For years, neighbors have been contacting Tree Action Seattle about the removal of large trees and pruning trees beyond their ability to survive inside Sand Point Country Club.  

To understand the scale of the problem, Tree Action Seattle commissioned an independent GIS analysis from the highly respected arboricultural consulting firm Tree Solutions. Using city LIDAR datasets, the firm compared trees in 2016 with those remaining in 2021. 

Their report confirmed that 207 trees were removed, nearly all without permits, including in Environmentally Critical Areas (ECAs). In addition, invasive ivy was planted throughout the Matthews Creek ravine which runs through the golf course.

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In April 2026, we submitted the report and photos to Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI), which enforces tree and ECA protection. SDCI closed our complaint immediately. In June 2026, KUOW published an article about our work and SDCI re-opened our complaint, but no violation has yet been found. 

Tree Action Seattle has also learned that a longtime country club board member was previously director of SDCI.

Please join us in asking city officials to enforce these violations of local and state environmental ordinances. Paying fines and planting saplings is insufficient to the scale of destruction which has occurred. Instead, we are asking that officials require the country club to restore the historic run of Matthews Creek, part of which runs under their golf turf in a plastic tube. This ancient waterway joins Thornton Creek and flows into Lake Washington.

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Matthews Creek is part of the Thornton Creek system, which was once a highly productive salmon stream where indigenous people built at least one longhouse, fishing weirs, and gathered cranberries in the bogs. While this tributary will not support salmon again, it can and should be daylit to support habitat for a wide variety of species that require a diversity of trees, understory, and a healthy stream.

Unlike many urban stream restoration projects that require relocating roads, utilities, or buildings, this culvert runs beneath grass. Restoration would involve removing the lawn and re-establishing a natural stream corridor; far simpler than many stream restoration projects undertaken elsewhere in Seattle.

Restoring buried tributaries and rebuilding forested buffers is one of the most effective ways cities can begin mitigating climate change and creating more habitat for birds, especially those using the Pacific Flyway.

This is a Proven Restoration Strategy

Daylighting buried streams is already a central strategy in the restoration of Thornton Creek. Over the past two decades, projects throughout the watershed have removed or replaced culverts, rebuilt natural stream channels, and created buffer zones to improve habitat and water quality.

Many of these projects were far more complex than what would be required here. Some required the City to purchase homes and properties to create space for flow control and restoration. Others involved reconstructing roads and utilities.

Despite those challenges, the City pursued those projects because restoring natural stream systems is essential to recovering urban stream habitat.

Compared with those projects, restoring Matthews Creek would be unusually straightforward.

Why Riparian Management Zones Matter

Healthy riparian forests are one of the most important natural defenses against water pollution, erosion, and flooding. Trees shade streams and keep water temperatures cool. Their roots stabilize stream banks. Their leaves and woody debris support aquatic food webs, as do the insects and other invertebrates that fall from them into streams. The downed wood provides instream cover and helps diversify channel morphology. Most importantly, forested buffers help filter polluted runoff before it reaches the stream.

Removing large numbers of mature trees from a riparian corridor undermines these protections and weakens the creek’s ability to recover from urban pollution, which in turn harms wildlife and fish.

Planting or leaving invasive plants discourages native wildlife and encourages rats.

If Thornton Creek is ever to become a healthy habitat again, it cannot remain buried in culverts, deprived of its buffer zones, and stripped of the forests that protect it from polluted runoff — including fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides commonly applied to intensively managed landscapes such as golf courses.

Mitigation in the form of planting small saplings does not match the scale of the environmental harm which has been done. The benefits that mature trees provide, as listed above, would take decades to reestablish after simply planting saplings. Instead, restoring Matthews Creek and re-establishing a native forest buffer would be a meaningful step toward repairing the damage and rebuilding the ecological health of the Thornton Creek watershed. It would also advance the City’s stated goals for urban forest protection and climate resilience.

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