Agricultural Drainage Assistance Program Agriculture in King County In 1979, the voters of King County recognized the importance of their rich agricultural heritage by passing an initiative that protects farmland through the purchase of development rights. This initiative provided for a bond to establish the Farmland Preservation Program, which would enroll livestock and horticultural farms to protect them from development. This program focuses on the five King County Agricultural Production Districts (APDs): Snoqualmie, Sammamish, Lower Green, Upper Green, and Enumclaw. However, another danger besides development can adversely affect King County's agricultural heritage. Many of our farmlands are located in soils which may become saturated with water for much of the growing season (see accompanying two photographs), and this water severely limits the land's productivity. This water is not necessarily floodwater, but is more often chronic saturation because of runoff from local hillsides that may be exacerbated by development. In the earliest years of King County's agriculture, an extensive system of drainage, sometimes including subsurface drain tiles, was established to remove this excess water from the farm soils. This drainage system included the digging of new artificial ditches as well as the channelization of existing streams. The farmers quickly found that a periodic excavation of these watercourses was necessary because the watercourses would fill with sediment. In addition, over the past several decades, invasive weeds such as reedcanary grass have filled many channels. These drainages were originally maintained on a regular basis because an accumulation of sediment severely limits their effectiveness. Unfortunately, the customary means of draining agricultural lands, practiced for many decades, was counterproductive to salmon habitat.

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