By Marianne Lincoln Tonight, I am trying to wrap my brain around the event I just witnessed at the Washington State Historical Museum. This was right up there with the night I was at the museum for the Leschi Exoneration Trial. I walked in a little late, because I wasn’t off work in time for…
Category: wildlife
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)…
New Book Published about the Nisqually Delta
A new book, Saving the Nisqually Delta, chronicles the decades-long citizen activism that saved the Nisqually Delta from industrialization. Located eight miles northeast of Olympia, Washington, the Nisqually Delta is one of the country’s last unspoiled estuaries. Author Janine Gates, an Olympia-based journalist and photographer, is best known for her community news blog, Little Hollywood,…
532 Chinook over the dam
This year, life is good for Chinook Salmon at Chambers Bay. The Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) reported they released 532 Chinook salmon to finish their lives in Chambers Creek (see Escapement Report). The last time this happened was August 1999, 25 years ago! This is truly historic and wonderful for people and…
Dupont, my testimony to everyone who disturbs an historic place
By Marianne Lincoln The following is the full written testimony I submitted to the Hearing’s Examiner for the City of Dupont as it considers the Pioneer Aggregates South Parcel Expansion Project. With 68 years of knowing Dupont and its history, I had several options of how to approach this topic. Don Russell, 96, left me…
Killing Sequalitchew, a watershed in danger
By Marianne Lincoln Sequalitchew Creek runs from Sequalitchew Lake, through Edmund Marsh, to Puget Sound’s Nisqually Reach, through the City of Dupont, Washington. This is the same Dupont where the Nisqually Indians lived and later welcomed and worked for the Hudson Bay Company at Fort Nisqually. The Fort had two sites above the Sequalitchew. The…
Why We Care about Spanaway Marsh
by Claudia Finseth HAPPINESS, FOR ONE THING Last week the annual list of the happiest countries in the world came out. For the eighth time in a row that designation went to Finland. The United States of America came in way down the line. We are not, generally, a happy people. One of the main…
Help stop assault on ghost shrimp in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor
By Kirk KirklandEnvironmental Coalition of Pierce County In 2018 Ecology denied a request by shellfish growers to use the pesticide imidacloprid on shellfish beds to control burrowing shrimp in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor. Imidacloprid was sprayed from helicopters on non native eelgrass, but in the process affected native eelgrass salmon and other species. In 2019 Ecology and the…
Discussing our watershed March 12 and March 19
March 12, 6 p.m. at the Parkland Spanaway Library is the general meeting of the Clover Creek Restoration Alliance. This group advocates for the improvement of conditions in the watershed around Clover Creek and does creek cleanup projects in the area. If you are interested in our local watershed, please stop by or inquire about…
You’re invited: Join the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act Community Involvement pilot
WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE — Join us for an upcoming community session to provide your input on Commerce’s environmental justice assessments for programs and projects that could impact your community. The HEAL Act implementation team has partnered with Commerce’s Community Engagement Unit to pilot a process for community participation in program design and development. …
Dead fish conundrum at Spanaway Lake
By Marianne Lincoln Small fish, four to eight inches in length are rolling around, disoriented and flopping over on their backs and dying in Spanaway Lake. Reports have been coming in for a month in online social media. At the recent Chambers Clover Watershed Council meeting, a group of experienced water watchers came together to…
Why is the cost of environmental justice so high?
by Kirk Kirkland and Claudia Finseth Two neighborhood groups in unincorporated Pierce County have recently paid very high prices to attempt to protect their communities because the county is not doing it. Both were to try to stop two different kinds of large projects from dramatically changing their valued open space. Both proposed projects were…
Pierce Prairie Post 