The Duwamish Basin and Green River chinook

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.

Frank Haw's book is excellent, so is his late friend's book (Pete Bergman) just released within the last year or so. If you want to know about our state's fishing/salmon conservation history they are a must read. They also are very prescriptive of what needs to be fixed and how to do it.

The Green River is nothing compared to what it once was, obviously. But it's Chinook are a hodge-podge of genetics just the same as almost all of the mid to south Puget Sound Chinook. Wild fish? The genetics of the wild ones are identical to the hatchery fish. If there are genetic differences it is due to natural divergence, or straying from outside their area. The powers to be need to challenge the feds when we are protecting the "wild" Chinook when they are clearly offspring of hatchery fish when we out-planted gazillions of hatchery salmon over the last century. Fill up the rivers like the Green and Puyallup with our best specimens and let them make babies. Natural selection, survival of the fittest and evolution will speed up the recovery of our so-called endangered Puget Sound Chinook if we augment the few "wild" fish who spawn naturally. We need advocacy and leadership from WDFW to challenge the feds, not to roll over and accept a misguided premise that there are truly wild sub-species of Chinook (which there aren't)because what WDFW is doing isn't working.

The Green also had a run of Spring/summer Chinook. In the late 70's we would see them circling the large slow pools just above the steel bridge, less than a half mile down from the head works. On July 4 1986 I caught about a 10lb Spinger deep in the canyon below the power lines, cut just like an up river Columbia Spinger.

I also saw hundreds of winter steelhead beating their heads against the Tacoma headworks diversion dam, many over 20lbs, early 80's.

The Cedar was also supposed to have a few Springers into at least the mid-70s. Cedar and green could be repopulated with White River fish as they were all very recently in the same watershed.

Interesting history piece...

http://www.historylink.org/File/3583

I know Icy had Summers, because they screwed up management for a couple years. But I still think it was more or less wild springers as to have seen them in the mid-70s they would have needed to have been stocked in the early 70s. I forget the Icy came online, but I thought it was mid-late 70s at the earliest.

More history. Other than fn up the fish, it's cool stuff. 30 yrs ago I worked for a old guy that grew up in Renton. He told stories of the Black River Salmon and Steelhead. Today some spots of the old river bed are visible, but most is in pipe under ground. Sad. The Stuck is even more interesting.
"Throughout the late 19th century, farmers in the valley attempted various flood control efforts that eventually allowed the White River to partially flow into the Stuck River in 1899. In 1906, a great flood diverted the White River's entire flow into the Stuck River. The entire length of the former Stuck is now considered the final reach of the White River, though the Stuck River name still appears on many maps, in local place names, and in legal descriptions of property near the river.
http://www.wrvmuseum.org/journal/journal_0401.htm

The history of river routes in that area is fascinating. At one time, I think it was before the big mudflow, the White was flowing through the lower South Prairie Creek valley. May explain the rather wide valley and smallish creek now.

I have always wanted to work with a geologist to map what the post-glacial stream locations were. So many have moved/changed. For example, the whole Sauk, Suiattle, Cascade went down the Stilly until Glacier Peak fixed it. Plus, we have moved a lot of streams like the whole situation in this thread.

Might make some of the "the salmon have been here (in this stream) for a million years" arguments go away.

Back when Icy was started the Game Department had noting to do with it.

Those stream reroutes are pretty crazy.
At one time, they also considered building a canal between Puget Sound @ Allyn and Hood Canal.
Very glad they didn't do that.
SF

1976 brood spring Chinook was the first year of production at Icy. Fall Chinook started w 1977 brood. The last spring Chinook release was from 1981 brood. Its been only fall run since 1983. Steelhead began with 1998 brood and has been a mix of summers and winters since, with no production from 2015 brood

I know that the returns in the early 80s to the Green had Sky Summer Chinook. Summers and Falls were lumped into one group for management but the summers returned earlier and really mucked things up. I never saw a Springer in the Green or heard of any fishery for them but at that time I was mainly concerned with the net fisheries.

WDG had a steelhead facility further up the river but I forget its name.

I remember picking up a springer or summer some time in the last 80's. I had hiked into icy creek and walked up to the wall about a 1/4 mile up. There were fish rolling in the hole but I could not get anything to bite. Right at dusk I waded across and went up to the top of the hole. It was just about dark and out of desperation I grabbed a number 2 glow in the dark buzz bomb and back bounced to through the hole. About a 15lb king picked it up. I remember letting it go because at the time there was no season on them and I don't think any were supposed to be in there. It has always made me curious as to whether it was a white river springer and why they were never brought back to atone for the river diversion. I have a hard time believing that they would go up the Duwamish and white but never establish them selves in the Green.

The Lower Green/Duwamish is nothing more than a drainage ditch with no full time fish habitat. When it floods you are heading out to sea. Period.
The upper river, reservoir, and other lakes are closed to the Public. Miles upon miles of forest closed off to everyone but loggers and a couple of people who win the hunting lottery.
This river is in crisis mode. Some of the residents:

Spring Chinook-extinct

Fall Chinook- The amount of natural spawners goes down almost every year. They are maintained by large hatchery plants. There is almost no in river sport fishery, they do sometimes open one section of the duwamish that is very muddy and has almost no access.

Coho- worst hatchery escapement ever this year. (2500!?) Wild fish would really like to reseed the upper reservoir and tributaries. Fish continue to get smaller. Has a decent run of “throwback jacks” I have probably thrown back a dozen hatchery jack coho that were just under 12”. Caught a 17# Back in about 2003. Those fish are rare now or gone.

Chum- the wild runs are dwindling. Abundance maintained by hatchery production.

Pink- The boom is over for now.

Sockeye- extinct

Steelhead- Threatened and currently on a path to extinction. Winter fishing is only allowed by privileged “broodstockers”

Cutthroat- I can’t speak for the upper river but lower river anadromous fish were once something I targeted, seems to be fewer these days.

Bull trout- extinct

Sad legacy, Jake. That's one sorry A$$ list for sure.

And it's completely attributable to wholesale simplification/taming/rearrangement of a once complex/dynamic/wild river ecosystem to suit and satisfy our cushy human needs over those of wild fish.

Perish the thought, but at this juncture, is it time to just write them off? Some can justifiably argue that is the intellectually honest choice. More and more folks are coming to the conclusion that our modern existence is simply incompatible with theirs. Are they wrong?

Writem off and make it a friggen hatchery factory.

That is actually the single choice we have left. Fix the system so it works or give it up and use hatchery fish.