Watching Our Water Ways

An axiom among orca observers goes something like this: When you believe you have figured out what killer whales will do, they’ll do something else.

I’ve become accustomed to writing an annual story that lets people know when chinook salmon runs are dwindling in the northern waters of Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia and when chum salmon runs are beginning to build up in South Puget Sound.

It happens in the fall, and it generally means that our Southern Resident orcas will begin checking out the buffet table in areas from Whidbey Island to Tacoma and occasionally as far south as Olympia. During this time, ferryboat riders aboard the Kingston, Bainbridge Island, Bremerton and Vashon Island ferries begin seeing the whales more frequently.

It appears that the table is now set and waiting for the whales, but that doesn’t mean they’ll show up for dinner on time, as I describe in a story I wrote for yesterday’s Kitsap Sun.

Lots of people reported seeing the orcas last week, when they were spotted from all the usual ferries, including some rare sightings on the Mukilteo run. The video on this page was taken at Point Robinson on Vashon Island and shows how exciting it can be to watch whales from the shore.

Although the Southern Residents showed up in South Sound only twice in October, historical records reveal that as long as chum are around, the whales — most notably J Pod — can be expected to return through December. One analysis of whale movements was conducted as part of a tidal energy project for the Snohomish County Public Utility District. See Marine Mammal Pre-Installation Study (PDF 12.9 mb). (Note the large file.)

While the Southern Residents are known to eat chum in the fall, there is no doubt that their preferred prey is chinook salmon, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. How to make sure the orcas are getting enough chinook to eat is part of a major study effort now under way, including a series of workshops about the effects of salmon fishing on the killer whales.

A report of the first workshop, held Sept. 21-23, contains an incredible amount of scientific information related food availability and the value of different salmon to our local orcas. Check out this page: Evaluating the Effects of Salmon Fisheries on Southern Resident Killer Whales.

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I’ve been away from “Water Ways” quite a lot lately while covering a trial in Tacoma involving safety and environmental concerns at Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club. Kitsap County is suing the club over operations at its gun range near Bremerton. (Watch for my “live blogging” or read the stories on the Kitsap Sun website.)

Meanwhile, I’d like to call your attention to a story by Kitsap Sun reporter Brynn Grimley, who took a “salmon tour” via kayak last weekend. Her close-up story and some great photos by Meeghan Reid can be seen in Sunday’s Kitsap Sun.

Whale Trail poster / Click on image to download poster (PDF 1.5 mb)

As chum salmon begin to arrive in small streams throughout the Kitsap Peninsula, you may wish to carefully observe their migration and spawning. Several years ago, a couple of us at the Sun created a map with videos depicting the best viewing spots. Check out Kitsap Sun Salmon Map. I hope to update the videos with new information when I get time.

Another map that may be of interest is the “Whale Trails” map that purports to show the best places in Puget Sound to view marine mammals. Unfortunately, there are no places shown on the Kitsap Peninsula. I might recommend Point No Point County Park in North Kitsap, locations on the Kingston waterfront, and Bachmann Park in the city of Bremerton, as well as several places on Bainbridge Island.

The Whale Trail organization sent me a poster for the Washington State Ferries that will help riders know what kinds of marine mammals they may be seeing. This is a great idea, and I hope people will take the opportunity to learn about the kinds of animals common in the waters of Puget Sound. Click on the image (PDF 2.5 mb), above right, to download the poster.

The Puget Sound killer whales are a little late this year in making excursions into South Puget Sound. They typically come south hunting for chum salmon after the runs of chinook decline up north. I’ll have more to say about this when we begin to see them more frequently, assuming they are just late this year.

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“Deconstruction” of Glines Canyon Dam on the Elwha River appears to be progressing rapidly. A fourth notch in the dam was completed yesterday, and water is now pouring through all four of the gaps.

Alan Durning of Sightline Institute (blog) pieced together the video, at right, from still photos taken by a remote webcam at the dam. Check out the cameras on the Elwha River Restoration Project webpage.

Work will continue on the removal of both Elwha and Glines Canyon dam until the end of this month, when a “fish window” will shut down operations on the water. Work will shift to demolition of penstocks, powerhouses and other structures — work that will not release sediment into the river, according to the Elwha Blog provided by Olympic National Park. Construction in the water can resume at the end of the year.

At the Elwha Dam, contractors are blasting away to remove the left spillway foundation down into bedrock to form the downstream end of a diversion channel. The diversion channel is scheduled to be put into operation the week of Oct. 17, when the river will flow through the channel at an increased rate, drawing down Lake Aldwell.

Elwha Dam / Olympic National Park webcam

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The Elwha watershed promises to be an outdoor laboratory for the revival of an ecosystem after two dams are removed from the Elwha River.

Elwha Dam construction begins. (Click on image for webcam page.)
Olympic National Park photo

Dam removal began Thursday at Glines Canyon Dam, as I traveled to Port Angeles for a conference of more than 350 scientists and other interested persons. This group came together to learn about baseline studies conducted to date and to hear about anticipated changes in the ecosystem. Check out my story in Sunday’s Kitsap Sun.

Meanwhile, a controversy over a fish hatchery operated by the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe threatens to erupt into a lawsuit. Several environmental groups have issued a 60-day notice to sue under the Endangered Species Act, saying raising steelhead from another area — Chambers Creek — could imperil the recovery of threatened chinook salmon and bull trout in the Elwha. See reporter Lynda Mapes’ story in the Seattle Times.

Will Stelle of the National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees federal protections for salmon, said discussions about the hatchery are ongoing, but federal treaties assure the tribes a right to fish, and those rights cannot be ignored. A five-year moratorium on fishing has been imposed, but tribal officials say they may need hatchery-reared fish when fishing resumes.

About a year ago, I briefly described the restoration plan for each species — including salmon and steelhead — in a package of stories for the Kitsap Sun. See “Elwha Project Expected to Blast Open Nature’s Door to Bountiful Fish Runs.”

As for last week’s Elwha River Science Symposium, it was a remarkable group of researchers who discussed all aspects of ecosystem restoration, from physical processes like water and sediment, to all kinds of plants and animals. To get a taste of the presentation, read through the conference abstracts (PDF 584 kb).

I mentioned a few of the presentations in Sunday’s Kitsap Sun, and I could talk about them for hours. There was one presentation about birds that surprised me, and I wanted to share some of the conclusions with you.

John McLaughlin of Huxley College at Western Washington University explored the question of how birds might help restore vegetation in the reservoirs and flood plains associated with the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams.

Of 39 major native plants in the watershed, 23 have their seeds dispersed by birds. That’s 59 percent of the plants of interest. If managers could get the birds working for them, they might not need to plant as much vegetation by hand.

That 59 percent is higher than most temperate regions of the world, where normally birds disperse seeds from 25 to 40 percent of the plants, McLaughlin said. But it’s a lower percentage than for most tropical regions, where birds may disperse up to 90 percent of all the plants in the area.

By watching birds fly from vegetated areas to more barren areas and collecting samples of their scat, McLaughlin found that robins disperse more seeds than all other birds combined. In fact, the total was close to 100 percent for robins. While there are plenty of other bird species in the ecosystem, most typically do not fly from one habitat type to another, McLaughlin told the gathering.

He also found that most of the seeds deposited by robins ended up in and near logjams and piles of woody debris.

“Birds are agents of restoration,” he told the group, “but for them to work with us, you have to give them what they need, and that’s large woody debris.”

If one wants to use birds to replant the forest, the first step is to consider which plants you want to disperse, he said. Then downed trees and limbs could be pulled together into a pile, or one could simply leave existing piles in strategic locations. The woody piles must be located far enough from the desirable plants that the birds can make a difference in dispersing seeds. But if the piles are too far away, the birds may not cooperate with the plan.

As for the concern about birds dispersing invasive plants as well as desirable ones, many of the undesirables were removed from the area around the dams in preparation for dam removal. The concern about invasives is reduced further by understanding that only five of the 20 invasive plants are dispersed by birds.

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For years, I’ve heard complaints about tribal fishing. Frankly, many people who complain about tribal fishing, or commercial fishing in general, have no understanding of treaty rights or how individual salmon stocks are managed.

Tarboo Bay
Washington Department of Ecology photo

Most don’t care about the work that goes into long-range management plans, preseason forecasts or computer models of harvest options, which make it possible to manage fisheries with concurrence of state, tribal and federal entities. Most folks with concerns wouldn’t think of accepting the public invitation to join the annual discussions about harvest.

Occasionally, however, someone raises a concern that resonates with managers and biologists who understand the issues. Such is the case with fishing in Tarboo Bay, a story I told in Friday’s Kitsap Sun.

It all comes down to a simple proposition: If salmon management plans are working, then why aren’t we getting more chum and coho into Tarboo Creek? Should we be content with ongoing productivity well below what the stream appears capable of supporting?

Putting politics aside, should the overall management plan for Hood Canal strive for some minimum escapement or maximum exploitation rate on individual streams? Oh, what a complex plan that would be! But if low escapement creates sustainability problems on any stream, then someone needs to take a serious look and not be hampered by plans that consider Hood Canal coho and chum as aggregate stocks for all Hood Canal.

Maybe we should elevate Tarboo Bay to a test case, first with some monitoring to determine the stock composition of the tribal beach seine in question. If it turns out that this is an all-or-nothing fishery, then one answer would be to move the closure line farther out into Dabob Bay, as managers for the state and two tribes agreed to do.

Beyond that, however, perhaps more attention should be given to individual streams, their carrying capacity and trade-offs between harvest and escapement. Interesting studies have been conducted for listed species and a few other stocks in Hood Canal. See “Mid-Hood Canal Juvenile Salmonid Evaluation…” But the need to improve escapements of all species remains a concern.

I’m tempted to say that this is an emperor-has-no-clothes moment when it comes to fisheries in Hood Canal, but I don’t believe that’s accurate. It may seem that everybody understands the problem and nobody wants to speak out. In reality, the problems are many; they vary from place to place; and lots of people are speaking out.

Maybe it is more like a house of cards that continues to grow. Many weaknesses are found in the structure, but only so many can be fixed at one time. So people just keep going, hoping for the best.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has developed a management framework to address these kinds of issues. See “21st Century Salmon and Steelhead Initiative.” It seems like a good start, but the agency must not forget that restoration comes together stream-by-stream for harvest as well as for habitat.

Consider these goals, among others, spelled out in the initiative:

As local groups — including the tribes — work hard to remove barriers to salmon passage and improve habitat in specific streams, there is a growing recognition that individual streams can support more salmon than has been possible in the past. Maybe it is time to test the limits of the habitat for selected streams, understanding that decreased harvest in the short term could well translate to greater terminal fisheries in the future.

The Kitsap Sun published an editorial today about the Tarboo Bay fishery.

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In a report last night on KING-5 News, Gary Chittim offered a visually rich account of the studies taking place at the mouth of the Elwha River, where nearshore and delta areas are expected to receive huge loads of sediment after the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams come out.

He noted that divers from The U.S. Geological Survey and Environmental Protection Agency have been fighting strong currents as they conduct a spacial survey of the plants and animals in the nearshore area.

Gary quoted Sean Sheldrake, dive unit officer for the EPA:

“Just yesterday, we were diving on a beautiful kelp forest with a variety of fish and plant life, and the hope is through this reconnection of the Elwha to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, it will not only continue but thrive.”

And in a news release last week from the U.S. Geological Survey, Sheldrake was quoted as saying:

“Until now, we’ve focused most of our attention on the effect this project will have on the river, salmon habitat and salmon recovery. But with this survey, we will have a more complete and much clearer picture of the effects on the nearshore ocean environment.”

More than 19 million cubic meters of sediment — enough to fill 11 football fields the height of the Empire State Building — has accumulated behind the Elwha River dams, according to the news release. That sediment is expected to create turbidity for a time, but in the long run could be beneficial for a variety of plant and animal species in area.

Documents for further reading:

Proceedings of the 2011 Elwha Nearshore Consortium Meeting (PDF 1.3 mb)

Nearshore function of the central Strait of Juan de Fuca for juvenile fish… Executive Summary (PDF 906 kb)

Elwha Nearshore Update, Summer 2011 (PDF 333 kb)

Nearshore substrate and morphology offshore of the Elwha River (PDF 4.5 mb)

Nearshore restoration of the Elwha River through removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams (PDF 308 kb)

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When I heard that U.S. District Judge James Redden had, for the third time, rejected a biological opinion designed to protect Columbia River salmon from extinction, my mind leaped to this ongoing question: Will this decision move us closer or further away from removing dams from the Snake River?

After reading Redden’s opinion (PDF, 1.1 mb), I’m not sure. But I can understand why various sides of the debate must be feeling a mixture of hope and frustration from a legal battle that has continued for more than 10 years.

Redden was clear that NOAA Fisheries (National Marine Fisheries Service) could not conclude that salmon are on their way to recovery by relying on undetermined and unplanned habitat improvements proposed from 2013 to 2018 — not so very far in the future.

Quoting from his own opinions upheld by higher courts, Redden wrote in a fairly straight-forward way:

“The ESA (Endangered Species Act) prohibits NOAA Fisheries from relying on uncertain and speculative actions that are not ‘reasonably certain to occur.’ Mitigation measures may be relied upon only where they involve ‘specific and binding plans’ and ‘a clear, definite commitment of resources to implement those measures …’

“Mitigation measures supporting a biological opinion’s no-jeopardy conclusion must be ‘reasonably specific, certain to occur, and capable of implementation; they must be subject to deadlines or otherwise-enforceable obligations; and, most important, they must be address the threats to the species in a way that satisfies the jeopardy and adverse-modification standards.

“Here, NOAA Fisheries improperly relies on habitat mitigation measures that are neither reasonably specific nor reasonably certain to occur, and in some cases not even identified….

“It is one thing to identify a list of actions, or combination of actions through adaptive management to reflect changed circumstances. It is another to simply promise to figure it all out in the future….

“Coupled with the significant uncertainty surrounding the reliability of NOAA Fisheries habitat methodologies, the evidence that habitat actions are falling behind schedule, and that benefits are not accruing as promised, NOAA Fisheries’ approach to these issues is neither cautious nor rational.”

In a footnote, Redden said he is troubled that the agencies have been unable to come up with numerical predictions for salmon survival based on the habitat improvements proposed.

Redden said he would keep the biological opinion in place, flawed as it is, to ensure that NOAA Fisheries will “get out of the courtroom and get to work for the next two and a half years.”

By 2014, Redden wants a new biological opinion that thoroughly discusses the mitigation efforts but also addresses “more aggressive action, such as dam removal and/or additional flow augmentation and reservoir modifications….

“As a practical matter,” he notes, “it may be difficult for federal defendants to develop a long-term biological opinion that relies only on mitigation measures that are reasonably certain to occur.”

That last sentence about the difficulty of relying on mitigation measures keeps the door open to a future court order involving dam removal — but Redden clearly understands that he cannot replace a biological opinion with a legal ruling.

Will Stelle, regional director of NOAA Fisheries put a positive spin on the ruling. He told Scott Learn of The Oregonian that adding more detail to the biological opinion should be enough satisfy the judge.

“He ordered us to tighten up on the habitat program after 2013, and that’s fine,” Stelle was quoted as saying. “We were intending to do it anyway.”

Environmental and fishing groups celebrated the judge’s ruling, as they explained in a joint news release (Scribd). The following comment is from Zeke Grader, executive director of Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations:

“Now is the time for the Obama Administration to walk the talk on real salmon solutions. As this ruling highlights, the federal government has spent nearly 20 years spending enormous sums of money foolishly by doing all the wrong stuff.

“Facing the problem squarely, including potential removal of the four fish-killing dams on the lower Snake River, will create many thousands more jobs, revive the fishing industry, save billions of dollars for taxpayers, and lead in the development of clean, renewable, more efficient energy.

“What we need most now is for this administration to lead us to those solutions, not just bury its head in the sand in denial as has so often happened in the past.”

Other news stories:

The News Tribune

Seattle Times

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In 1988, I took a flight in a Cessna single-engine airplane over the South Fork of the Skokomish River. The trip was offered by Project Lighthawk, an organization that used small aircraft to provide a bird’s eye view of environmental problems throughout the West.

We flew over Hood Canal before reaching Olympic National Forest, where the scene was dominated by extensive brown patches — clearcuts, where all the trees had been removed from mountaintops, valleys and even steep, impassible slopes. Gone were old-growth trees, with trunks up to 6 or 8 feet across.

At the time, The Wilderness Society was working with Lighthawk to estimate how much land had been logged over and how much remained. Their conclusion was that the Forest Service had overestimated the amount of standing timber remaining in the area. Check out the Time magazine article by John Skow from Aug. 29, 1988.

Pictures taken from Lighthawk airplanes helped awaken people across the country to the need to protect remaining old-growth forests, recalled Mike Anderson of The Wilderness Society. I quoted Mike in a Kitsap Sun story from February of 2009:

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Congratulations go to Visual Media Group and People for Puget Sound for a public service video featuring an “angry salmon” who traipses around Seattle’s waterfront and confronts people with their trash. The spot won a Silver Award at last week’s Addy Awards presentation in Seattle.

Last spring, the folks at VMG offered their services when People for Puget Sound wanted some kind of light educational piece for Earth Day. Everyone seemed to like the in-your-face salmon, played by standup comedian Dartanion London, so I’m bringing it back today while I’m on vacation.

The Addy Awards recognize excellence in creative advertising throughout Western Washington. Winners go on to compete with others throughout the Northwest. If successful, they enter a national competition.

For the story behind the production, check out Water Ways for April 26, 2010.

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I’ve always wondered how much ecological good comes from removing old creosote pilings from along the shoreline, as the Washington Department of Natural Resources has been doing in its Creosote Removal Program.

A helicopter transports logs out of the salt marsh at Doe-Keg-Wats near Indianola in Kitsap County
Kitsap Sun photo by Meagan Reid

I was given a new perspective on the problem Tuesday, when I visited the Doe-Keg-Wats estuary. (See my story in Wednesday’s Kitsap Sun.) Now I am better able to see the value of removing creosote logs. Still, I wish a few more quantitative field studies would be done.

We all know that creosote, generally made from coal tar, contains numerous toxic chemicals. A study completed in 2006 for the National Marine Fisheries Service, titled “Creosote-Treated Wood in Aquatic Environments: Technical Review and Use Recommendations” (PDF 1.7 mb) talks about the many toxic constituents (p. 52), routes of exposure (p. 53-54) and toxicity (p. 54-65).

The report draws this important conclusion (p. 84):

“Overall, the laboratory and field studies described above indicate that treated wood structures can leach PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and other toxic compounds into the environment. However, the degree of PAH accumulation to sediment associated with these structures appears to be relatively minor in many settings, particularly in well-circulated waters….

“Nevertheless, there are several factors that suggest that a precautionary principle might be applicable to certain treated wood uses. First, the above studies typically have evaluated responses at the community level (e.g., the benthic invertebrate studies) or to tolerant life stages (e.g., adult oysters and mussels). However, the level of environmental protectiveness applied to T&E (threatened and endangered) species (such as endangered salmonids) should occur at the individual rather than the population or community level.

“Moreover, field studies have indicated that PAHs can accumulate to potentially deleterious concentrations in poorly circulated water bodies or when the density of treated wood structures is high compared to the overall surface area of the water body. As a result, site-specific evaluations of risk should be conducted for treated wood projects that are proposed for areas containing sensitive life stages, species of special concern, or where water circulation and dilution are potentially low….”

This brings us to Doe-Keg-Wats, which appears to be one of the most pristine estuaries in the Puget Sound Region. Take a look at the aerial photo at the bottom of this page.

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