Watching Our Water Ways

UPDATE, FEB. 19, 2013

Pope Resources officials have been meeting frantically with legislators and other public officials to find a way out of the dock dilemma. Jon Rose of Olympic Property Group emailed a newsletter today to interested people involved in the Kitsap Forest and Bay Association. In it, he explained the company’s position and what is being done to resolve the dilemma:

“Our Kitsap delegation including Congressman Derek Kilmer, Sen. Christine Rolfes, Rep. Drew Hansen, and Rep. Sherry Appleton have all engaged with the Department of Ecology and the Governors’ office.

“Additionally, a new DOE director Maia Bellon took office around the same time as the newspaper story broke. She has spent a great deal of time coming up to speed on this project and met last Friday with Pope Resources CEO David Nunes.

“At this point, our suggestion is to stand by and be ready to assist our elected officials when they indicate it is time to do so.”

I’ve copied the newsletter into a PDF document (PDF 78 kb) for those not on the mailing list.
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A proposed cleanup and restoration of Port Gamble Bay, worth somewhere in the range of $30 million, seems so close yet so far away this morning.

The site of the former Pope & Talbot sawmill, now a toxic cleanup site. / Washington Department of Ecology Photo

It seems Pope Resources has come to an impasse with the Washington Department of Ecology, not over any aspect of the cleanup or restoration, not over a plan to buy waterfront property, not even over plans to restore the historic company town.

The issue comes down to a couple of docks that nobody wants or needs, as I explain in a story in today’s Kitsap Sun. Pope wants to keep the two docks inside the bay until a new one is approved on the site of the old sawmill, just outside the bay. Although the legal aspects are not entirely clear, Jon Rose, who represents the company, told me that the old docks would help preserve legal access to the water, serve as environmental mitigation for the new dock and provide leverage and a backup plan if the new dock is not approved.

If the deal can’t be put back together, Ecology will turn and focus on the cleanup by putting together an enforcement order against the company. The restoration plan, which has generated enthusiastic support from all involved, would be abandoned, leaving about $15 million in restoration work on the table.

Most everyone involved — including those representing Pope and Ecology — have expressed disappointment that the parties have come to this impasse over a couple of docks that nobody really wants.

Port Gamble Bay is recognized as important to the overall health of Puget Sound and to marine life around the Kitsap Peninsula. The bay remains one of seven inlets listed as the top priority for cleanup under the Puget Sound Initiative. That’s why nobody wants to believe a deal cannot be struck.

Someone may have a real answer, but all I can see is that we need to find a way to jump to the endgame, something akin to traveling in a time machine. If everyone could agree to a dock that would meet the town’s needs without causing environmental harm and if the permits could be obtained practically overnight, then everything would be fine. But, of course, those two “ifs” are central to the problem.

It reminds me of the impasse in Congress over the federal budget. Both sides are well-meaning. Both sides want to get things done. But they can’t seem to find a pathway to agreement without compromising their fundamental principles.

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The little streams and tributaries on the Kitsap Peninsula and elsewhere in Puget Sound are destined for special attention under a proposal to designate critical habitat for Puget Sound steelhead. See my story in today’s Kitsap Sun.

Acoustic tags help researchers track the movement of steelhead in Puget Sound.
Kitsap Sun file photo

When it comes to endangered and threatened species, most of the attention has been given to Puget Sound chinook, which migrate to the larger rivers and often spawn in mainstem waters and larger tributaries.

As a reporter, I’ve also paid attention through the years to Hood Canal summer chum, which come into the streams along Hood Canal in the late summer and early fall. They generally spawn in the lower part of the streams, because water has not yet arrived to fill upstream tributaries.

Steelhead are an entirely different kind of fish, coming into our local streams in the winter months and swimming upstream as far as they can go. Steelhead may not die after spawning, so they can repeatedly return to spawn again and again.

With adequate rains, there is almost no place on the Kitsap Peninsula where steelhead cannot go. In that respect, they are similar to coho salmon, a fall spawner that remains on the borderline for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Many biologists tell me that protections for steelhead will go a long way to protecting our depressed coho runs as well.

What is needed more than anything is more research on the ecological values of the smaller streams on the Kitsap Peninsula and South Sound region. Where have steelhead been found historically, and what can we do to improve the habitat for them?

On the positive side, it is often easier to fix the smaller streams. Culverts can be replaced, side channels created and streamside vegetation planted, all at less cost than on our major rivers.

On the other hand, given our tight state and federal budgets, we are not likely to see more money for salmon and steelhead restoration. We’ll probably have to spread the existing dollars further. In fact, I’ve been told that some people in chinook territory have tried to slow down the steelhead-recovery effort, because it will mean less money for chinook recovery. And they may have been successful.

Puget Sound steelhead were listed as “threatened” nearly five years ago. The Endangered Species Act calls for designating critical habitat within one year of the listing, but NOAA concluded that the designation was “not determinable” at that time. Now, more information is available, the agency says.

Elsewhere, five populations of West Coast steelhead were listed as “threatened” in August 1997, and four others were listed in March 1998. Critical habitat for all nine listed species of steelhead was proposed in February 1999 and completed a year later. (Their status was later reconsidered, which led to the official listing date actually coming after designation of critical habitat.) As a result of a lawsuit, the court scheduled the deadlines for those steelhead.

Biologists are now working on a recovery plan for Puget Sound steelhead in consultation with local governments throughout the region. The ESA does not provide a firm deadline for approving a recovery plan, although federal agencies attempt to get them done within a few years after listing.

More information can be found on the website “Critical Habitat for Lower Columbia River Coho & Puget Sound Steelhead.”

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I recently spent an afternoon with Eric Sorensen, former science writer for the Seattle Times who now works for the Washington State University News Bureau.

As we drove up and down the back roads of the Kitsap Peninsula, I showed Eric some of my favorite places, and I dredged through my memory banks for stories I’ve covered through the years. I found myself babbling nonstop, talking about one environmental issue after another, trying to tie together the geography and history of our peninsula.

Somehow, Eric was able to create a nice biographical story about me from our discussion and his review of my stories. You can read his piece, titled “Bearing witness to the sights and smells of our soggy backyard,” in WSU’s alumni publication “Washington State Magazine.”

His story begins, “If you cover the waterfront the way Chris Dunagan does, you have to expect a fair amount of smells. There’s the fresh, tangy scent of estuary and the mild musk of beach wrack. There’s the stench of rotting shellfish during the great Oyster Rescue of 2010 and the outsized rot of a beached gray whale….”

It seems Eric had some fun with this story, even if my reputation as a smelly type of reporter needed no help. Anyway, I think he did a wonderful job of capturing some of my adventures.

I found a brief bio and humorous photo of Eric in an announcement of a talk he was giving journalism students at the University of Idaho, just across the state line from WSU.

Eric has captured many wonderful stories related to the research and personalities of folks associated with WSU. You can find a list of his recent work on this search page of “Washington State Magazine.”

When “Washington State Magazine” went online, he wrote a thoughtful “Dear Reader” piece about magazines, the art of reading and the flow of information. Thanks to the Internet version of the magazine, anyone can read Eric’s story about me.

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From childhood, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks was destined to become an advocate for salmon and ultimately a champion for the entire Puget Sound ecosystem, according to recent comments from his family and friends.

Norm Dicks on a fishing trip in 2010.
Photo courtesy of Pacific Northwest Salmon Center

Most people know that Norm — whose home lies in southern Hood Canal — will leave office at the end of this year. Recognizing his efforts on behalf of salmon, the Pacific Northwest Salmon Center recently named him to its “Wild Salmon Hall of Fame.”

Neil Werner, executive director of the salmon center, said Norm embodies all the criteria for hall of fame inductees, such as a passion to restore wild salmon, a willingness to share knowledge and much success in making things happen. Listing the criteria, he said, is like describing Norm Dicks himself.

I won’t list all the accomplishments that Neil cited during an induction ceremony two weeks ago, but they included Norm’s leadership in obtaining congressional funding for a variety of programs to restore salmon in Puget Sound, to heal the Puget Sound watershed (including federal lands) and to increase our understanding of how the ecosystem works.

As a result, salmon have regained access to 900 miles of stream habitat, including the nearly pristine watershed above two dams on the Elwha River.

“We will see the benefits of what he has done for an awfully long time, if not in perpetuity,” Neil said.
(more…)

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Despite millions of dollars spent on research in Hood Canal, the precise causes of low-oxygen problems in Southern Hood Canal are still not fully understood, according to a report released this week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology.

News articles about the report have created some confusion, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

As I reported in Tuesday’s Kitsap Sun, research has not proven that nitrogen from human sources is responsible for a decline in oxygen levels greater than 0.2 milligrams per liter anywhere in Hood Canal. That number is important, because it is the regulatory threshold for action under the Clean Water Act.

Mindy Roberts, one of the authors of the report, told me that scientists who have worked on the low-oxygen problem have gained an appreciation for Hood Canal’s exceedingly complex physical and biological systems. So far, they have not come to consensus about how much human inputs of nitrogen contribute to the low-oxygen problems in Lower Hood Canal.

The report, which examined the complexity and scientific uncertainty about these systems, seems to have generated some confusion, even among news reporters. I think it is important to understand two fundamental issues:

1. The deep main channel of Hood Canal is almost like a separate body of water from Lower Hood Canal (also called Lynch Cove in some reports). This area is generally defined as the waters between Sisters Point and Belfair. Because Lower Hood Canal does not flush well, low-oxygen conditions there are an ongoing and very serious problem.

2. Fish kills around Hoodsport cannot be equated or even closely correlated with the low-oxygen conditions in Lower Hood Canal. The cause of these fish kills was not well understood a decade ago, but now researchers generally agree that heavy seawater coming in from the ocean pushes up a layer of low-oxygen water. When winds from the south blow away the surface waters, the low-oxygen water rises to the surface, leaving fish no place to go.

I’m not aware that researchers were blaming nitrogen from septic systems for the massive episodic fish kills, as Craig Welch reports in the Seattle Times. At least in recent years, most researchers have understood that this was largely a natural phenomenon and that human sources of nitrogen played a small role, if any, during a fish kill.

The question still being debated is how much (or how little) humans contribute to the low-oxygen level in the water that is pushed to the surface during a fish kill and whether there is a significant flow of low-oxygen water out of Lower Hood Canal, where oxygen conditions are often deadly at the bottom.

The new report, which was reviewed by experts from across the country, concludes that fish kills can be explained fully without considering any human sources of nitrogen. Evidence that low-oxygen water flows out of Lower Hood Canal in the fall is weak, the report says, though it remains a subject of some debate.

“We have not demonstrated that mechanism to their satisfaction,” Jan Newton of the Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program told me in an interview. “We never said it caused the fish kill, only that it can reduce the oxygen level below what it was. In some years, it wouldn’t matter, but in some years it would make it worse.”

A cover letter (PDF 83 kb) to the EPA/Ecology reports includes this:

“While the draft report concludes that although human-caused pollution does not cause or contribute to the fish kills near Hoodsport, our agencies strongly support additional protections to ensure that nitrogen and bacteria loadings from human development are minimized.

“Water quality concerns extend beyond low dissolved oxygen and include bacteria and other pathogens that limit shellfish health. Overall, human impacts to Hood Canal water quality vary from place to place and at different times of year. Hood Canal is a very sensitive water body and people living in the watershed should continue their efforts to minimize human sources of pollution.”

One of the most confounding factors is the large amount of nitrogen born by ocean water that flows along the bottom of Hood Canal. An unresolved but critical questions is: How much of that nitrogen reaches the surface layer, where it can trigger plankton growth in the presence of sunlight?

Plankton growth is a major factor in the decline of oxygen levels, because plankton eventually die and decay, consuming oxygen in the process.

Human sources of nitrogen often enter Hood Canal at the surface, but researchers disagree on how much of the low-oxygen problem can be attributed to heavy seawater that reaches the sunny euphotic zone near the surface.

Here are the principal findings in the EPA/Ecology report, “Review and Synthesis of Available Information to Estimate Human Impacts to Dissolved Oxygen in Hood Canal” (PDF 3.8 mb).

(more…)

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The Union River near Belfair — the last estuary you come to when venturing into Hood Canal — slaps us in the face with an enigma.

The Union River flows into the very end of Hood Canal near Belfair. The red outline is part of the Pacific Northwest Salmon Center.

For the moment, I can’t do much more than pose some perplexing questions. But I get the feeling that if we could get the answers, we would understand more about salmon recovery in Lower Hood Canal and possibly other places as well.

The Union River also highlights the customary finger-pointing as to why certain stocks of salmon declined in the first place and what it will take to bring them back. Of the four H’s — harvest, habitat, hatcheries and hydro — the greatest finger-pointing goes on between harvest and habitat.

Let’s take Hood Canal summer chum and focus on the Union River, which was the subject of a story I wrote for Monday’s Kitsap Sun.

First, why did summer chum go extinct in the Dewatto and Tahuya rivers — the closest rivers to the Union — while maintaining a viable population in the Union?

(more…)

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Another piece of the 7,000-acre forest puzzle in North Kitsap has been put into place by the Legislature, following some last-minute scrambling. State lawmakers approved a new tax exemption for Kitsap and Thurston counties that could save millions of dollars when counties buy forestlands.

Without the exemption, back property taxes would come due when Kitsap County acquires ownership of various parts of the North Kitsap forestland — even if the county maintains the property for timber production. For a more complete explanation, check out my story in yesterday’s Kitsap Sun.

Rep. Drew Hansen, D-Bainbridge Island, who sponsored the bill with North Kitsap Rep. Sherry Appleton, told me that he liked my comparison of the North Kitsap Forest and Bay Project to a puzzle made up of many pieces (Water Ways, Dec. 31). He has been using the analogy in his explanations of the project.

The goal is to acquire blocks of forestland from Pope Resources, as the company divests itself of lands in Kitsap County and buys other property in less populated areas of Southwest Washington. To support the project, at least a half-dozen grant applications will be going out by summer seeking funding for the purchase.

Sandra Staples-Bortner, who chairs the Kitsap Forest and Bay Coalition, mentioned that many of the grants are specific to protecting shorelines, wetlands and other sensitive areas. Protecting a second- and third-growth tree farm will be more of a challenge — even with the likelihood that the land would eventually take on characteristics of an old-growth forest supporting a great diversity of wildlife.

If House Bill 2502 is a piece of a puzzle, it’s an edge piece, one of the early pieces that frames the picture and makes it easier to match other pieces that come later. In Kitsap County, excitement and anxiety are running high for the project, which people seem to recognize for its tremendous ecological potential for future generations. But what really can be done in this period of tight money? We will see.

(more…)

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After years of hearing bits and pieces about an Army Corps of Engineers investigation of the Skokomish River ecosystem, it seems that things are now moving toward work on a variety of projects. Many are of the type and scale that one would associate with the corps.

The public will get its first glance at 40 or so potential projects during an open house and slide show next Thursday beginning at 5 p.m. at the Mason County Public Works Building, 100 West Public Works Drive in Shelton. Review the news release (PDF 44 kb) on the event.

The Skokomish Watershed Action Team (SWAT) surveys an area where the Skokomish River has wiped out all vegetation and left a massive gravel bar.
Photo by Steve Zugschwerdt

The 40 or so projects to be presented at next week’s meeting are only at a conceptual stage. They must undergo further feasibility studies and cost analyses. A draft feasibility report and environmental impact statement are scheduled for release in August 2013.

As I mentioned in January, the corps is no longer focused on controlling flooding in the Skokomish Valley. Still, much of the ecosystem-restoration work could provide some flood relief. See Kitsap Sun, Jan. 22, and Water Ways, Jan. 25.

Jessie Winkler, project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, told me in January:

“Clearly, flooding is a problem in the basin. But because of limited residential and commercial activity, it would be very difficult to justify a flood-control project. In order to be justified as a federal project, the economic benefits must be greater than the cost.”

Here are some of the preliminary projects to be described at next week’s meeting:

• Install aeration or oxygenation system in Annas Bay to reduce the dissolved oxygen problem
• Add a cool water diversion to Annas Bay to improve water quality
• Restore eelgrass beds in Hood Canal west of the river’s delta
• Restore oyster beds in Hood Canal within the delta area
• Remove additional roads and levies in the lower flood plain and delta
• Relocate West Valley Road
• Widen Highway 101 bridge
• Widen Highway 106 bridge
• Reconnect wetland at River Road
• Modify Agency Road to improve flow conditions
• Rehabilitate channel for Skabob Creek
• Address levee and side channels on Hunter and Bourgault farms
• Address car body levee and improve channel for lower Weaver Creek
• Reconnect Weaver Creek side channel
• Setback the Grange dike
• Remove Hunter Creek blockage
• Install a sediment trap after dredging the main channel downstream of Vance Creek
• Reconfigure main channel upstream of Vance Creek
• Reconnect Sunnyside channel
• Remove or setback levees upstream and downstream of Vance Creek

Projects may include adding salmon-spawning habitat and/or large woody debris, removing invasive plants, planting native vegetation, improving fish passage, removing gravel on gravel bars and spot-dredging.

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Forecasts for Puget Sound salmon runs call for lower returns this year compared to last year, but officials with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife are emphasizing “promising” chinook fishing off Washington’s coast and Columbia River.

Each year, sport fishers line the banks of the Skokomish River as they try to catch the prized chinook salmon. / Kitsap Sun file photo

Preseason forecasts were released yesterday, launching the North of Falcon Process, which involves state and tribal salmon managers working together to set sport, commercial and tribal fisheries. Federal biologists and regulators keep watch over the negotiations to ensure compliance with the Endangered Species Act.

For a complete schedule of meetings leading up to final decisions the first week of April, go to the WDFW’s North of Falcon page.

With regard to fishing opportunities, Doug Milward, ocean salmon fishery manager for the agency, had this to say in yesterday’s news release:

“It’s still early in the process, but we will likely have an ocean salmon fishery similar to what we have seen the last two years, when we had an abundance of chinook in the ocean but low numbers of hatchery coho.”

(more…)

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A humpback whale, first seen in Hood Canal three weeks ago, was spotted again today.
Photo by Connie Gallant, Greenfleet Monitoring Expeditions

History repeated itself today on Dabob Bay, where Connie and JD Gallant were conducting research when a humpback whale surfaced nearby — just as events unfolded three weeks ago when the couple first reported the animal. See Water Ways, Jan. 31, for the initial report and some background on humpbacks.

Connie called me early this afternoon from her boat on Hood Canal’s Dabob Bay, then she sent a photo and e-mail with this description:

“We spotted it close to 12:20 p.m., and it put on a nice little show for about 10 minutes, then disappeared — same pattern as on 1/27. It was playing in same area, between Taylor Shellfish Labs and Broadspit.

“I was again on the computer inputting data as we headed north on Dabob Bay when JD yelled the same, ‘Whale off the port bow!’ This time, I did not hesitate flying out of the cockpit, grabbing camera on the way.”

Connie has a hunch that the whale likes her boat, the Sea Turtle:

“If you take a peek at the contour of the bottom of the Sea Turtle (see Greenfleet website), you will see that it has 2 keels and a skag on the stern. We think that this shape must be of interest to the whale, and it is saying ‘hello’ to the Turtle!

“And, just as the last time, it was totally awesome to watch it frolic. I absolutely cannot believe our fortune.”

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