Thornton Creek Breathes Again at Northgate

By Michelle Ma
Seattle Times staff reporter
Dragonflies alight and swoop delicately from plant to plant. For biologists and project managers alike, the presence of these insects, which are sensitive to pollution, indicates a healthy ecosystem.
That wasn't always so across the stark, paved grounds of Northgate Mall. Polluted runoff from the parking lots and neighborhood streets had nowhere to go except directly into Thornton Creek, a stream that weaves through Shoreline and North Seattle and empties into Lake Washington at Matthews Beach Park.
But with enough community pressure and compromise, change can happen.
A large, paved lot once devoted to overflow mall traffic and RV parking has been replaced with a landscaped, open space that allows the beginnings of Thornton Creek to flow above ground for the first time in decades. Before, a large underground pipe diverted the water to an outfall several blocks away.
This project now lets water in the creek's south fork flow as it should above ground and nourish its new stream bed before exiting under Fifth Avenue Northeast into the existing creek.
"If you look at it 10 years from now, it will be the defining development that helped transform the whole neighborhood into a different place," said John Lombard, a Northgate resident with Thornton Creek Alliance.
Seattle Public Utilities recently completed the stream-restoration channel as part of a new development that brings more than 100 condos, 278 apartments, senior housing, a 14-screen movie theater and more retail space to the North Seattle neighborhood.
Lorig and Stellar Holdings say they've rented about 50 of the apartments, which exceeds their goal to date. The market has been slow for the condos, however, with only one unit sold, said Stephen Holt, partner at Lorig in charge of the project.
Still, Holt said he's hopeful that as more people discover the area, the condos will find buyers. He said the open space and creek will become a place to gather within the new development.
"I think it is going to put a mark on that as a place, as a neighborhood, that's not just identified by a shopping mall and traffic problems."
The new creek channel is seen by many as the aesthetic glue holding together Northgate's new development.
It's also the key compromise that allowed the building project to move forward after residents strongly opposed an option that didn't include stream restoration, said Janet Way, a Shoreline City Council member and president of the Thornton Creek Legal Defense Fund, an advocacy group.
"It took incredible courage for everybody to get on board," Way said.
The new channel spanning nearly 3 acres helps to filter and clean almost all runoff from more than 600 acres around the project, mostly from neighborhood streets.
It also stores and slowly releases water to Thornton Creek, providing a holding place during heavy rains.
Seattle Public Utilities designed the channel to naturally filter pollutants in stormwater runoff from streets and parking lots.
Runoff enters the channel on one end, then flows through four chambers. Small rocks and sediment settle and can be removed by the city using trucks with large vacuums. Aquatic plants help to capture and remove pollutants, similar to how a wetland functions.
The water exits the channel into free-flowing Thornton Creek at Fifth Avenue Northeast and Northeast 103rd Street.
Before, all the runoff carrying pesticides, oils and other pollutants was flushed through a pipe and discharged into the creek at the same intersection, said Nancy Ahern, Seattle Public Utilities deputy director for utility-systems management.
"Ultimately, it was the best design solution for what we were trying to do," Ahern said. "The city needed a project that provided benefit to the creek. A do-nothing solution wasn't acceptable."
The city started construction on the $14.8 million creek-channel project about a year and a half ago. Young native plants dot the landscape, and project managers expect vegetation to fill more of the channel and surrounding walls within a year.
The final outcome is acceptable for most supporters of Thornton Creek's restoration. Years of development have encroached and narrowed the stream, causing faster water flow and more stream-bank erosion.
As Northgate and Shoreline have developed, more paved surfaces give stormwater fewer places to naturally sink into the ground, said Dan Mahler, president of Thornton Creek Alliance.
The nearly 12-square-mile Thornton Creek watershed is the largest in Seattle and Shoreline, and about 67,000 people live in homes that send pollutants into the watershed. Coho salmon have been seen in the creek and Mahler recently saw a cutthroat trout in the stream behind his Northgate home.
"Before this (channel), you wouldn't know there was a creek there at all," he said. "What we've got here is a great start. It's serving a very vital function in delivering clean water to the south fork."

Alumni, Graduates Alike Bid Fond Farewell to Granite High

By Amy K. Stewart, Deseret News, Published: Friday, June 5, 2009 12:44 a.m. MDT

It's a bittersweet day for a grand old school.
Seniors will say goodbye to Granite High School at graduation tonight, while thousands of alumni also bid farewell as one of Utah's oldest public schools closes its doors for good. The school opened in 1906.
"I know the decision has been made, but it's hard to pack up 100 years of memories," said Granite School Board member Connie Anderson. She taught at Granite High for almost three years and voted against closing the school.
"It's hard to sing 'The Song of the G' for the last time. And it's hard to have the last graduation. And it's hard to wonder what is going to happen to the building."
The school is another casualty of tough financial times as Granite School District had to slice $28 million from its budget to keep the district in the black.
Shutting down Granite High, with its 300 students, will save $1.3 million in annual operation costs. The Granite High program will merge into the alternative school Granite Peaks High School with a mission to serve at-risk students. Granite District administrators are working with South Salt Lake and Salt Lake County in hopes of transitioning the old brick building, 3305 S. 500 East, for civic and community use.
"It breaks my heart," said Ida Coombs Bickley, 82, class of 1944. She still lives half a block from the school.
Bickley and her daughter, Connie Lynn Bickley, 49, class of 1977, attended Granite High's awards ceremony this week, along with Ida Bickley's granddaughter, sophomore Maria Bickley, 15.
All three women had vastly different experiences at the school, but all three fought for what they believed in.
Ida Bickley recalls being frustrated over girls not being allowed to take the auto mechanics class because it would require wearing pants. After graduation, she became a mechanic at Hill Air Force Base and worked on war planes.
Connie Lynn Bickley remembers 1977 as the first year girls at Granite High were allowed to letter in sports. The boys were very much against it and suggested the girls receive a charm bracelet instead. She lettered in swimming.
Maria Bickley joined other students this spring in attempts to save Granite High from closure. Students created protest signs and attended the board meeting, only to watch the school board vote 4-3 to disband the school.
"I was really looking forward to graduating from here," Maria Bickley said. She plans to attend Highland High School this fall.
The awards assembly this week ended with a slide show including photos of the historic school building constructed more than 100 years ago. The three women stood with the students to belt out the school song:
"She will remember, you'll not forget her
Though you are far away
She is calling, calling to you ever
Honor the grand old G!"
Granite High had myriad goodbye activities throughout the week, including a barbecue and student bands on the quad Tuesday. Students signed yearbooks and exchanged hugs.
Principal Carole Harris distributed memorial T-shirts. They have the school logo on the front, with the words "Honor the Grand Old G." The back reads "Forever Farmer."
Seventy students will don caps and gowns, including 43 who are headed to college, for this evening's graduation ceremony on the football field.
Student-body secretary Mayra Tiburcio, 17, said the closing of Granite High has taken away some of the excitement of graduation but has also made it "more special because we are the last graduating class."
With all eyes on them, student government leaders said they are nervous about their commencement speeches.
"It's the last graduation ever so I am going to try and do my best for our school," said Esad Ferhatbegovic, 18, student body vice president.
Tiburcio said, "We want to make it something for everyone to remember."
Goodbye Granite High
Granite District officials are organizing an open house for the public and an alumni goodbye event sometime in June. For more information or to volunteer to help, call 801-646-5000.

South Beach Diet Philosophy

South Beach Diet Philosophy

By Arthur Agatston, M.D., Prevention
The South Beach Diet is not low-carb. Nor is it low-fat. The South Beach Diet teaches you to rely on the right carbs and the right fats—the good ones—and enables you to live quite happily without the bad carbs and bad fats. As a result, you're going to get healthy and lose weight—somewhere between 8 and 13 pounds in the next 2 weeks alone. Here's how you'll do it.Phase 1 You'll eat normal-size helpings of meat, chicken, turkey, fish, and shellfish. You'll have plenty of vegetables. Eggs. Cheese. Nuts. You'll have salads with real olive oil in the dressing. You'll have three balanced meals a day, and it will be your job to eat so that your hunger is satisfied. Nothing undermines a weight-loss plan more than the distressing sensation that you need more food. No sane eating program expects you to go through life feeling discomfort. You'll be urged to have snacks in the midmorning and midafternoon, whether you need to or not. You'll have dessert after dinner.You'll drink water, of course, plus coffee or tea if you wish.For the next 14 days you won't be having any bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, or baked goods. No fruit, even. Before you panic: You'll begin adding those things back into your diet again in 2 weeks. But for right now, they're off-limits.No candy, cake, cookies, ice cream, or sugar for 2 weeks, either. No beer or alcohol of any kind. After this phase you'll be free to drink wine. It's beneficial for a variety of reasons. Not a drop during the first 2 weeks, however.Now, if you're the kind of person who lives for pasta or bread or potatoes, or if you believe that you can't get through a day without feeding your sweet tooth (three or four times), let me tell you something: You're going to be shocked at how painlessly 2 weeks will pass without these foods. The first day or two may be challenging; but once you weather that, you'll be fine. It's not that you'll have to fight your urges—during the first week the cravings will virtually disappear. I say this with such confidence only because so many overweight people who have already succeeded on this program tell me so. The South Beach Diet may be new to you, but it has existed for several years—long enough to have helped hundreds of people lose weight easily and keep it off.Phase 2 After the first 2 weeks, the strictest part of the diet, you will be somewhere between 8 and 13 pounds lighter than you are today. Most of that weight will come off your midsection, so right away you'll notice the difference in your clothes. It will be easier to zip your jeans than it's been for some time. That blazer will close without a bulge.But this will be just the noticeable difference. You won't be able to see that during those 2 weeks you'll also have changed yourself internally.You will have corrected the way your body reacts to the very foods that made you overweight. There's a switch inside you that had been turned on. Now, simply by modifying your diet, you'll have turned it off. The physical cravings that ruled your eating habits will be gone, and they'll stay away for as long as you stick with the program.The weight loss doesn't happen because you're trying to eat less. But you'll be eating fewer of the foods that created those bad old urges, fewer of the foods that caused your body to store excessive fat.As a result of that change, you will continue losing weight after the 14-day period ends, even though by then you will have begun adding some of those banished foods back into your life. You'll still be on a diet, but if it's bread you love, you'll have bread. If it's pasta, you'll reintroduce that. Rice or cereal, too. Potatoes. Fruit will definitely be back.Chocolate? If it makes you feel good, sure. You will have to pick and choose which of these indulgences you permit yourself. You won't be able to have all of them, all the time. You'll learn to enjoy them a little differently than before—maybe a little less enthusiastically. But you will enjoy them again soon.You'll remain in Phase 2 and continue losing weight until you reach your goal. How long it takes depends on how much you need to lose. In this phase, people lose, on average, a pound or two a week.Phase 3 Once you hit your target, you'll switch to an even more liberal version of the program, which will help you to maintain your ideal weight. This is Phase 3, the stage that lasts the rest of your life. When you get to that point, you'll notice that this plan feels less like a diet and more like a way of life. You'll be eating normal foods, after all, in normal-size portions. You can then feel free to forget all about the South Beach Diet, as long as you remember to live by its few basic rules.As you're losing weight and altering how your body responds to food, a third change will be taking place. This one will significantly alter your blood chemistry, to the long-term benefit of your cardiovascular system. You will improve invisible factors that only cardiologists and heart patients worry about. Thanks to this final change, you will substantially increase your odds of living long and well—meaning you will maintain your health and vitality as you age.You may start on the South Beach Diet hoping just to lose weight. If you adopt it and stay with it, you will surely accomplish that much. But you'll also do a lot more for yourself, all of it very good. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this diet can, as a fringe benefit, save your life.A Day in the Life I've described, in a nutshell, how you would pass the initial weeks on the South Beach Diet. Now I'll back up and tell you in greater detail how a typical day will go. Let's start with the first day of Phase 1. You've no doubt treated yourself to a memorable meal the night before, but whatever carb-driven cravings you prompted came as you slept, with no further damage done. By the time you wake up today, your bloodstream is a relatively clean slate. The immediate goal is to keep it that way. We will accomplish that simply by not introducing any bad carbs into your system.We'll begin with a two-egg omelet fortified by two slices of Canadian bacon, cooked in a spray of olive or canola oil. You may yearn for your usual toast or bagel, but if you can get your mind off bread, the rest of you will follow.This will be your first test of the new regimen. It may take a few days to wean yourself from the customary morning dose of carbs. But it's our goal in Phase 1 to begin reversing your body's likely inability to process sugars and starches properly, the condition at the root of most weight problems. To accomplish this, we must cut off all carbs but the healthiest ones. This means we'll allow those highest in fiber and nutrients and lowest in sugars and starches—vegetables and salads only, in other words, at least for these 2 weeks.This morning's combination of proteins (the eggs and Canadian bacon) and good fats (the oil and the bacon, which is leaner than its American cousin) will keep your stomach full and occupied with digestion. You won't have to contend with hunger pangs now or later this morning. It didn't have to be the Canadian bacon omelet—we could have gone with two eggs and some asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms, or peppers. That would have introduced some good vegetable fiber to the mix. An omelet with ham or low-fat cheese would have been fine, too.With this meal you can have coffee or tea if you like, with low-fat milk and sugar substitute. There are many to choose from nowadays—I prefer one that's actually derived in part from a form of sugar, although it has no calories. Some diets prohibit coffee or tea because caffeine does intensify cravings somewhat. But you've got enough changes to contend with without having to give up your morning coffee, too.A phenomenon I've noticed when dealing with overweight people is how many of them skip breakfast altogether—especially women, for some reason. It's not even necessarily an attempt to save on calories. They say they just don't like eating first thing in the morning.The problem is that this allows blood sugar to drop and hunger to increase over the course of the morning, resulting in powerful cravings for a lunch that includes carbs of questionable value—the very kind guaranteed to keep you overweight. So, skipping breakfast is a bad idea, especially if you're trying to fight off obesity.Planning Your Meals The array of breakfasts, even in the strict first phase, is varied. There's a frittata made with smoked salmon, for instance, and something we call Vegetable Quiche Cups To Go, which are made with eggs and spinach and, for the sake of convenience, can be prepared in advance and then microwaved at mealtime. We make liberal use of eggs for breakfast, which will alarm some people who have been taught to avoid them due to cholesterol concerns. It turns out that eggs contain no saturated fat and raise the good cholesterol along with the bad. The yolk is a good source of natural vitamin E and protein, too. So eggs are permissible. By the second phase of the diet, we'll begin to reintroduce carbs, even whole grain toast and English muffins, along with high fiber cereals. Fruit, too.Whether you feel the need for a midmorning snack or not, you should be ready for one by 10:30 or so. Wisely, you remembered to pack a part-skim mozzarella stick.Cheese and yogurt are the only low-fat foods I recommend for dieters, because they're the only ones that don't add bad carbs to replace the fats. The sugar is limited to lactose—milk sugar—which is an acceptable component of the South Beach Diet.You can find cheese sticks in most supermarkets—they've become a favorite snack for children. They're convenient and they taste good. Most important, they do the job of filling you up with good fats and proteins. That means you won't arrive at the lunch hour feeling famished.When lunch rolls around, you may have a salad—lettuce and tomato mixed with grilled chicken or fish, dressed in a viniagrette made with olive oil. You'll also have water or a beverage containing no sugar. Another day you might choose grilled shrimp over a bed of greens, or a tomato stuffed with tuna salad. Niçoise salad is great, too.All these dishes can easily be made at home, and, thanks to the trend toward fresh, healthy dining out, can usually be found in restaurants, too. Don't even think about limiting the amount you eat—the point of this diet is to eat well. Food is one of life's dependable pleasures, and it can be a wholesome one if you're eating the proper foods. Accomplish that and you'll be free to indulge in the improper treats from time to time.I hope you are beginning to see the pattern of these meals: They're all combinations of healthy carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. They are normal, everyday dishes intended to fully satisfy your hunger while depriving your system of the low-quality sugars and starches that have wreaked such havoc on your blood chemistry. You may have noticed that we're not discussing calorie counts, fat grams, or portion sizes. The South Beach Diet is designed so that you don't pay attention to any of that. One hallmark of this program is its simplicity—life is complicated enough without having to overanalyze your food before you eat it. If you're eating the right foods you don't need to obsess over how much of them you eat. Since fats and proteins create the sensation of satiety much more efficiently than refined carbs do, you won't sit in front of the TV all night popping bites of steak into your mouth, though you can easily imagine snacking for hours on potato chips or cookies!Through this diet, you'll understand the principles of metabolism—not as a matter of academic interest but in a practical, nuts and bolts way that will give you a basic understanding of how foods affect your blood chemistry and how that, in turn, determines what you weigh. You'll actually learn how to control your blood chemistry and your metabolism through food choices.Knowing how individual foods affect your internal workings will help you lose weight and maintain the loss. In the future, if you ease up on the diet and find you've gained a few pounds, you'll know how to undo the damage.Changing Your Thinking Okay, by now it's midafternoon, typically the first dangerous time of day, dietwise. This is when you might normally crave a sugar fix, owing to the natural dip in blood sugar and consequently, energy, that takes place about this time. This is when people tend to run to the coffee shop, the candy counter, or the vending machines. Instead, you'll have nuts—let's say plain almonds (not salted or smoked). Nuts contain good, healthy fats, and they fill you up. It's possible to have too many of them, however, and undermine your weight loss. I recommend counting out 15 almonds or cashews or whatever you choose. Some people have told me they prefer pistachios, in part because they're so small that you can allow yourself 30 of them. Cracking and eating 30 pistachios makes it a more elaborate, and therefore more satisfying, snack.Now it's time to begin thinking about dinner. Recent trends in fine food have brought us all toward something close to the South Beach Diet way of thinking—fresh vegetables, fish, and lean meats are the staples of dinner on our program. So Phase 1 features dishes such as grilled salmon with lemon, roasted eggplant and a salad, chicken made with balsamic vinegar, or even marinated London broil and mushroom caps stuffed with spinach.You could happen upon any of these on the menu of a good restaurant and be happy with them. And this is the strict phase of the diet! As you'll see, in the meal plans for Phase 1, we rely on chicken, fish, lean beef, and plenty of vegetables and salads to go with them.We strongly recommend that you have dessert after that meal. The second dangerous time of day is between dinner and bedtime. This is when all good intentions and strong resolve are challenged.Partly it's just the normal nightly routine—you unwind with a book or in front of the TV, perhaps in the company of friends or family, and the communal snacking habit kicks in. If you've got children, as I do, you've almost certainly got lots of temptations around the kitchen. Or it may just be that you've trained yourself to expect something sweet after a savory dinner.In any event, we've come up with two basic strategies for dessert during Phase 1. The first, and simplest, is to have some sugar-free gelatin. For people who love fruit, it may even make up for the loss of fresh fruit flavors during these 2 weeks. The other suggestion makes ample use of low-fat ricotta cheese. You can use it as the basis for a number of delicious, permissible desserts. This one is reminiscent of the Italian delicacy known as tiramisu, which combines cheese, chocolate, espresso, and ladyfingers. Instead, you take a half-cup of low-fat ricotta and stir in a few teaspoons of unsweetened cocoa powder, some slivered almonds, and a packet of sugar substitute. It tastes great, and I guarantee that when you're done you'll feel as though you've had a real dessert. We've tried a number of variations on this—using vanilla or almond extract, lemon zest, or even topping the ricotta with sugar-free chocolate syrup and then baking it.And that's day one on the South Beach Diet! By the time you finish the last bite of mocha ricotta, you will have already begun ridding yourself of the cravings that pushed you into the growing (in every way) ranks of the overweight in America.Your blood is different from the way it was 24 hours ago: it's healthier. Get through another day this way and you'll be even closer to your goal of weight loss, and my goal for you, of better overall health.