VIDEO: Schmitz Park Restore has ;work to do’ – but it’s fun, guest speaker tells Rotary Club of West Seatt;e

(Schmitz Park, in the center of pilot/photographer Long Bach Nguyen‘s 2012 image)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

This Saturday, you have a chance to help “save the giants” – joining Schmitz Park Restore leaders and volunteers as they work to remove more of the ivy that’s trying to choke the life out of the park’s old-growth trees.

More on that later. Ahead of the ivy-pulling event, we have an update on the longrunning restoration project publicly unveiled more than two years ago (WSB coverage here). Backstory and future plans were in the talk that Daniel Nye from Schmitz Park Restore gave to the Rotary Club of West Seattle (WSB sponsor) at this week’s lunch meeting. We recorded it all on video:

Hearing about Schmitz Park Restore’s intensive effort to help the park’s ecosystem dovetailed with the West Seattle Rotary’s launch of a sustainability committee, noted new president Stefanie Felix in introducing Nye. If you don’t have time to listen to his presentation, here are the highlights.

He began with backstory, detailing the effort’s founding with Brian Barilleaux (who was in attendance as were several supporters of note, including Vicki Schmitz Block on behalf of the family that donated the parkland long ago – she told the Rotarians that restoring the park “was a dream of the whole Schmitz family”). Schmitz Park Restore is now in its third year and has captivated people peninsula-wide (another introduced lunch guest was “freelance beaver detective” Pamela Adams, who expressed hope that restoring the park’s creek could bring back aquatic wildlife).

The vision, explained Nye, is for Schmitz Park to be held in hearts peninsula-wide as “a gem” – starting with the “native forest that was never logged,” gifted to the city in 1910, and continuing on to restoration of its creek, which currently unceremoniously dumps into a city outfall pipe that runs under Alki and empties, underwater, into Elliott Bay. The question of why it doesn’t flow openly all the way to Puget Sound inspired them to what became a “community-driven partnership with the city of Seattle … to revitalize Schmitz Preserve Park.” Though the original name of the effort focused on the creek, Nye said they realized that before restoring it, “we’ve got work to do” involving more of the park.

(Photo provided by Schmitz Park Restore)

That work has involved an increasing number of volunteers; the monthly ivy pulls, Nye said, lead them to “come together as a community … you never know who’s going to show up.” They’ve done their first planting of native species – 300 plants in the ground.

(2009 Schmitz Park sightings by the late photojournalist Matt Durham, trillium at upper left)

And under some of the ivy they’ve removed, he said, they’ve found plant species like trilliums, “waiting to come back.”

Nye also recounted the UW students’ design proposals shown off in December 2024 (WSB coverage here) – “that got a lot of attention.” And since then, they’ve secured grant funding to help advance studies. As they work on a true “private-public partnership,” he explained, they’re raising $150,000 in matching funds to pay for hydrology studies and other work needed to further advance the work toward envisioning “what route the creek might take” to get from the park to the sea.

He added that they’re talking with Seattle Public Schools about whether the former Schmitz Park Elementary campus could become part of the park and fit into environmental education – at least with “a dedicated trail.”

So many dreams and ideas – right now, all rooted in hands-on help for Schmitz Preserve Park. So if you want to get involved, you can join in this Saturday’s ivy pull, 10 am-noon, meet at Admiral Way and SW Stevens – also, watch for their monthly free guided tours; dates and RSVP links are here.

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