News: A salmon was spotted near the small dam in Chambers Creek. This is since the recent allowance of 532 Chinook salmon over the Dam at Chamber Bay. Conversations are occurring online between the members of Pierce County Surface Water Management (PCSWM), the Chambers Clover Watershed Council (CCWC), and the Clover Creek Restoration Alliance (CCRA) on the condition of the creeks, watershed, lake management, salmon, dam removal, and more.
You can learn more on October 11, at the Clover Chambers Watershed Festival 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Flett on the grounds of Clover Park Technical College’s Natural Resources Laboratory and Research Park.
Email from Kurt Reidinger with some creek history:
Back in 2018, I hiked down into the lower Chambers Creek ravine from Kobayashi Park to take a look at the creek. I was somewhat surprised at the (admittedly surficial) appearance of the stream and riparian habitat (two photos attached). Although the creek appeared like a stream should, a few snapshots on a nice day doesn’t really tell much. It was not easy going, and that was probably one of the reasons the creek appeared intact: that area off the beaten path (but a trail near 7000 91st Ave Ct SW, Lakewood, WA 98498 provides alternate access to the middle of the ravine and may be easier). Before Euro-Americans arrived on the scene, the streams and riparian areas in the entire watershed probably looked much like what I saw.
Whether the surplus hatchery Chinook can successfully spawn and produce some offspring is a really minor issue given the overall state of the watershed’s streams. Relatively small numbers of Chinook probably always existed in Chambers Creek and other streams like it. A mid-20th century annual report from the old Fisheries Department (attached) even mentioned the Chambers Chinook run. I remember reading an old report from the Quinault Fisheries Department on their studies using a natural run of Chinook in the West Fork Humptulips, a stream of comparable size (it was part of the city’s water supply so it was protected and intact). But I suspect chum salmon with their summer, fall-winter, and late winter runs (up until March) were the dominant diadromous species. Coho were also likely very abundant given the wetlands and shallow lakes (e.g., Sastuk/Smith Lake destroyed to create McChord Field). Not much is known about pink salmon as they were likely destroyed early on. Sockeye likely existed as far up as Spanaway Lake (their small size, i.e., “little redfish”, may reflect a restricted migration pattern confined to Puget Sound-Georgia Strait). Chambers steelhead were a key component of the government’s hatchery program for years. Coastal cutthroat also likely existed in numbers. Other stream resident fishes also existed in the watershed. All the diadromous animals used the estuarial habitat of Chambers Bay to a greater or lesser extent. But chum and pink which head to saltwater shortly after they emerge from the gravel may have benefited the most from that transition zone. Which is why getting rid of that stupid dam, the industrial fill site, and the roadway should be a priority.
This was a unique watershed through a combination of natural features and human intervention. The receding continental glaciers left a relatively flat, gravel-based landscape pocked with water bodies of various sizes and depths. The maritime climate with Mediterranean summers produced a network of streams that drained the land, which in turn were exploited by both strictly freshwater and diadromous fishes. The terrestrial landscape was populated by numerous animal and plant species, some that are quite rare now, or no longer exist here. Native peoples arrived on the landscape thousands of years ago and maintained open prairies through fire. The natural ecosystems evolved in the presence of humans who maintained this landscape on a grand scale, a much larger scale than most moderns are inclined to think.
Native people maintained an open prairie landscape because their lives depended on it. Much of their food was plant-based, and those plants grew best in the open (you can’t get much human nutrition out of a fir tree). Traditional plots might be worked and ‘owned’ by families for generations.The open aspect was also a bulwark in the defense against marauding invaders from the north, and also “slavers” who kidnapped and sold people for their value in distant markets. Land and property ownership probably existed, but in a much different way than moderns might think. For example, it was said the Nisqually Leschi would offer to let a neighbor hunt on his traditional territory if the conditions were poor on the latter’s territory. Leschi reputedly kept track of animal populations within the boundaries of his hunting territory. They had a relatively sophisticated fisheries management system using weirs. They could recognize tributary fish populations by time and visual appearance, and open the weir for a time to let people living upstream on certain creeks have a share of the run (I remember a lecture about an early UW prof who reputedly could accurately identify the origin of different steelhead populations just by looking at the fish – this was before everything was “homogenized” by government agencies). You’d have to consult anthropologists to learn more about their culture, the seasonal round for food gathering, landscape social groups (i.e., prairie, saltwater, river, and inland), different societies, and more.
White culture arrived here and began to turn everything upside down. First, the English appropriated the prairie lands for sheep and cattle grazing, as well as small farm plots through their subsidiary, the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. For example, ‘Spanueh’ (now Spanaway) was a cattle station, and ‘Sastuk’, centered on today’s McChord Field, was a sheep station. These animal imports may have been the initial source of the invasive, non-native plants that cover our area now. The English, however, also integrated native people into their work force (an interesting story tells of a female chief who led a sit-down strike for better compensation for the field workers, perhaps the first in the NW). But the Americans followed soon and began to wreak devastation on the natural landscape. They were successful in eliminating landscape buring (entries in the English HBC journals suggest burning was still prevalent before the Americans arrived in numbers). Loss of landscape burning probably initiated changes in the prairie ecosystems. The Americans were clueless about the nature of the native economy with its seasonal round and visits to dispersed food-collecting areas. The height of folly was Isaac Stevens’ notion that based on reported population numbers, he could simply confine native people to a small reservation of a couple of square miles (one such land parcel, which was surplus government property for a long time, eventually became Tolmie State Park near Olympia). This idiocy along with settler incursions helped spawn armed conflict, which brought involvement by the Army and militias. After the fighting and the US Civil War, the railroad was pushed through with profound consequences. It was said prior to the railroad, the population of what is now Tacoma was less than 100. After the railroad, the human population skyrocketed into the thousands (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma,_Washington#Demographics).
The massive population increase took a heavy toll on the water resources of the watershed. Some of your posts have documented these changes. The wholesale diversion of surface waters to Tacoma likely had a substantial impact on aquatic ecosystems during the arid summer seasons. But the later shift to groundwater exploitation with little or no restraint was devastating. Certain stretches of Clover Creek no longer flow any more, not even in winter. As a young kid, I remember seeing it bankful at the Spanaway Loop Road crossing during winter. You can infer what’s happening from last year’s USGS Southeast Sound groundwater model report. Climate change is going to make it even worse.
The rise of the petroleum-asphalt culture sealed the watershed’s fate. It facilitated urban/suburban sprawl into the farthest reaches (not many would make the trek from Tacoma if their only transportation options were horse-drawn, bicycle, or walking). It started with small trains but morphed into a daily mass migration of automobiles. The concomitant pollution from automobile traffic is particularly deadly to aquatic environments. It seems like every few weeks I get a report on new research about the effects of the tire chemical 6PPD-Q. And that’s just one chemical. Here are a couple of recent ones: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389425027128?via%3Dihub and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165993625003176?via%3Dihub
A couple of personal observations.
I have a small plot of land with a small creek flowing through it (American name: Morey Creek; English name: Sastuk Burn). I’m trying to plant trees (alder & willow) in the riparian zone to combat invasive reed canarygrass and yellow flag iris, both of which have a tendency to choke off the channel. It’s hard, sweaty work. There are not many fish in the creek at all. Occasionally I see some young-of-the-year sticklebacks or sculpins, maybe a crayfish. Some brook lampreys probably live in the muck. As I do this, I reflect that this little creek probably served as a conduit for millions of fish traveling up and down its channel for thousands of years. Resident stream fishes were actually fairly abundant when I first saw the creek in the late 1950’s, despite the fact anadromous species had been excluded for years. Now it’s largely dead, a consequence of the excesses of white culture.
A few days ago I got a mailer saying that the TRM people were going to make a presentation at a nearby church to explain their Good Neighbor Village project. I went over and sat in the back row to listen to their spiel. They gave a thumbnail sketch of TRM history and showed pictures of the original project in Texas, all with glowing words about the salvation the project promised. As I sat there about 150 yards from the original Clover Creek channel, now waterless, with any flow diverted into an asphalt-lined stormwater channel, I realized that none of the people present had any inkling that a very important biological habitat once existed on that property. Not the TRM people for sure, nor the pastor and his parishioners. It was probably totally unknown and likely irrelevant to them. That’s a reflection of white culture’s values today.
Replies from Don Russell:
The fact of the matter is that Pierce County Surface Water Management, after Dan Wrye retired, viewed the input of citizen members of the Chambers-Clover Watershed Council as antithetical to its perceived mission of preventing surface water runoff from roads and adjacent property that causes flooding damage of real estate and pollution of receiving streams and lakes.
Thirty five years after the first toxic algae bloom in American Lake in the winter of 1998-1999, followed by Lake Steilacoom and Spanaway Lake in the summer of 1992, then followed by 80% of the other lakes in Pierce County, Pierce County still has no effective model for preventing harmful cyanobacteria blooms in these polluted groundwater connected surface water bodies.
Furthermore, Ecology, WDFW and DNR have all demonstrated their inability to effectively apply and enforce existing provisions of Federal CWA and State RCW environmental regulations.
Thus we have the pending dewatering of the Vashon aquifer in DuPont, City of Lakewood mismanaged American and Waughop Lakes, drying of Clover Creek, and toxic algae infested Spanaway Lake in Pierce County,
If you want to play the blame game, who in your judgement is responsible for the impaired condition of the Chambers-Clover-Spanaway-Sequalithew Watershed? And, what do you propose we citizen stewards do about this situation?
Another from Don Russell:
Therefore, the developers influence with politicians has to be counteracted by informed citizen stakeholder input about the hazards posed by skin exposure to, inhalation of cyanotoxin laden aerosols and dust, and drinking cyanotoxin polluted surface water and groundwater limiting their recreational activities and adversely affect their health. See attached photos.
This is a job best done by informed Chamber-Clover Creek Watershed Council, Environmental Coalition, Clover Creek Restoration Alliance members speaking to their representatives, and a proactive Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
Under the reign of Bruce Dameier the Surface Water Management personnel and the Pierce County Hearing Examiner were actively supporting the ignoring of Pierce County’s critical area ordinances for the benefit of locating TRM’s proposed Good Neighbor Village in critical area Spanaway Marsh.
Editor: I am including these emails because they often tell a poignant story of the delicate balance taking place in Pierce County. Developers wanting to profit, housing needs, pricing pressures for affordability, population growth, and the environmental impacts of human consumption for water, fresh water, roads, land, and wildlife.
If we are not paying attention, we are part of the problem, not the solution.
Pierce Prairie Post 