What’s camas? I am glad you asked, because it is not just any prairie flower. The prairie we live on is its home, but the bulb was a staple food for the local people of the tribes. Over meadows and sunlit prairies, the camas (kwetial, quamash, or wild hyacinth) thrive here in South Pierce County….
Tag: nature
Wetland. Watershed. Drought.
These are important words this year. If you love to ski, you know there is hardly enough snow in the mountains this season. If you drive over the pass frequently, you probably haven’t been stuck in snow. If you live on Clover Creek, you know it was a dry ditch from May to December. For…
Valuable Watershed Knowledge
By Marianne Lincoln For many years, I have been working within the Chambers-Clover Watershed called WRIA 12. During this flooding event, life in WRIA 12 has been fairly normal. The creeks are slowing but not topping their banks or flooding neighborhoods. Just down the hill, it is a very different story. The warm rain event…
Restoring WRIA 12: A Unified Path Forward for Pierce County’s Watershed
Submitted By the Clover Creek Restoration Alliance Pierce County’s lakes, wetlands, and aquifers quietly hold our communities together. They supply our drinking water, support wildlife, buffer floods, and sustain the landscapes that define our region. Because these systems often operate out of sight, it is easy to overlook how essential they are until the signs…
Is the Clover Creek system headed to extinction?
It is the end of October, 2025. The salmon are coming up Chambers Bay. Some have even been allowed over the dam to spawn naturally rather than be taken at the hatchery. Sadly, there is no water in Clover Creek. The fish cannot get any farther than Chambers Creek and Leech Creek. The fish ladder…
Join the celebration to break ground on the new Parkland Community Trail
Pierce County Parks invites the community to the groundbreaking event of the new Parkland Community Trail on Saturday, Sept. 27 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. This groundbreaking event will be a fun day to enjoy the first days of fall. Celebration activities include free bike helmet giveaways courtesy of PPW, free trees to beautify…
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)…
Condition of Spanaway Lake
UPDATED: Corrections to current data.) These pictures are the condition of Spanaway Lake four weeks after the second EutroSORB G application this year to prevent Spanaway Lake’s annually recurring harmful cyanobacteria blooms, September 9, 2025. The Health Department closed the lake on August 20, 2024. https://tpchd.org/news/spanaway-lake-closed-because-of-toxic-algae/ In 2025, the lake has only been under an advisory. https://tpchd.org/environment/surface-water/advisories/…
We need an O’Farrell Bridge Replacement Trust Fund
By Marianne Lincoln As an eager student of South Pierce County history, and a lifetime resident, I have travelled the O’Farrell (Fairfax) Bridge many times. We often stopped to take photos. The family visited the Carbon River side of the mountain, walked across the Carbon Rover in the summer over the fallen trees slashed to…
The spring at Camp Montgomery
By Marianne Lincoln It is a hidden place on private property now, but when the Naches Trail hosted wagons from Eastern to Western Washington in the 1850’s, the spring near the Trail’s end was a valuable resource. Officially, the Naches Trail ended at the Mahon Farm. Most of that farm later became the Brookdale Golf…
Trails and Ales: Taco (and Trail) Tuesday!
ForeverGreen Trails (FGT) invites all to Trails and Ales on Tuesday, August 19th from 5-8 p.m. at Off Camber Brewing. We will have a presentation on the City of Puyallup’s exciting Riverwalk Trail Phase 5 project which will fill in the long-awaited missing link in that facility near downtown. The Riverwalk Trail is part of an 18-mile trail loop (connecting…
June 28 Pipeline Trail Grand Opening
Pierce County Parks invites the public to celebrate the grand opening of the Pipeline Trail on Saturday, June 28 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event will be held at the Pipeline Trailhead at Orangegate Park off 84th Street East. This exciting milestone marks the completion of the newest segment of the Pipeline Trail,…
Why does the County lower American Lake?
By Don Russell “Is there a reason the County lowers the [American] lake level? Do they do this each year?” The answers to these questions are as follows; There is no rational basis or reason for the County to lower American Lake water level. Yes, they do this each year. Let me explain. In my lifetime I have…
Where is Clover Creek?
By Marianne Lincoln Today at the Sustainability Expo in Tacoma, I worked at the table for the Clover Creek Restoration alliance. We were next to the booths for the Nisqually Land Trust. Everyone walking by knew of the Nisqually River, yet they looked puzzled at our banner for Clover Creek. So, I asked everyone who…
Natural Yard Care Class
TPCHD — Keep your landscape and environment healthy. We promote low impact landscape design and maintenance. Natural yard care emphasizes: • Healthy soil conditions.• Proper plant care and lawn management.• Wise water and fertilizer use.• Proper plant placement. Attend our 2025 natural yard care webinars. The regenerative garden: Small scale permaculture for the home garden, with…
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…
The latest on the Spanaway Marsh
By Claudia Finseth It’s March 25, 2025. Those of us fighting against the destruction of the Spanaway Marsh have been at it for over two years now and spent $140,000 dollars. So let’s take stock. In December of 2024 the Tacoma Rescue Mission brought in massive equipment, and on the high point in the midst…
Flett Property Habitat Stewardship Feb 15
The habitat stewardship event on CPTC’s Flett Property this Saturday, February 15th from 9:00 AM to noon. I have attached the flyer with pertinent details and all of the 2025 dates for our remaining habitat stewardship events. For this event, we will focus on removal of invasive plant species (focus on scotch broom regrowth), planting donated Garry oak saplings (Thanks…
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…
Our Watershed, “WRIA 12” January 15
It is called a Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA) by the Department of Ecology. The Chambers Clover Watershed includes Parkland, Spanaway, Midland, Collins, Frederickson, part of South Hill and NW Graham as well as Lakewood, McChord Field, Fircrest, Steilacoom, Dupont, and University Place, Below is a map of the WRIA’s in Washington State. Look for 12….