White Center Now: The blog about White Center

If you haven’t been there before – that’s Hicks Lake, right in the middle of Lakewood Park (map). Dozens of people spent much of today volunteering during the annual Hicks Lake cleanup, like 17 first-year students from Seattle Pacific University:

Among other things, they picked up trash and cleared away invasive plants like blackberries, and fallen tree limbs – over a dump-truckload worth, according to Dick Thurnau from Friends of Hicks Lake. Restoration work is under way both along the lake and in the nearby “bioswale” area that feeds it. They weren’t the only students on hand – Ann Magyar brought some of her students from New Start High School, who repaired damage to murals:

We got Dick Thurnau to stop down for a photo too; his note also thanks King County Parks’ Sam Whitman for providing gloves and tools:

Dick is a longtime advocate for the lake, and knows its history and challenges inside and out, as well as having many personal stories to tell. In his wrapup note about today’s cleanup, Dick provided some of the information we incorporated above, and added, “We asked the students what improvements they thought were needed in Lakewood Park /Hicks Lake; the #1 answer, clean lake water. They also suggested doors on the ladies’-restroom stalls, and complained of no paper towels to dry their hands. Several years ago at a Friends of Hicks Lake free annual BBQ, 50 letters were written by people attending and were sent to our King County Executive. One twelve-year-old girl wrote about the same problems dirty water no doors on the restroom stalls and no running water. A beautiful lady who is a champion Disc Golfer winning many tournaments has attended our meetings and she posted notices and informed the president of the Disc Golf Club; there were many golfers playing the course but only this lady was present for our cleanup day. Several remarks were made that stated the park looked in far better condition then in the past years. Thank you, Sam, for your efforts. There is a lot more work that needs to be accomplished, if we could just get the community’s attention.” The county has several projects in the works that should help improve water quality – we’ll be reporting on them indepth next week; one involves water sampling that could trace pollution back to the businesses from which it originates. The old dock you see in the top photo is scheduled for demolition next month, too.

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