Brynn Grimley writes:
At the end of last week I finally made it out to the future site of the Silverdale Dog Park, located along Silverdale Way where the Rotary Gateway Park is situated. There’s also an entrance to the Clear Creek Trail from this location, and of course the skateboard park where local teens practice their boarding skills.
I was at the site to see students from CK High School, Navy Seabees and other area volunteers put in their time for Earth Day.
It’s been a while since I wrote about the dog park so I thought what better time to write an update than after seeing first-hand how quick progress has been made.
Through the Earth Day volunteer efforts, a 600 foot gravel trail was built in just under two hours. The trail runs from the parking lot (near the public bathrooms) all the way to the end of the property where it connects to the roadway. The grassy area along side the trail will be the dog park, which will be fenced off so trail users won’t have to walk inside the park to use the trail.
Inside the dog park there will be a small dog area, and another area for medium to larger dogs. The chain-link fence will allow dog owners to have their pets off leash. The project is being organized and completed by the Silverdale Dog Park stewardship group, which is 100 percent volunteer driven. The money being used to build the dog park is from various fund raising efforts, from private donations and money that was raised by selling plaques along the chain-link fence and advertising space within the park.
None of the money is from the county. To date the group has raised close to $30,000.
They hope to have the park open for use on July 4, but have a few more hurdles to jump over before that can happen. The biggest project still to be done is the expansion of the parking lot. A condition of the county approving the location for the dog park was the installation of 14 more parking spaces.
The group will add those by removing the berm that separates the lot from the road. They are looking to put a rain garden in to handle the stormwater run off. Right now they’re waiting to see if the stormwater will be handled by the garden, or if they’ll also need to use pervious payment in the lot. For cost purposes they’re hoping a rain garden will meet the needs, because the pervious pavement is not cheap.
Installing the trail section of the park is the first visual indication that things are moving quickly to get the park operational, said Mike McCown, vice president of the Silverdale Dog Park stewardship group.
“We’ve been looking forward to Earth Day,” he said. “This is being done with volunteers and volunteer dollars.”
The group hopes to know by this week which direction to go with the parking lot. Once the lot is ready, the chain-link fence will be installed and from there I am sure people will be anxiously waiting for the gates to open so they can let their dogs run free.
