Public Comments submitted at hearings official hearing (2)

of which areshown on the figure on the followingpage. All test pits were located in the more gently sloping area at the top of the ridge. None of them were excavated on the steeper slopes or in the immediate vicinity of the landslide mapped by the applicants Engineering Geologist. The easternmost test pit (TP-5)was located on Lot 13 directly in the area between the two apparent slope movements affectingthe PUD. Even TP-8, which easily could have been placed at the mapped scarp on Lot 16, was placed around 100 feet from thereat the far (northern) boundary of Lot 15. No test pits at all were installed on the southernmost two lots despite significant geomorphic evidence of slope movement being present. No test pits at all were installed in the area later slated for installation of the storm-water discharge for much of the eastern half of the PUD. The 10 test pits describe an area that is on the order of 2.7 acres, which represents around 20% of the entire PUDs area. Had these test pits all been located in the much steeper eastern portion of the site, they might have provided valuable information to address EC 9.6710 and EC 9.8320. However, as it is, the test pits were installed in the most gently sloping portion of the PUD and provide no information whatever regarding the issue of stability of the east-facing slope. This is clearly insufficient to satisfy both EC 9.6710 and EC 9.8320. CARELESS AND SHODDY WORK In addition to being conducted in over inadequate area most likely not to produce information potentiallydetrimental to the PUDs design, both the field work itself (test pit logging) and its interpretation are abominably poor. The Branch Engineering Report indicates that ASTM Method D-2488 (Visual-Manual Procedure) was used to classify the soils encountered in the test pits according to the Unified Soil Classification System (USCS). This is a Standard Method used bymany geotechnical engineers. The pertinent pages from the ASTM Manual are included in Appendix B. However, there is scant evidence on the actual test pit logs that this method was actuallyapplied. There are no mention of dry strength tests, toughness values, dilatancy, sand sizes, etc. It would have been nice to have included at least some of these parameters in order for other professionals to verify that the method was indeed used and the classification is correct. On the other hand, the term used on Branchs logs to describe the plasticityof the decomposed sandstone slightly plastic is not one of the options presented in Table 11 of the ASTM Method, which indicates that the plasticity is supposed to be described as Nonplastic, Low, Medium, or High. As a result, it is doubtful that a Standard Method was actually used to classify the soil according to the USCS as purported by Branch Engineering. This is all the more likely as the results of the Free 5 Capital Hill PUD Geotechnical Review, GeoScience, Inc. 3/7/18