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Earth Month may be over, but Sound Transit’s commitment to people, planet and prosperity is year-round.
As part of our celebration of sustainability, Sound Transit staff visited Laurelwood Park last month to talk to residents about the environmental work happening with the Federal Way Link Extension (set to open in 2026).
Sound Transit crews have been restoring and improving the park’s wetland and stream buffers to mitigate impacts from light rail construction elsewhere in the city.
The goal was to enhance the wetland and stream buffer, and the first step was removing the invasive species and garbage in the park to help make way for new plants.
After that, the project team really got to work. Topsoil and mulch were also added to improve soil. Native plant species were installed to improve diversity with a mix of native coniferous and deciduous trees and native shrub understory, and large log habitat structures were brought in for the area’s critters.
All of the planting is now done, but the irrigation and high visibility silt fence will remain in place for a year as the newly installed plants establish.
Then we’ll come back and replace all of the dead plants to ensure we have 100 percent survival, giving the site the best chance to fully develop over the next five years.
Environmental mitigation work is just one of the ways that the Federal Way Link Extension project team is going above and beyond to go green; they recently earned an Envision Platinum Award for sustainable infrastructure.
Check out some photos of the project!
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