Thornton Creek Alliance (TCA) is an all-volunteer organization whose goal is to benefit the watershed by encouraging individuals, groups, schools, businesses, and government to work together in addressing the environmental restoration of the creek system.  It has been twenty years since a few concerned activists began organizing to improve water quality, flood prevention, and habitat throughout the northeast Seattle watershed which includes the North and South Branches of Thornton Creek.

In the fifty years between 1940 to 1990, the population of northeast Seattle quadrupled from about 17,500 to 70,000.  Population increase led to more and more houses, roads, and commercial developments being squeezed in, without regard for the drainage basin which flows out into Lake Washington at NE 93rd Street (Matthews Beach.)  The result was degradation of the water quality and flooding of roads and houses, especially at the Confluence of the two branches of Thornton Creek.

In the early 1990s concerned citizens began to find one another and coalesce as an organization, Thornton Creek Alliance, with 1994 as the official founding date.  The TCA began advocating for pollutant control regulations, preservation of green spaces and creek environment which would help prevent periodic flooding.

Two major initiatives of the 1990s were TCA’s participation in the present Meadowbrook Pond Project for water quality and flood control, and the Water Quality Channel at Northgate.  The Water Quality Channel is in the former south parking lot of Northgate between NE 100th to 103rd Streets.  The City of Seattle brokered a stakeholders agreement in 2004 to go forward with the channel cutting through the block, with private developers building housing and commercial sites on the perimeter.

Everyone is invited to come out for the Twentieth Anniversary Celebration of the Thornton Creek Alliance on Sunday, September 14, 2014 from 1 to 4 PM at Cromwell Park, 18030 Meridian Ave North in Shoreline.  There will be live music, ice cream and cake, childrens activities and displays about current creek restoration efforts.