Wednesday 21 November 2012, Olympia Washington—Photos from a high tide at Percival Landing: The predicted tide level was a 15.2, but a tidal gauge showed the tide was close to 17.0 feet.

The water was likely pushed up by strong outflow from the Deschutes River after heavy rain showers over the past few days.

City Workers were cleaning the boardwalk, and said that yesterday's high tide was higher than today's. Yesterday the water had risen up to the board's running parallel with the boardwalk, which means the tide was pushing over 17.0 by traditional measures.

Returned to Percival Landing this afternoon. Another high tide.

Here's the parking lot at Oyster House

There are tidal gauge markers on the pilings in this photo. This is near Bayview Thriftway, seen from the Percival Landing boardwalk.

Slideshow includes 26 other photos:

Going by Capitol Lake at about 2pm today I saw the water level just about as high as I have ever seen it in 10 years.

Here's what the view of the 5th Avenue dam looked like from the 4th Avenue bridge at a little after 4pm:

Sunday 22 January 2012

A friend of ours mentioned this yesterday, so we rode down to check it out, and it seems that Capitol Lake is being drained into Budd Inlet.

Not that you'd know it from the Daily O's website. Does anyone know why? Are there plans to dredge it again? Did someone lose their keys in there (just kidding)?

Whom does one ask about such things? I couldn't find anything relevant on the GA website, either. I'm feeling bad for the birds, who seem to have had a major shift in habitat.

We did see four Great Blue Herons, though, which is the most we've ever seen in one spot at one time.We went to Bayview for a deli lunch-they have some crazy peaches right now. Highly recommended, but get extra napkins!

A couple of new posts over at the Squaxin Island Tribe's natural resources blog cover issues involving the Deschutes River.

First, on a tour of the river:

One highlight of the tour was stopping at the mouth of Huckleberry Creek not far downstream from the upper Deschutes falls.  Prior to a 1990 rain storm and subsequent landslide on Weyerhaeuser property, about 10% of all returning coho in the Deschutes River system spawned in Huckleberry Creek.

We spoke with Peter Schmid, president of the local homeowners association.  He described how sediment (likely still from the 1990 landslide) continues to aggrade the Huckleberry channel.  He said the channel is now at least three feet shallower than it used to be.  He asserted that was the cause of the ongoing flooding issues the community faces.  When asked about salmon, Peter reported that he has seen none in the last couple years–not in Huckleberry Creek and not in front of his house in the mainstem Deschutes River.

 

Second, about a study of turbidity in the Deschutes:

Weyerhaeuser published a report in June 2009 in the Journal of American Water Resources Association (Volume 45, Number 3, Pages 793-808) detailing 30 years of turbidity data collected in the upper reaches of the Deschutes (WA) Watershed.  To my knowledge, it is the longest water quality study on private forestlands in the Pacific Northwest.

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The CLAMP is moving forward. There hasn't been a lot of discussion in some circles, but the CLAMP (Capitol Lake Adaptive Management Plan) is moving forward in terms of the process of making a decision about how to handle Capitol Lake. The main question is: to restore, or to not restore, the Deschutes River Estuary. As scheduled, the CLAMP is due to move on a decision by June. But it's a big decision, and local jurisdictions are currently weighing in now in terms of how to proceed. For example, the Olympia City Council is dealing with this topic this week. Here are a few links for more background information: 1) City of Olympia CLAMP background information report (on scribd). 2) There is a lot of information on the Squaxin Island Tribe website. There is an informative Q&A, and regular Deschutes River Estuary blog entries by jdickison. 3) There is also an olywiki dedicated to the topic: Deschutes Estuary Restoration Resources Restoring the Estuary seems like a really great and excellent way to begin to ameliorate the harmful relationship that exists between our society and the natural world. I believe that's what we need, and it's the right direction to go (i.e. amelioration of our harmful relations with nature...) Is this an important issue for you? Have you considered communicating directly with the Council Members about it?

We've been working on creating a blog at the Squaxin Island Tribe's natural resources department for awhile now. And, earlier this week we finally put it out for the public to see.

Yesterday I wrote up a piece about habitat restoration on the Deschutes. Have a look:

On the wall of my office is a photo of one of my co-workers, Joe Puhn taken during a habitat survey on the Deschutes River. He’s standing in a few feet of water, hanging on to his float tube. What’s interesting about the picture is the width, depth, and curviness (sinuosity) of the river.

We were doing the survey in the summer when most of the Deschutes runs wide and straight, shallow and hot. Someone, probably kids looking for a better inner tubing experience, piled up rocks and gravel to narrow, deepen and add sinuosity to the channel to speed the river.

What is good for inner tubing is also good for fish — faster water makes more interesting tubing and sweeps out the fine sediment in spawning gravel (fine sediment can choke salmon before they ever emerge from the gravel). Added sinuosity lengthens the river and allows the water to interact more with the cool, underlying gravel....

Seattle PI:

Last updated September 29, 2008 9:51 p.m. PT

A building ban near rivers?Feds call for moratorium in bid to protect salmon, orcas

By ROBERT McCLURE
P-I REPORTER

To protect salmon and orcas, federal fisheries managers are calling for a moratorium on development near rivers in the Puget Sound region.

In a potentially far-reaching decision for more than 270 municipalities, the National Marine Fisheries Service said the federal flood insurance program that protects homes and businesses built in flood plains is illegal. The reasoning: Flood insurance allows development that harms salmon and, consequently, the orcas that eat salmon. Both are protected under the Endangered Species Act.

"It's a significant wake-up call to (municipalities) who might have begun to think the Endangered Species Act didn't carry a lot of implications for local land use," said Jan Hasselman, the Seattle lawyer who filed suit over the issue on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation, which led to the Fisheries Service decision.

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building ban

more pics here