Whoops! Mt. Vernon Developer fined $134k. Take Care of Your Streams.

Mount Vernon real estate developer fined $134K

May 6, 2010 - The Puget Sound Business Journal

The Washington state Department of Ecology said it’s fined a Mount Vernon real estate developer $134,000 for destruction of a steelhead and salmon stream.

David Milne, according to the state, mismanaged a 40-acre construction site two years ago, destroying about a mile of salmon spawning and rearing habitat. The state is requiring Milne to restore the damaged streams.

Here’s a copy of the Department of Ecology press release:FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - May 6, 201010-103Developer fined $134,000 for destroying Skagit salmon streams

BELLINGHAM - The Washington Department of Ecology has fined real estate developer David Milne $134,000 after continued mismanagement of a 40-acre construction site caused the destruction of steelhead and salmon streams in Mount Vernon in 2008.

Ecology also has issued an administrative order requiring Milne to restore the damaged streams.

On May 21, 2008, a detention pond wall failed on Milne’s construction site for the Creek at Parkwood development, releasing a torrent of muddy water to Thunderbird and East Thunderbird creeks. The mud, water and debris scoured the bottom of the two creeks and settled in Trumpeter Creek.

About a mile of salmon spawning and rearing habitat was destroyed. The creeks have documented populations of Coho and Chinook salmon and steelhead trout. Chinook and steelhead are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife employees had seen juvenile salmon in the creeks a week earlier.

The detention pond failure was the culmination of a year of little or no effort to properly manage the construction site under state and federal law, as outlined in a construction stormwater permit granted to Milne.

Milne hired a series of contractors to prepare a 40-acre tract of land - about 20 acres of which was cleared of vegetation and leveled - for construction of his Creek at Parkwood residential development. Ecology and city inspectors repeatedly found violations, including unstable soil, muddy water flowing from the site, the unfinished detention pond and poor recordkeeping and reporting.

The inspectors worked with the contractors to correct problems, but when Milne stopped paying for work, the contractors left the site unsupervised, and conditions deteriorated until the detention pond failed.

“This series of violations is one of the most egregious we’ve seen from a construction site,” said Ecology Director Ted Sturdevant. “The destruction of habitat and blatant disregard for neighboring property is unacceptable. This was entirely preventable. This is exactly why we need to regulate stormwater on construction sites.”

Private investors have taken over the property and hired a contractor to temporarily stabilize the site.

This is the third penalty for Milne in the last year, whose company David Alan Development was fined twice in 2009 for similar violations at the Horstman Heights construction project in Port Orchard. Ecology fined the company $28,000 in late January and $48,000 in April. (Read the news releases at www.ecy.wa.gov/news/2009news/2009-077.html and www.ecy.wa.gov/news/2009news/2009-033.html).

A bank that was in the process of taking control of the Horstman Heights property made site improvements to control water pollution.

Milne may appeal the penalty to Ecology or directly to the Washington State Pollution Control Hearings Board within 30 days. Funds from Ecology water-quality penalties go into the department’s Coastal Protection Fund for environmental enhancement projects by local and tribal governments and state agencies.

Construction stormwater permitting and enforcement are part of Ecology’s ongoing efforts to meet the state’s goal of protecting and restoring Puget Sound’s water quality by 2020.

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Media Contact: Katie J. Skipper, Ecology media relations, 360-715-5205,

360-510-0682 cell, katie.skipper@ecy.wa.gov.

For more information:

www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wq/stormwater/construction/Ecology’s Web site: www.ecy.wa.gov