socially benign than what's there now.
His effort — Clayton concedes it's a longshot — would require dismantling 23 years of taxpayer-subsidized land-preservation policies and practices. It is also the latest twist in a continuing Eastside soccer-vs.-farms dispute.
As population grows and open space shrinks, sports groups increasingly covet the level, relatively inexpensive land in King County's agricultural districts.
Clayton would like to convert most of the 340-acre JB Instant Lawn farm into a park with about 30 playfields, tree plantings to cool the river for better salmon survival and gardens for produce.
Just south of there, the Lake Washington Youth Soccer Association hopes to build a similar mixed-use park on vacant land it owns at the old Mueller Farm in north Redmond, despite recent court rulings that thwarted earlier attempts.
But the association is not denigrating its farm neighbors, and executive director Robert Young emphasizes that while he agrees with some of Clayton's views, Clayton does not represent the soccer agency.
King County voters were the first in the nation to tax themselves to preserve farmland when in 1979 they approved $50 million in bond sales. Landowners receive payments if they sign covenants to avoid developing their fields. Other fields are kept green through zoning rules or property-tax breaks. Highly restrictive agricultural-production districts cover 64 square miles, four-fifths of all county farmland, on the Enumclaw plateau and in the Sammamish, Green and Snoqualmie river valleys.
The program helps sustain immigrant Hmong flower growers, supplies urban farmers markets and provides residents of new suburban villages with a yard of fresh grass. Redmond's organic Root Connection co-op sells customers fresh food weekly on a subscription basis.
But Clayton estimates that only about 5 percent of valley lands produce food, so why not "grow" young ballplayers there instead?
"Yes, this is an agricultural-production district, but is it producing food? That's one of the myths around the county, that agricultural districts are producing food. What they are doing is producing harm to the first residents of the area, the precious salmon."
Clayton's main target is JB Instant Lawn, which leases two huge plots on the west bank of the Sammamish River and one on the east. Standing above the river on a drizzly morning, Clayton pointed out a runoff ditch at the turf farm that carries silt into the stream.
"In a light rain, there will be a turbidity plume that goes hundreds of feet down the river," he said.
Friday, on a clear morning, a 2-foot mud cloud emanated from a drainage ditch near Northeast 124th Street. However, there are several sources beyond the sod farm, including six pipes that pour runoff from Kirkland-area hillsides and office parks into the farm's drainage ditches.
In September, Clayton collected water samples from the stream, and a lab test detected a tiny amount of the pesticide Dursban. JB apologized for the release, which came from its plant nursery, and says it has discontinued the chemical.
The company says it will seek safer pesticides and has spent at least $40,000 since last fall for silt fences and ponds to control runoff — to keep up with increased oversight by county environmental officials. So much runoff is being held back that one field is partly submerged, and workers needed hip waders in heavy rain last month.
"I have a really hard time believing we're creating all this danger to fish and wildlife," said Scott Neisinger, the company's Sammamish farm manager.
"I get coyotes out here and weasels and hawks."
JB Instant Lawn recently renewed a 10-year lease and intends to continue its operations in the valley, Neisinger said. It employs 36 people year-round and more in the summer.
Clayton calls JB a "turf mine" because, he says, the sod harvests remove precious alluvium soils that the river deposited over many centuries. Clayton estimates the loss at a half-inch per year, while Neisinger figures it's around one-eighth of an inch. Soil is replenished by roots left in the fields after harvest, he and county officials said.
Sports fields present their own environmental downside, including traffic, parking and restrooms, said Stephanie Warden, land-use and planning director for County Executive Ron Sims. She points out that Sims, through his "101 Ballfields" initiative, has been a leading advocate for sports parks in the county's nonfarming areas.
So far, there appears to be little sentiment among county officials to change farmland-protection laws, which ban athletic fields because sports are not an agricultural use.
County Councilwoman Carolyn Edmonds, D-Shoreline, who chairs the Natural Resources, Parks and Open Space Committee, sympathizes with Clayton's call for more sports fields but said, "We have a lot of recreational interests in the valley, and if we allow soccer fields, what about everybody else? It could be the top of a very slippery slope that could wind up driving farms out of the valley."
Even if elected officials supported putting ballfields on preserved land, it could require changes in state law, a public election and buyouts of farm owners, Warden says.
But Clayton has an ally in Phil Talmadge, a former state Supreme Court justice and ex-legislator from West Seattle, who chairs a county sports-advisory committee on which Clayton sits. Talmadge says the group will issue a report in May that includes a call to phase out turf farming in favor of ballfields and crops.
Such reforms are politically possible if Clayton avoids a "holy war" against all valley agriculture, Talmadge says. Food growers and soccer supporters could then find common ground and seek officials' support, he says.
"Folks who are advocates of agricultural production would agree with Geoff that the turf mines, that kind of activity, is not really agricultural production," Talmadge said.
Mike Lindblom can be reached at 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com.