UPDATE, MAY 31
The name LeCuyer Creek was approved yesterday by the Washington
State Committee on Geographic Names. The name change now goes to
the state Board of Natural Resources, which sits as the state Board
of Geographic Names. Action is normally a formality. The name,
which will be recognized for state business, will be forwarded to
the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, which is likely to adopt it for
federal actions as well.
—–
The late Jim LeCuyer, who developed a system of monitoring rainfall, streamflow and groundwater levels in Kitsap County, could be memorialized next week when a stream near Kingston is officially named LeCuyer Creek.
The state’s Committee on Geographic Names will meet
Tuesday
Thursday to
consider the proposed stream name in honor of LeCuyer, who died in
2012 from a blood disorder.
Jim, who joined the Kitsap Public Utility District in 1984, came to understand the water cycle on the Kitsap Peninsula perhaps better than anyone else. When Jim took the job, one of the looming questions for government officials was whether the peninsula would have enough water to serve the massive influx of people who were coming to Kitsap County.
“Jim started doing hydrological monitoring about 1991,” said Mark Morgan, KPUD’s water resources manager who proposed the name LeCuyer Creek. “What he developed became one of the best monitoring systems in the state, some say on the West Coast.”
