By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Seward Park has one of the only fish hatcheries in the city. The University of Washington School of Fisheries ran the 20-acre, 1936-vintage hatchery until 1996. Its future is up in the air, in part because the Seattle Public Utilities and Parks Departments and the UW have failed to agree on a long-term lease. There is also a question about which agency will pay a past-due electric bill.

Sadly, the lack of cooperation, community support and innovative thinking has all but silenced the hatchery, which is ideally located because of its access to the cold waters of Lake Washington.

Mark Tetrick, hatchery manager, said the facility would be ideal for an intrepretive "platform" for kindergarten-through-high school environmental education, particularly for Southeast Seattle schools.

Tetrick and his wife also live at the hatchery. Aside from the marauding raccoons, occasional power outages and the isolation, it's a great place to call home, with herons, kingfishers, beavers and river otters.

Seward Park boosters also have been trying to establish an environmental interpretive center at the former caretaker's house at the entrance of Seward Park. It would be a staffed program similar to one at Discovery Park.

But citywide budget cuts have put development of the center on temporary hold, although private sources are being sought.