Winding up the final chapters of Frank Haw's 2015 book on the history of PNW recreational salmon fishing, courtesy of Norman Reinhardt who lent it to me at a recent fish commission meeting.

Chapter 22 on the Duwamish/Green was a real eye opener about the wholesale re-arrangement of the original Duwamish drainage.... where 70% of the historic drainage once destined for Elliott Bay was diverted to Commencement Bay via the Puyallup River, and to Shilshole Bay via the Lake WA and the Ship Canal.

Then to add even greater insult to injury, Tacoma erects a fish-impassable diversion to steal Green River water for its growing industrial city. This happened about the same time as the erection of the Elwha Dams so it's no wonder ZERO consideration was made for fish passage. Thousands of salmon and steelhead were blocked from accessing prime habitat in the headwaters. All were trapped at the diversion dam and artificially spawned to mitigate for lost upriver production. In a few years that "mitigation" effort was abandoned for lack of returning fish. DOH!

There were relatively few chinook at the diversion dam as further downriver the vast majority were already being weir-directed into Soos Creek where they were taken for the hatchery. Haw recounts the massive push to mine the maximum number of eggs because the prevailing wisdom at the time was that natural spawning was simply a waste.

In 1962 Howard Hanson Dam was erected 5 miles above the Tacoma Water diversion.... again without fish passage to miles of pristine habitat. Why bother? The diversion had already taken out the upriver fish populations.

With all these assaults on the critter's natural history.... plus gillnets and northern intercept fisheries in BC and AK, is it any wonder that these fish would be ESA listed before the end of the last century? It's a marvel that any exist at all! As much as Green River kings are maligned as nasty green slimy boots, they really are one BAD A$$ strain of super chinook that have incredibly withstood the abuses of modern man.