If the Puyallup River is the jugular of Pierce County, the life’s blood is the salmon that flow through it.
While Pinks return only in odd numbered years, Coho, Kings and Chum make an annual journey from the Pacific Ocean to the river’s spawning grounds to lay their eggs and complete the circle of life by sacrificing their own lives to provide life to the next generation.
It is a pattern that has ebbed and flowed for millennia. We should strive to make sure the cycle continues for millennia to come. And that effort begins with education and preservation.
The waters of the 45-mile Puyallup River come from melting glaciers on the west side of Mount Rainier and flow northwest into Commencement Bay along a meandering path through Pierce County that spans almost 1,000 square miles of basin drainage covering Pierce and southern King County.
Its breadth makes it a mighty machine of fish production if protected, but it also makes it prone to the unpredictable whims of Mother Nature that bring flooding in low lying areas. It is that latter point that is often the focus of most of the attention since homes and businesses are often threatened with flooding as the river waters rise. Progress during the passing generations has built up around the river, which has been rerouted to the point that only 5 percent of its habitat has been left untouched by society’s demand for land. That comes at a price. And that price is falling fish counts.
Sockeye, for example, are considered indigenous to the basin, but are rarely seen these days. Such is the price of progress. But it doesn’t have to be thus.
The most obvious change that needs to happen sooner rather than later is the replacement of the Buckley Dam downstream from the Mud Mountain reservoir. The 103-year-old dam system is outdated and unable to keep up with the rising number of salmon now struggling to spawn in the river system. Decades of conservation efforts along with millions of dollars of habitat improvements are being wasted because the spawning salmon can’t pass the dam, dying of exhaustion and injuries caused by their valiantly futile efforts to jump over the dam walls.
Fish biologists manage to trap some 20,000 fish a day and transport them to the spawning grounds at the river’s headwaters. But the work is inefficient and can’t keep up with demand. Just one out of every three salmon that enter the river actually survives long enough to lay eggs successfully because of the outdated dam.
That needs to change. The outdated dam was highlighted by the nonprofit American Rivers, which listed the Puyallup River’s tributary as one of the top 10 most threatened waterways in the country. The fix is a $90 million replacement dam.
The Puyallup Tribe releases about 1.6 million Chinook into the river system each year through its hatchery. State fisheries stock the river with similar amounts under a joint-management agreement with the tribe. The river doesn’t need more fish as much as it needs to be a better home for the ones that annually return. That requires everyone’s support with awareness and preservation efforts because every home is upstream for the salmon that so define the area.
Let’s give them the homecoming they deserve by doing our part to consciously and responsibly spruce up their river.