Changing Tides
by Ben Arnold
With arms spread wide, John Soden explained the dichotomy of restored marshland habitat compared to dry diked lands, overrun by reed grass and devoid of tidal currents, within the Snohomish River estuary.
Soden, a biologist for Jones and Stokes, an environmental consulting firm based out of Bellevue, Wash., pointed his hands toward mudflats exposed by the low tide and said, "Productive estuarine habitat," then to the left, toward the diked lands, "Not productive estuarine habitat."
During the past 150 years, people have changed the Snohomish River estuary
from tidal marshlands into agricultural and pastureland. Population growth
in Everett and Marysville, two cities that border the estuary, spurred
construction of several industrial and municipal developments and two
wastewater treatment facilities. Interstate 5 cuts a path directly through
the lower estuary. But now, Everett, Marysville and Snohomish County are
returning the damaged estuarine lands to a more natural state — the
state they existed in prior to white settlement, prior to industrial use,
prior to wastewater
treatment facilities and prior to I-5.
Like many cities in the Puget Sound, Everett lies next to an estuary. The Snohomish River winds its way to Everett and I-5, twisting 25 miles west from the confluence of the Skykomish and Snoqualmie rivers. It abruptly turns north just east of Everett, diverging into one main stem and several smaller channels called sloughs. The freeway and numerous dikes influence the flow of water in the estuary.
"The first non-Indians arrived and established the first settlement in the area in 1853," said Andrew Hass, senior habitat specialist for Snohomish County Surface Water. "Farmers began to clear this marsh and build dikes beginning in about the 1860s. Currently, there’s around 44 miles of dikes down here along the main stem of the Snohomish River."
The dikes changed the habitat around the waterways and destroyed tidal marshlands and trees. Settlers built barriers to keep out the tidal currents within the estuary, removing the water from the marshland. Hass said diking eliminated all but one sixth of the tidal sloughs that were originally in the estuary.
Partially due to the loss of tidal marshland, in the late 1990s the government
placed Chinook salmon and bull trout char — two fish species that
use the estuary as a rearing ground — on the endangered species list.
The Endangered Species Act is a driving force behind any work within the
estuary, especially habitat restoration, Soden said.
Currently, Snohomish County and Everett are working to restore lost channels and tidal marshlands by breaching many of the dikes within the estuary.
In 1993 on Spencer Island, Snohomish County breached dikes and allowed water to reclaim much of the tidal marshland there, Hass said. The tides themselves also reclaimed some of the original tidal habitat, breaching the dikes naturally.
"We’ve documented extensive use by salmon as well as bull trout char using this habitat for foraging, as well as over-wintering," Haas said.
Everett and the Army Corps of Engineers are working toward breaching dikes as well, on the east side of Smith Island next to the wastewater treatment facility.
"When it comes to most of the work now in the lower estuary, reclamation of historic tidelands is the number one activity," Soden said. "In terms of number of acres, you get the biggest bang for your buck when you breach dikes. You can get access to a large number of acres pretty simply."
One success story lies at the outskirts of Marysville’s wastewater treatment facility, at the northern reach of Ebey Slough. Thirteen and a half acres of previously diked land are now restored tidal habitat.
"Just about every year, for the past five years, we’ve seen
an increase in use by both (fish) species," Soden said.
At low tide, the area resembles a flooded beach, with braided streams
running to the water. Old ramshackle boats sit off kilter and huge logs
brought in by the tide sit on the mudflats.
Most of the dike still stands, however. Marysville breached only a small
section of the dike about 10 years ago, being careful to let in only the
amount of water needed to restore the tidal marshlands, Soden said.
Diking is not the only cause of damage within the estuary. Industrial
use along the river, specifically by paper-pulp mills, had devastating
effects.
"In particular, the concern with the various mills was related to
water quality, which was actually identified at its worst through the
1940s and 70s, because of timber, pulp and paper mill work," said
Donald Haring, author of the 2002 Washington State Conservation Commission
report on the Snohomish River watershed.
According to the report, pulp mills discharged untreated toxic effluent
such as sulfites and organic solids into Possession Sound and estuary
waters. In 1949, researchers collected 53 water samples along the Snohomish
River. All of the samples had a level of dissolved oxygen lower than five
milligrams per liter, the report found. A level of eight mg/L is necessary
for fish rearing.
As late as 1971, about 2.5 million pounds of organic solids were discharged into the sound per day, and around 400,000 pounds a day into the estuary.
"Water quality was a huge issue in the 1950s, 60s and 70s," Soden said. "Then about 10 years ago it was wetlands, wetlands, wetlands. Now, it’s estuaries."
Historically, human civilization has depended on estuarine environments.
"The cradle of civilization, the fertile crescent, was an estuary,"
said John Rybczyk, assistant professor at Huxley College of the Environment
and a specialist in wetland ecology. "They’re flat, fertile
and near the sea — perfect for settlement."
Humans need water to survive, and in order to use it, it makes sense humans
would settle around or near it, Rybczyk said.
"If you want to have a functioning estuary the most critical thing is to have free exchange of water, both tidal and freshwater flowing in and out, and subsidizing that area," he said. "But the first thing humans do is build dikes in order to reclaim the land for development."
Smith Island, the largest island in the Snohomish estuary, is littered
with dikes. Union Slough and the main stem of the Snohomish River create
the island’s boundaries and wrap around it before flowing into Possession
Sound.
Once or twice a week, tugboats make their way through Union Slough, slowly
bringing log rafts to Buse Timber and Sales Inc.
Buse stands as it has on Smith Island since 1957 — immense piles of cut blond lumber at one end of the plant, and at the other, row upon row of freshly harvested stacked timber, waiting for the saw. Over the years, Buse’s production output and facility within the estuary has grown, but its location has not changed.
Buse uses roughly 80 million board feet of timber a year, or 18,000 truckloads, mill General Manager Ron Smith said. This comes out to approximately 350,000 board feet, or 50 truckloads of timber a day.
"(The timber) comes anywhere from southwestern British Columbia to the Olympic Peninsula, south as far as Mount Rainier," Smith said. "It probably arrives about 70 percent by log truck and the remaining 30 percent by water."
Buse depends on log rafts, but their environmental effects are contentious.
Soden, the biologist, said log rafts have significantly declined in the estuary along with the decrease in timber harvest during recent years. But log rafts in the estuary have affected the fish habitat, shading large expanses of water and allowing seals to venture farther into the estuary than they normally would, feasting on fish as they go, he said.
"We have never had any indication from anyone that log rafts have
been a problem here," Smith said in response to this.
"If there is, nobody has told us."
Yet, Haring said ridding the estuary of log rafts is one of the most important actions for habitat restoration because the problems they cause in the estuary, while minor, would be the easiest to solve.
"You don’t have to go through other substantial restoration activity," Haring said. "(Removing log rafts) has benefits, and it has the least cost."
The accumulation of organic materials, primarily bark, from log rafts can reduce the water quality, he said. As the organic material decomposes, it creates anoxic (absence of oxygen) conditions in the water.
Smith said Buse has a contract with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources to take care of bark and other environmental hazards related to log rafts.
"It’s not a big deal for those who don’t need (the log rafts)," Smith said. "If you’re a grocery store operator and don’t needs rafts, then it’s not a big deal. But if your livelihood depends on it, then it’s not as easy to say just get rid of them."
Thirty years ago, the most important concern within the estuary was not
habitat restoration, but water quality.
When Congress passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments
of 1972, which set the standards for water quality regulations, Everett
had already had a treatment facility for 12 years.
"Everett was ahead of the game," said Charles Johnstone, operations supervisor at Everett’s Water Pollution Control Facility.
Johnstone, an employee at the facility since 1985, said many people see the wastewater treatment facility and say, "Oh, there’s this terrible sewage."
"Some people who may not be well-informed of environmental issues may view treatment plants as polluters," he said. "A treatment plant is here to protect water quality. We are what we like to call the last line of defense in water quality."
The facility employs three kinds of treatment. Preliminary treatment, where the facility removes physical matter like hair, paper and grit by screening the water; primary treatment, where the solid organic matter in the water settles, solidifies and is removed; and secondary treatment, where microorganisms consume most of the remaining organic matter that is too small to settle.
"What it really boils down to is we’re trying to make a happy little environment for microorganisms, because they essentially make the water clean," Johnstone said.
Robert Waddle, operations superintendent for the City of Everett Public Works, said the plant usually removes between 85 percent and 90 percent of the waste.
"We don’t remove 100 percent of the effluent," he said. "But when that residual organic matter hits the estuary, that process doesn’t stop."
The treatment process continues naturally, he said.
Rybczyk said wastewater treatment facilities are basically engineered and controlled versions of estuaries — their processes are the same.
"Estuaries have a tremendous capacity to absorb and treat pulses of material, nutrients and energy," he said. "That’s why they’re so good to have. They’re probably the most resilient of the types of ecosystems we have."
Six years after the city built the wastewater treatment facility, I-5 plowed through Everett and into the Snohomish River estuary. Construction began on the section in 1966 and finished around 1969. During construction, the freeway displaced whatever tidal marshland was left in its path and also paved over several smaller slough channels.
The fact that Everett and the Snohomish River estuary are so close to each other makes for a unique environment, Haas said. Some people look at Everett and the estuary and see an amazing place — a contrast of a natural area and an urban environment.
Haas, who moved here 10 years ago from the Midwest, cannot imagine anywhere better.
"It’s one of the great places in the country, I think," he said. "I came from the Midwest and didn’t look back after I moved out here. I was drawn out here by the mountains and the ocean and it’s close to a great city. It has everything."
Although development and sparse industrial use presently surround the
estuary, it still has some semblance of its natural beauty.
The number of restored acres of land has increased dramatically since
the early 1990s and fish use within the estuary is on the rise. At the
Marysville restoration site, natural tideland vegetation has replaced
invasive species, and expanses of water have replaced crowded throngs
of invasive reed grass.
The estuary is, however, still on the road to recovery.
Soden, out near Marysville’s restoration site, points out residential developments less than a mile away, to the east.
"It’d be great for fish to breach dikes all the way up to the houses, but if you were a home owner, would you want the tide coming up to your doorstep?" he asked. "Probably not."
Residents are probably more comfortable with the tide where it is, flowing
through the sloughs, over the mudflats and filtering through the cattails.
