The Untold Story of Bsche’tla Creek

A map of the east side of Lake Forest Park illustrating the positions of our three creeks.

By Brian Saunders and Chip Dodd

Most people, who are familiar with Lake Forest Park, associate it with large trees, clean, cool creeks, green spaces and people who care about our natural environment. Visitors here speak of the pristine park-like feel in contrast to the ever encroaching urbanization typical of most metropolitan areas. 

Indeed, having grown up on the banks of McAleer Creek, witnessing the salmon runs, clambering up tall cedars, and enjoying mid-summer swims on the lake, I have always felt our namesake fits us well.

The Stewardship Foundation Streamkeepers have been studying the chemical, physical and biological health of McAleer and Lyon Creeks for over a decade now. However, many people who live in Lake Forest Park may not be aware of a third creek that cuts through a ravine near the southern entrance of our city. 

Bsche’tla Creek is the ‘little sister’ to McAleer and Lyon Creeks, and it is the only creek that still bears the Lushootseed name. Most of us have driven over the stream innumerable times with no idea that it exists beneath a bridge over SR 522/ Bothell Way (just south of the Sheridan Market). 

It is mostly a hidden stream, deep in its ravine, abutting backyards of private properties in a steep fall to Lake Washington. 

Having lived in Lake Forest Park for 50+ years, I had never visited Bsche’tla Creek until 2023. My visit left me ashamed, with a feeling of betrayal, by the image we project as a city.

Streamkeepers Chip Dodd and Councilmember Tracy Furutani climbing out
of the Bsche’tla ravine covered with invasive plants. Photo by B Saunders

A Rude Introduction

Rather than finding a winding, little creek, staggered with waterfalls, dark pools and bubbly riffles resembling the creek I was raised on, I found a stream in dystopian chaos. 

The headwaters of Bsche’tla Creek begin in the Briarcrest neighborhood from natural springs and runoff, just north of the Acacia cemetery. No more than a few feet across, it trickles and meanders along streets before winding its way down towards Highway 522 where it plummets into a culvert that cuts underneath the highway and eventually tubing out 100 feet below the street. 

The water that exits the drainpipe below 522 is initially channeled through a cement causeway before allowed to freely flow. Its color is rust-tinted and murky as it rambles along the clay-lined banks that make up much of the stream bed down the steep-walled ravine.

It's a treacherous path to reach the stream bed that runs below 522, as one must fight through thick tendrils of invasive English Ivy, English Holly, Himalayan Blackberry, and Laurel. Tree trunks wear ivy as a thick coat, 40 or 50 feet high. 

At the base of the ravine, I was left speechless with the sheer volume of debris, garbage, and used tires that had been discarded there. At first glance it is not recognizable as a stream but more resembling an effluent ditch in an industrial zone. I counted 20 old tires within a 30-foot stretch of the creek! It’s difficult to firmly wrap my head around this neglect. 

Could this stream really be here in Lake Forest Park?

Discarded car tires lining the bed of Bsche’tla Creek.
Photo by B. Saunders

After my visit last summer, the Streamkeepers added Bsche’tla to our list of streams to assess the Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (B-IBI) analysis. We have been doing this type of analysis for Lake Forest Park’s other two creeks since 2006 

(For information on the importance of B-IBI analysis, see past SAN articles on September 2021 and October 2021).

The B-IBI results confirmed my suspicion of a creek on life support system scoring in the “Very Poor” index B-IBI test (17.2 out of 100). 

Looking at the graph below you can see a side-by-side comparison of B-IBI scores from different creeks in our area, including those in Seattle, Shoreline, Bothell, and Kenmore.

Mean B-BIBI Score of neighboring city creeks and those of Lake Forest Park 

Unlike McAleer and Lyon, which score near the fair range, Bsche’tla aligns closely with the more troubled creeks in Seattle and Shoreline. 

How could we have let one of our watersheds become so dilapidated? In addition to its poor current condition, Bsche'tla Creek faces immediate and extreme risk from proposed development at the rim of the ravine as well as from Sound Transit's widening of SR522 for Bus Rapid Transit.

Image from a KCTS video taken in the 1970s
of young students cleaning up a Lake Forest Park creek.

We Have Been Here Before

A colleague of mine and Stewardship Board member, Dr. Jeff Jensen, sent me video file of a slightly grainy movie produced by KCTS that appears to have been filmed in the early 1970’s. 

There’s no audio of the copy sent to me, but the images are vivid and in color. 

The movie begins with footage of I-5, uncongested by traffic, with old 1960-70 car models whizzing past the off-ramp of 104 East to Mountlake Terrace. Images quickly shift to several stretches of a McAleer Creek, from its beginnings at Ballinger Lake, through a culvert bypass under I-5 before entering Lake Forest Park proper. At last come the familiar sight of a large creek running along Perkins Way (NE 180th St), well shaded by vegetation but with the banks accessible.

Another image from a KCTS video taken in the 1970s
of refuse extracted from an LFP creek.

The next are images of Brookside School, the plaque with 1959 commemorative date clearly visible, and children, perhaps aged 8-12, heading out as if on a school field trip. 

The footage that follows is worth a second look as the cleanup effort begins. 

Large pieces of fabric, tires, metal bars are seen being pulled out of the creek waters or from along the banks. Obvious signs of a neglected waterway from past times. Even a large automobile was somehow dredged out and piled next to all the other debris.

The final images show students and teachers testing the water quality of the creek, measuring stream flow, and conducting restoration by planting streamside vegetation and releasing fish species, presumably salmon. The video ends by tracing the path of a released fish along the riffles.

Speaking with local artist and historian, Tony Angel, who spearheaded the project and helped edit the KCTS film, he recalled the colossal effort the cleanup took.

“There were 5-6 schools involved and it happened over 2-3 weekends.”

Much of the heavy lifting was even done using excavation equipment donated by out of town business groups.

 
“It was amazing to see the collective effort involved, from Bill Stevenson (Shoreline Superintendent), Dick Sacksteder (director of Instructional Materials) and Jill Dilworth at KCTS.”

After the clean-up, Tony convinced the Fish and Wildlife agency to get involved along with local scout troops, and the Rotary Club to replant native vegetation along the stream bank and plant sockeye salmon in McAleer Creek.

“It never ceases to amaze me how people, unified under a common purpose, can become so inspired and motivated”.

 
Many local elementary schools today continue with Salmon in the Classroom programs, which were a direct result of the McAleer Creek cleanup. We shall need such educational inspirations and efforts as we face more challenges to protect and restore our natural systems in the future.

Streamkeeper Brian Saunders examining the debris and invasive species on Bsche'tla Creek
Photo by Chip Dodd

The Future of Bsche’tla Creek

Moving forward, we have two options. We could continue our focus solely on McAleer and Lyon Creek and ignore the plight of Bsche’tla or we fight to restore this small creek to a health that is more fitting of our city’s image. 

As we enter 2024, I hope the citizens of Lake Forest Park join the Stewardship Foundation, to continue to battle for the restoration and preservation of natural areas, areas that sustain not only species but entire ecological communities, so that future generations may enjoy what I experienced in my youth.