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Snoqualmie staff outline NPDES stormwater requirements and Kimble Creek restoration target
Summary
City engineers told the Parks & Public Works Committee that the city must meet NPDES permit milestones in the 2024—29 cycle, including developing a SNAP by 2027 and funding 2.3 acres of Kimble Creek restoration by 2028; staff reported inspections, corrective actions and roughly $135,000 in grant funding.
On April 7, 2026, the City of Snoqualmie's Parks & Public Works Committee received an educational update on the city's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater permit from project engineer and permit manager Patrick Fry.
Fry said the permit stems from the federal Clean Water Act and is administered in Washington by the Department of Ecology. He described the city's current 2024—29 permit cycle and said staff will return with requests tied to that timetable rather than asking the committee to act immediately. "This permit comes from the Clean Water Act," Fry said, and Ecology is the regulator that reviews compliance and sets state-specific rules.
The presentation summarized 2025 compliance work: staff inspected about 1,569 catch basins (roughly 50% of the inventory) and cleaned 366; the city inspected 62 stormwater facilities and performed maintenance on 51 of them (filter changes, pond cleanings and biofiltration maintenance). Fry also said staff inspected three private construction sites and completed 25 business inspections, which led to four corrective-action letters. The city reported receiving about $135,000 in grants to support stormwater work (Fry described that grant amount as a biennial award and said the exact eligible years were not specified in his overview).
Fry explained required deliverables in the coming permit cycle: by 2026 the city must submit outfall locations and begin identifying priority areas; by 2027 the city must develop or expand a Stormwater Management Action Plan (SMAP) or a SNAP for a priority catchment; and by 2028 the new SMMED requirements obligate the city to fully fund and start construction to restore a target of 2.3 acres in the Kimble Creek basin. Fry said the 2.3-acre figure comes from Ecology's calculator that converts required performance to acreage based on population and other inputs.
On project selection, Fry said staff evaluated basins with a weighted matrix that scores degradation, catchment area and practical project opportunities. The Kimble Creek basin ranked highest on that matrix because of its performance functions (canopy, wetlands and buffering) and its potential to deliver broader environmental benefits, Fry said. He contrasted that approach with Mil Pond, which staff identified as highly degraded but costly and technically difficult to remediate.
When committee members asked how candidate SNAP projects are chosen, Fry said staff prepared a shortlist (about 10 projects) and prioritized them for viability, pollutant-reduction potential and cost-effectiveness. Examples include retrofitting an older pond behind a pump station on Snoqualmie Ridge and adding treatment measures during street projects where work is already planned.
Fry described ongoing monitoring requirements: the city must field-screen 12% of its area per year for illicit discharges; staff reported detecting one historical sewer-to-storm cross-connection that has since been corrected. He also said Ecology's runoff profiles guide treatment choices, so staff typically uses established, off-the-shelf treatment options for road runoff rather than site-specific contaminant testing.
The presentation closed with an admonition that the briefing was educational and that staff would bring more specific funding or project requests to the committee in months to come. Committee members and the mayor asked that the permit package and the street-sweep/stormwater program be shared with the full council when the related MPD/NPDES materials come forward.
What's next: staff will return with more detailed SMAP/SNAP materials and project proposals tied to the CIP for Kimble Creek restoration and the permit schedule.
