The first example is the trap and haul operation for salmon on the White River at Buckley. Profiled in the Puyallup River chapter, Watershed Under Pressure, the century-old structure that channels fish into a holding pen for transport by tanker trucks to a river re-entry point above the Mud Mountain Dam has proven woefully inadequate for decades. Fisheries biologists for the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and the Puyallup Tribe of Indians have documented thousands of dead and dying salmon—many protected under the Endangered Species Act—due to the aging structure’s deteriorating condition and its inability to cope with increasing volumes of migrating fish, mostly pinks, regarded as the “starlings of the sea.”
After years of pressure from the Tribes and other stakeholders, a federal agency report demanding a new structure, and dogged support from Senator Patty Murray, the $131 million facility goes online this fall. As Linda V. Mapes wrote in a Seattle Times article in August, the new fish passage operation is “big as an aircraft carrier and made of enough concrete to pave a mile and a quarter of Interstate 5.” It will triple the old trap’s capacity to transport more than a million fish per year. All of this is great news for salmon, the environment, and our region’s economy, and Tahoma ought to include the latest developments.
In these times of rising temperatures and climate change, I sometimes think of Mount Rainier as a gigantic ice cream cone that’s slipped out of one’s grip and landed on an asphalt parking lot on a hot summer day—things are going to get messy. At the mountain, climate change has triggered widespread retreat of all of the mountain’s two dozen glaciers, creating a cascade of effects. With less snow and ice on the upper mountain to hold glacial moraines and other rock masses in place, greater volumes of rock are susceptible to downslope movement. This happens gradually in the emplacement of sediment in riverbeds called aggradation, or suddenly, as debris flows or glacial outburst floods. Tahoma Creek, alongside the Westside Road not far from the Nisqually Entrance, is a debris flow hotspot, with dozens rumbling down the valley since the 1960s. The flows have choked the creek with sediment and rock debris, widening the creek and threatening to wash out the road. Although closed to public vehicular traffic, the Westside Road is essential for staff access for work projects and search and rescue operations.
Under the leadership of recently retired geomorphologist Paul Kennard, the Imminent Threats pilot project on Tahoma Creek installed gigantic log bundles between the creek and the road to slow and dissipate the creek’s erosive energy. The project’s other feature, installation of red alder and Sitka willow planted in a woven wall called a willow wattle, holds soils in place. Now the survivor of several debris flows and high water events, the project shows promise as a solution to property and infrastructure damage resulting from debris flows.
Because of the project’s success, the park recently acquired full funding for the Imminent Threats Program. Funding and dedicated staff, along with interest from other agencies coping with similar challenges, may position the program as a national model. It’s such a groundbreaking idea that Washington’s National Park Fund singled Kennard out for a 2020 Carolyn Dobbs Science Research Award for boots-on-the-ground research. Much of this is recent news, covered all too briefly in Tahoma and Its People, and as the program grows and expands to other places, it will be an important story to highlight.
Another recently developing story is the proposed upgrade to Mount Rainier’s lahar detection system. The U.S. Geological Survey and its partners plan to install 17 lahar monitoring stations that will improve the agency’s volcano monitoring and lahar detection capacity, resulting in faster notification of surrounding communities in the event of a volcanic event or lahar. With 1.2 million people and over $40 billion of property values in the river valleys leading away from Mount Rainier (as reported in a 2012 study), there’s much at stake. At issue is the quicker response times that could save hundreds or thousands of lives, but complicating matters is the plan to locate 12 of the sensors in designated wilderness or within the park’s National Historic District. The project is in the public input phase; a decision is expected by spring 2021. Regardless of the outcome, lahar preparation is a crucial Mount Rainier story that should remain current for readers.
As we head into the dark days of late fall and winter and make our way through the pandemic, let’s stay active in all ways. Dig out the snowshoes, dust off the skis, and check the Mount Rainier Recreational Forecast for a weather window that beckons us to GOD (Great Out Doors). On the other hand, if it means settling in with a favorite hot beverage and a good read, do that too.
In the meantime, keep your boots dry and your spirits high.
