The citizenry of Battle Ground and its surrounding areas have a right to know how the City government operates, and in some cases steamrolls over those it is sworn to serve.
A local developer is assisting an Oregon developer in placing the inaugural Washington location of a discount gas station and convenience store at the corner of SW 40th Street and State Route 503. While zoned commercial, it is at the mouth of a closed access (dead-end) road that leads to two residential communities totaling 42 homes and the people who live in them.
While the current traffic load along SW 40th St. is estimated at 150-165 Average Daily Trips (ADTs) per the professionally done traffic study, it now projects a ten-fold increase to an estimated 1,684 ADTs, which will totally overwhelm these neighborhoods and corner.
SW 40th Street already accommodates double the school buses daily because SW 40th separates the north and south schools, with some children going each way. Should school children be left waiting for a morning bus while commuters zip in and out near the bus stops? Should they be dropped off while “strangers” congregate nearby? Isn’t that a safety issue for those kids? And that study didn’t even mention the soon-to-be new home of the Clark County Saddle Club, just beyond the end of NE 120th Avenue.
From an environmental standpoint, that land is surrounded by wetlands that have lots of standing water on them during wet seasons. Other parcels have a well-documented extremely high groundwater table, and two private wells are used by residents for all their water uses.
Any contamination from fuel spills, leaks or tank seepage will spread far and wide, despoiling surrounding properties. Those properties have open ditches that eventually feed downhill straight into Salmon Creek, a critical resource and salmon habitat.
The City has a sad history of leaking gas tanks downtown. One station was razed; another decommissioned and a third replaced its tanks. Some of that contaminated soil remains trapped beneath asphalt roadways.
Newer technologies are supposed to prevent tanks from leaking, but a new station close by had to shut down for three weeks last June because of an inner tank leak caught by the outer one. If an inner tank can pop a seam or suffer a puncture, so can an outer one. This wetland area cannot afford those risks.
Finally, living behind a choke-point access should concern residents about escaping a wildfire past the likely source of that conflagration. Fire District #3 states they can respond, but fire shifting into thick stands of big trees throughout this area could consume greater Meadow Glade overnight.
The City of Battle Ground must seriously assess the risks they would leave for others to absorb, even those living outside their boundaries, instead of prioritizing the sales tax revenues they seek to collect from this facility’s daily operations.
The citizens they would disregard and not protect are not “acceptable casualties”.
Sincerely,
Lee Moon
Battle Ground
