Olympia Tides Provide Sea Level Rise Lessons

Above: What was predicted to be the highest tide in Olympia this winter didn’t happen Thursday morning, but local science teacher Lara Tukarski, above, wasn’t disappointed. Every king tide is a new learning opportunity.

Olympia’s draft sea level rise adaption plan for up to 68 inches is estimated to cost between $190 to $350 million

By Janine Gates

Little Hollywood

https://janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com

Every king tide is a new learning opportunity, even when it isn’t all that exciting.

At 16.95 feet, Thursday’s tide was predicted to be the highest in Olympia this winter, but it topped out at 16.5 feet, said Andy Haub, water resources director for the City of Olympia.

“The barometric pressure was relatively high, so the tides were about 0.3 or 0.4 feet lower than predicted. It’s when the pressure is low that things get interesting,” said Haub, who announced last week that he is leaving his position with the city on April 5.

For the city, storm surges from nearby Budd Inlet make for “interesting” training sessions in the protection of infrastructure and businesses from dramatic downtown street and parking lot flooding.

Notably, the first sites prone to flooding are Capitol Lake, Fourth and Water Street, and the Oyster House Restaurant on Fourth Avenue and Sylvester Street.

The highest tides in Washington usually occur in winter. These tides, known as king tides, occur when the sun and moon align, causing an increased gravitational pull on the Earth’s oceans.

Viewing king tides offers a chance to visualize what “the new normal” may look like for downtown Olympia in the future as sea levels rise.

Lara Tukarski, an environmental science teacher at Nova Middle School, stopped by Percival Landing during her planning period to witness the king tide. 

A climate resiliency fellow with the Pacific Northwest Climate Leaders, Tukarski is working on a climate action project with her sixth grade students, South Sound GREEN, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Thurston Conservation District. 

South Sound GREEN is a watershed education program that engages about 1,200 area students in hands-on science and engineering practices related to water quality in South Sound.

Tukarski’s students will first study climate change through problem-based investigations in her classroom lab, focusing on real-time data collection. 

To learn about the regional impacts of climate change, they will then explore Olympia’s urban topography, Capitol Lake, shoreline restoration, downtown flooding, and sea level rise projections.

“My intention is that they will be designing and engineering their own ideas and plans to help mitigate sea level rise, studying all aspects of watershed health monitoring, and working with people who are involved in making the decisions about the infrastructure. 

“Then, the students are going to pitch their ideas to the city. It’ll be a combination of options. We’re going to look at what to do with existing infrastructure and what it means for the people who already live here,” Tukarski said. 

Tukarski laughed as the sounds from the construction of a new development, The Laurana, interrupted our conversation. 

The three story mixed-use development at 210 State Street, the site of the former Les Schwab building, will include a restaurant and 44 housing units just a few feet from Budd Inlet.

“ - and for those who are coming,”she added. “The city hasn’t been officially pulled into the conversation at this point, but I'm excited my students will have an opportunity to present their research and ideas to city planners next fall,” she said.  

Above: For the Percival Landing area, mid-term strategies for 24 inches of sea level rise includes a combination of raised planters, flood gates, a raised wall, a berm, and elevated paths. Photo shows the tide at 15.9 feet at 8:41 a.m. as the tide was receding.

Draft City of Olympia Sea Level Rise Adaption Plan

The city has repeatedly emphasized its commitment to saving downtown Olympia and its infrastructure from sea level rise.

Key areas include Capitol Lake and the lower Deschutes Watershed, Percival Landing, the isthmus, the LOTT Clean Water Alliance Budd Inlet Treatment Plant, the Port of Olympia Peninsula, and storm water systems.

The city’s sea level rise adaption plans will be phased in over time.

In the immediate future, up to five years, 2020 - 2025, the city will plan for up to six inches of sea level rise. The cost for these efforts is estimated to be about $1.25 million.

Mid-term, between five to thirty years, 2025 - 2050, the city will plan for up to 24 inches of sea level rise. The cost for these efforts is estimated to be about $15 million to $20 million.

Long-term, thirty or more years, 2050 and beyond, the city will plan for 68 inches of sea level rise.

The total cost for the city’s sea level rise adaption efforts to plan for up to 68 inches of sea level rise is estimated between $190 million to 350 million.

Upcoming Sea Level Rise Meetings

City of Olympia staff will be available Saturday, January 26, 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. at the Harbor House on Percival Landing to discuss sea level rise issues. 

High tide will occur at 9:50 a.m. This is a public opportunity to view potential sea level rise adaptation strategies and learn about the city’s draft sea level rise response plan.

A Joint Elected Officials meeting on Wednesday, January 30, from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. at the Port of Olympia meeting room, 606 Columbia Street NW. 

This meeting is an opportunity for discussion among elected officials and staff from the City of Olympia, Port of Olympia, and LOTT Clean Water Alliance. Public comments at the meeting will be limited to written form.

Above: The draft Olympia Sea Level Rise Response Plan was revealed at a public meeting on December 11, 2018.

For more information and photos of previous king tide events, downtown flooding, Capitol Lake, joint elected officials sea level rise meetings, community presentations and Andy Haub, go to Little Hollywood at https://janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com and type key words into the search button.

For more information on sea level rise from the City of Olympia, go to www.olympiawa.gov/slr. To sign up for the city’s sea level rise e-newsletter, go to www.olympiawa.gov/subscribe.

Witness to King Tide in Olympia

Above: A famous image painted on the side of Childhood’s End Gallery in downtown Olympia, Great Wave off Kanagawa, is a likely future for Olympia. A recent city study found that sea level rise will greatly increase wave hazards along Olympia’s shoreline in the future. Budd Inlet experienced an estimated 16.9 foot king tide on Friday. 

-January 31 Meeting of Elected Officials to Discuss Sea Level Rise Planning

By Janine Gates

Little Hollywood

https://janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com

While the Friday morning king tide was not as dramatic as in the past, the sight of high water steadily rising to the edge of the boardwalk at Percival Landing still provided an opportunity to witness the possible future of downtown Olympia.

Not as high as the predicted 17.3 foot level, tidal activity was somewhat uneventful and did not require the type of emergency city response seen for past events.

Still, Olympia area community members walked along Percival Landing and gathered at the Harbor House to witness the event.

Donuts, cookies and coffee helped foster a sense of camaraderie amid uncertainty.

Under a nearby shelter on Percival Landing, Eric Christiansen, City of Olympia’s water resources planning and engineering manager, observed the tide as it peaked at 8:40 a.m. 

The atmospheric pressure was a little above normal so it came in two to three inches under predictions, he said. Pending verification, Christiansen estimated that the tide rose to 16.9 feet.

“We’re fortunate – we didn’t see water in the streets or in the parking lots,” said Christiansen.

Above: The Capitol Building in Olympia, Washington is witness to the rising waters of Budd Inlet around the Oyster House restaurant in downtown Olympia on Friday morning. At far right is the nine story Capitol Center Building, also known as Views on 5th, currently proposed to be redeveloped and expanded. It stands in a flood zone.

Olympia, located at the southernmost tip of Budd Inlet, experiences one of the largest tide ranges in Puget Sound. Portions of the city’s downtown area and the Port of Olympia are built on fill, creating an estimated 4,000 feet of land north into Budd Inlet.

Many of these areas are susceptible to flooding, and in fact, are sinking. Add to that, Olympia is located in a region that is expected to see a ten to twenty percent increase in annual maximum precipitation by the end of the century.

In 2011, the City of Olympia funded a study to develop an engineered response to sea level rise. The study examined impacts to the downtown area for sea level rise amounts up to 50 inches. 

At 17 feet, water is seen in the streets of downtown Olympia, particularly on Sylvester Street near the Oyster House restaurant. Over 17 feet, water is seen in downtown area parking lots.

Interviewed by Little Hollywood last week, Andy Haub, City of Olympia water resources director, said that improvements were accomplished last year around areas that see the worst flooding such as the parking lot around Budd Bay Café on Percival Landing and around Olympia Supply on Seventh Avenue, which is a solid six inches below a 17 foot tide.

“The work at Columbia and Seventh Avenue has been completed. The stormwater pipe system in that area used to convey a lot of runoff from upland areas such as portions of the Capitol Campus to the low lying area by Olympia Supply. The flows would then struggle to get into Capitol Lake when lake levels were high. We needed to pump the flows, or risk flooding. Now, the upland area has been pipe directed to the outlet as a pressurized system. The flows can’t bubble up out of the street drains - it’s a sealed pipe system. We still need to pump, but only the minor flows in the immediate vicinity of Olympia Supply.  It’s a far more manageable and a far lower risk of flooding,” he said.

An open house and community workshop on January 18, 6:00 p.m. -8:00 p.m. and will be held at The Olympia Center, 222 Columbia Street NW, in downtown Olympia.

Haub referred to the city’s recently completed sea level rise response planning science review document which will be reviewed at an upcoming meeting of local elected officials on January 31.

The meeting for elected officials will be held at Olympia City Hall in council chambers from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Due to time constraints, public comment at this workshop will be limited to written form.

The document was compiled in October 2017 by AECOM, the consultant used by the City of Olympia, the Port of Olympia and the LOTT Cleanwater Alliance to identify climate hazards impacting the city. It focuses on the three primary climate hazards that will impact Olympia in the future: sea level rise, coastal storms and precipitation.

The document does not make recommendations on adoption of a specific climate change scenario and planning efforts into the city’s sea level rise response plan.

Asked what sea level rise projections the recently completed Downtown Strategy is based upon, Haub said that it doesn’t call out a specific projection.

“Our various planning work has relied on the same projections for several years now. It’s from the National Research Council’s study of potential West Coast sea rise. The numbers are pretty much the same, but we can also add in the likelihood that Olympia is subsiding at eight to twelve inches possibly by the end of the century,” added Haub. 

Besides other factors that make Olympia especially susceptible to sea level rise, the sinking of Olympia could contribute an additional four inches of sea level rise by 2030, six inches by 2050, and twelve inches by 2100, says the study.

Above: Thad Curtz, former chair of the City of Olympia's Utilities Advisory Committee, speaks with Judy Bardin, a former member of the city's Planning Commission, in the Harbor House on Friday morning. Olympia area community members gathered at and around the Harbor House to witness the king tide and catch up with each other in real time.

Editor's Note, January 7: The location for the January 18 sea level rise meeting has been corrected. It will be held at The Olympia Center.

Editor's Note, January 9: A sea level rise open house and community workshop will be held January 18. An elected officials workshop will be held January 31 in Olympia City Hall, council chambers, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The story has been corrected and Little Hollywood apologizes for the confusion. Meetings are often cancelled and locations changed. Go to the City of Olympia's sea level rise planning website for the latest information.

Little Hollywood has written many stories about previous king tides, storm surges, Olympia’s sea level rise planning, projections, and flooding in downtown Olympia. For more stories and photos, go to Little Hollywood, www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com and type key words into the search engine. To find stories on Facebook, go to Little Hollywood Media. 

Olympia Sea Level Rise Website Coming Soon

Above: When it comes to sea level rise, downtown Olympia is running out of time. Here, the waters of Budd Inlet reach the floorboards of the Olympia Yacht Club office at high tide the morning of March 10, 2016. Luckily, favorable weather conditions created a tide lower than expected, peaking at about 17.4 feet.

Sea Level Rise Language Clarified for Views on 5^th Plans

By Janine Gates

www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com

In light of a possible redevelopment of downtown Olympia’s nine story “Mistake on the Lake,” also known as the Capitol Center Building or Views on 5^th, Little Hollywood checked in earlier this week with City of Olympia's water resources director Andy Haub.

What progress has the Olympia City Council made about sea level rise issues since city staff dropped their sobering report about Olympia's vulnerabilities on the council last February?

The briefing by Haub and other staff last February was so frank, it caused one council member to throw into the conversation the consideration of abandoning downtown.

Council members have been updated on sea level rise issues informally since February, and adopted an ordinance on August 30 to raise finished floor elevations in downtown for new construction. 

Although the council’s Land Use and Environment committee hasn’t been updated on the topic since April, staff updated the city’s Utility Advisory Committee (UAC) on October 6. 

The UAC will be helping the city develop the scope of a sea level rise program plan. One goal will be to develop a formal community plan that prioritizes downtown investments. The city is working on establishing participation with the Port of Olympia and the LOTT Clean Water Alliance and looking at the sea level action plans of San Francisco and Vancouver, B.C.

“We continue to make progress in 2016 and the plan is on schedule to begin in early 2017,” said Haub.

Haub also said that an interactive sea level rise webpage on the city website is scheduled to be up later this week. 

The link will be: www.olympiawa.gov/SeaLevelRise.

“The webpage will include a map of downtown. Folks can select various levels of sea rise and see how it affects downtown, degree of inundation, buildings affected, street impacts, and so forth. It should be helpful,” said Haub.

Above: High tide at Percival Landing earlier this month, with the nine story Capitol Center Building, the proposed Views on 5th, in the background. 

Language Clarified for Views on 5^th Plans

The community is in need of a sea level rise primer specific to Olympia. 

Recent verbiage used by staff in a meeting to describe how the proposed Views on 5th project must be raised to 16 feet, for example, caused confusion for readers of Little Hollywood.  Admittedly, Little Hollywood didn’t do a good job of explaining that the reference didn't mean 16 feet above the street, and added a note of clarification to the story.

Developer Ken Brogan showed city staff his preliminary plans to redevelop the nine story building and a nearby one story building at last Wednesday’s Site Plan Review Committee meeting. The one story building would be converted to a three story building. 

The elevation reference was in relation to mean sea level, and in the case of the vacant nine story building bordered by 4th Avenue and 5th Avenue, and Simmons Street and Sylvester Street near the Heritage Park Fountain, the sidewalk is 12 feet above sea level. This means the project would need to accommodate a four foot sea level rise.

This analysis is in keeping with the city’s projection of about four to eight feet of sea level rise in downtown Olympia by 2100. 

“....The construction of the project must be designed so that the lowest occupied floor is raised to 16 feet elevation. Alternatively, the applicant can dry flood proof the exterior walls to ensure flood proofing is accomplished with barriers or panels that close entrances, should there be a flooding event,” said Tim Smith, principal planner for the City of Olympia, in an email to Little Hollywood.

The 16 foot elevation is an incremental step toward preparing the city for sea level rise and adds one foot to the minimum finished floor elevation required by the current flood prevention ordinance for properties within Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mapped flood hazard areas. This would be two feet above FEMA’s coastal flood elevation, 14 feet, for downtown.

Parking is proposed under the new one story building, but not three stories. Smith says there is about a six foot differential shown on Brogan’s preliminary plans with regard to the lowest parking floor elevation.

“Staff believes it is very possible to design a foundation or other structure so that it is impermeable to water intrusion and the effects of buoyancy. The design for these considerations will be addressed and calculations performed by the soils and structural engineers based on the conditions and as these elements come together,” said Smith earlier this week.

“If water were to infiltrate or seep into the area, pumps could be used to remove the water. We see this often on a much smaller scale when we have a sump pump in a basement or subterranean garage with a hillside condition that may have a water infiltration issue.”

Above: The Oyster House restaurant prepared for the high tide on March 10, 2016 with a wooden barrier and a few sandbags.

Downtown Strategy

Many other downtown issues are ongoing through processes that have separate timelines and decision tracks.

Another city sponsored Downtown Strategy open house will be held on Saturday, October 29, from 10:00 a.m. to noon, at the Olympia Center at 222 Columbia Street NW in downtown Olympia.

The public can review proposed actions related to housing, transportation, business, and urban design. Staff will ask participants about their priorities for what should be the most immediate actions the city should take within the six year implementation period.

A final draft report will be released later this year, leading to its adoption by the city council by the end of 2016.

“As we mapped and evaluated the downtown land uses, we were struck by how much critical infrastructure and how many emergency transportation corridors are encompassed by our relatively small downtown. 

“We all concluded that downtown needed to be protected in its entirety, or not at all. It’s all or nothing,” explains a descriptive flyer produced by the city for the Downtown Strategy process.

For more photos and information about the staff report to council in February, sea level rise, king tides, and flooding issues in downtown Olympia, Andy Haub, the Downtown Strategy, and more, go to Little Hollywood, www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com and type key words into the search engine.

For more information about the Downtown Strategy, contact Amy Buckler, Senior Planner, City of Olympia, at (360) 570-5847 or dts@ci.olympia.wa.us. 

A full description of the Dowtown Strategy goals and process can be found at http://olympiawa.gov/community/downtown-olympia/downtown-strategy

Above: Ryan Kang, general manager of The Governor Hotel, speaks with his tablemates at a Downtown Strategy meeting for developers and businesses on April 28, 2016 in city council chambers. Other businesses at his table represented the Port of Olympia, Ron Thomas Architects, Big Rock Capital, Olympia Federal Savings, Petworks, Prime Locations, Rants Group, and Adroit Contractors.