Don Anderson (Mayor/City Council), followed by Steve O’Ban (State Senator), both attorneys and officials from Lakewood, worked on County Executive Bruce Dammeier’s proposal to put a community of tiny homes in the watershed above Spanaway Lake. The city recently voted to contribute $1,000,000 to the effort.

On the other side of the military base, lake residents in Spanaway, struggling to clear their lake of pollutants, voted a tax on lakefront owners to help clean up the lake. This effort will be hindered by adding homes in the headwaters area that will remove tree cover and add pollution to the ground water.

Conversations about groundwater pollution, phosphorus, and toxic algae are a hot topic for both Spanaway Lake and Lake Steilacoom in Lakewood. Lakewood’s own Ponce de Leon Creek, which was buried under the asphalt of the Villa Plaza, now Lakewood Towne Center, has risen up as a hot topic for development in Lakewood.

Long time water steward and citizen Don Russell has kept many years of records of the condition of water in the Chambers Clover Creek Watershed. His latest says the water flowing from Spanaway Lake, Spanaway Creek and Morey Creek is what feeds Ponce de Leon’s water supply, which has high Phosphorus content. Essentially, he is pointing out that further contamination to the watershed in Spanaway will head straight to Lakewood. Nice job guys. (NOT) Tit for tat – it’s coming atcha.

Here are Don Russell’s latest comments to Al Schmauder.

4/13/24, 4:45 AM

Al,

Interestingly, based upon the chemistry of Ponce de Leon Creek water discharging into Lake Steilacoom its headwater source is shallow aquifer nutrient (NO3 and PO4) polluted groundwater fed Spanaway Lake via Spanaway and Morey Creeks to the McChord AFB/Lakewood reach of Clover Creek and from Clover Creek midway between Pacific Highway SW (US 99) and Gravelly Lake Drive subsurface beneath the asphalt covering of Lakewood Town Center to Ponce de Leon Creek where it first appears discharging from a culvert located just below Gravelly Lake Drive and thence flowing into Lake Steilacoom!

Clover Creek above McChord AFB is primarily a heavily modified wet season stormwater runoff drainage ditch containing water, when there is water in it, with a much different chemical profile.

I have all the data in my files to support this hypothesis for those interested.

Don