Kevin,

Yes, actually there is a Puget Sound river with an increasing salmon run that is totally out of proportion with other rivers in the area. All rivers had excellent pink salmon returns this year, but the White River, the major tributary of the Puyallup River is absolutely unreal. It had almost no pink salmon 10 years ago. Four cycles ago it had something like 13,000 pinks return, then 27,000 or so, then 30-some thousand, then 127,000, and then this year over 500,000 pinks returned. Why? Aside from it being an excellent pink year, it was habitat. The White River had the lower 21 miles dewatered from 1912 until 1986, when instream flows were increased, and then in 2004 when all natural flows were returned to the river as a hydro project was retired. Also, a fish killing valve at the flood control dam was replaced with a fish friendly passage through the dam, and a modern NMFS criteria fish screen replaced an old nearly non-functional so-called fish screen, and Tacoma Water removed and replaced its river crossing water line that formerly was buried in concrete that formed a dam that obstructed fish passage. Four habitat fixes and now the river has received more salmon in 2009 than in all the since 1947 to 2008. That's one thing habitat can do.

Sg