After yet another attempt by community members to prevent the combination of Denny Middle School and Sealth High School, a recent ruling has kept the project on track.

On June 2 the Seattle Committee to Save Our Schools, a community group led by Chris Jackins, filed an appeal arguing that the School District had rushed the design process of the joint school construction and had not properly considered the environmental impacts of the project.

Specifically the committee found that the project's Checklist, an environmental review required by The State Environmental Policy Act, was inadequate and sought to reverse the resulting determination of non-significance, which claimed that the project would have no significant adverse environmental impacts.

One of the appeal's primary concerns was that combining the schools would likely have a negative effect on neighboring streets with an increase in off-site parking. The committee suggested that the Checklist should have considered a wider surrounding area when measuring the parking impacts of special events. According to the Jackins, parking impacts were underestimated by assuming that activities at Denny and Sealth would be coordinated, even though the School District has said that the two schools will continue to operate separately.

"By concentrating so much in a very confined area there's going to be some serious traffic issues," said Clark Stockwell, a member of the Seattle Committee to Save Our Schools.

In response the School District referred to an analysis completed by Heffron Transportation Inc. The study showed that while mid-morning traffic would likely cause an overflow of approximately 120 vehicles onto nearby streets, the surrounding neighborhood currently offers 374 on street parking spaces, only 13 percent of which are used by the community on average.

The hearing examiner, Margaret Klockars, agreed that this would not qualify as a significantly negative impact on the neighborhood but urged the principals of Denny Middle School and Chief Sealth High School to coordinate special events.

The appeal also suggested that construction would cause harm to the nearby environment, including Longfellow Creek and the surrounding green space, where chum and Coho salmon have been found. Jackins pointed out that during a year of construction there would be a 5.3 percent increase in impervious surfaces, areas that repel water, increasing surface run-off and possibly pollution of the creek.

Still Klockars found that the school was taking necessary measures to prevent undesirable impacts to surface water.

Don Gillmore, Building Excellence project manager, said water run-off at the site will be directed toward rain gardens, shallow ditches with a specific soil designed to filter pollutants from the water and slow the flow into the creek. Sealth High School will also have a green roof that uses plant life to absorb rainwater.

The committee's appeal also argued that construction for a planned "drive aisle," which would run between Longfellow Creek's green space and the current Sealth High School gymnasium, would severely damage the slope and existing vegetation.

These concerns were affirmed on July 19 when Jackins took a walk near the site. Before the hearing had begun, he saw that the drive aisle had been bulldozed. Jackins photographed massive piles of cut tree branches, freshly cut tree trunks and significant root damage.

The group said such damage to the trees could have harmful effects on the creek, as tree roots generally absorb run-off water. What's more, Jackins wonders why standards for critical root zones, which the School District implemented for construction at Ingraham High School, were not included in the Denny Middle School and Sealth High School project Checklist.

"The School District is not looking at how we've tried to restore Longfellow Creek and the environmental impact (construction will have) on a sensitive area," said Roger Murray, a neighbor to Sealth High School.

Days after Jackins first saw and photographed the premature construction the site looked very different from his photos. The short filter fence was now accompanied by a much taller chain-link fence, and exposed roots on the bulldozed ground were difficult to see under a bed of straw.

Gillmore said at the hearing that he had not known about the construction on the east perimeter until the day before. Later he claimed that only branches, and not entire trees, had been cut to install a filter fence which would keep pollutants out of the creek during construction.

But when presented with photos of freshly cut tree stumps just east of the filter fence, Gillmore admitted that he had not seen them before, and that in fact these could be trees cut during the premature construction.

"We admit that the contractor should not have plowed that land," Gillmore said.

In her recommendation Klockars did recognize that 10 trees had been cut along the east perimeter of the construction site, while Lorne McConachie, the lead architect for the project, had only anticipated that two birch trees would be removed from the drive aisle. She went on to recognize that premature actions by the contractor had in fact resulted in damage to the nearby trees.

While The State Environmental Policy Act prohibits any actions that have an adverse environmental impact before a final Determination of Non-Significance is issued, Klockars said the regulation does not apply to appeals. Nonetheless, she claimed that the recent premature construction activity would effectively require that the projects proposal be revised to include a loss of at least 35 trees, instead of the initial 25.

Even with the miscalculation in trees being cut the hearing examiner did not find the existing checklist inadequate and recommended to the Seattle School's superintendent that the Determination of Non-Significance be upheld.

The superintendent will later rule to accept that recommendation or reverse it. After that the committee has 21 days to further appeal.

"We'll see what people think, it takes money and time but there are a lot of people unhappy with the project," Jackins said.

Rose Egge may be contacted at rosee@robinsonnews.com