November 19, 2002

By Keith Eldridge


MASON COUNTY - Floodwaters are threatening homes in Mason County and once again sending salmon across the road.

Residents say there's an easy solution to continual flooding, but nothing's being done.

Getting upstream shouldn't be this difficult. The chum salmon are fighting for the right of way where the Skokomish River and the Skokomish Valley Road become one and the same.

For Cathrine and Will Kenner, this is a learning experience. She points to dozens of salmon swimming across the road in about 6 inches of fast-moving water. "There they go... they're making it. There's another one."

Each year she brings her son to learn just a little bit more about the cycle of nature. Cathrine tells her son, "And when they want to lay their eggs, they come back in the rivers."

For others, this scene is heartbreaking. Driver Kim Schmidt says, "Oh man, this is so sad. This is really sad. I wish we could do something here."

For homeowners, it's not just salmon, it is their safety. The river runs wide, but it does not run deep. It's filled with silt and mud and getting worse.

Mason County commissioners say dredging is the simple solution. But getting the different government agencies and the Skokomish Tribe to agree has proved impossible the past 5 years.

"I don't know what they're waiting for to happen, if the river is going to change its course," said Resident Collette Carrington. "We just want something to be done. It's a big inconvenience and we're very tired of it."

In the meantime all homeowners can do is build their houses up high and deal with the water and the curious.

Visitor Mike Guzowski runs up with a camera and says, "They don't have this on Cape Cod. I'll tell you." All the way from Cape Cod to experience something that to the folks here has become commonplace.

And now as the floodwaters are receding, it’s good news for residents. But hundreds of salmon are being left high and dry, stranded in a pasture with no place to go.
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what they failed to mention is the salmon had been gutted and stripped of there eggs, they just looked stranded.........