~ Anne Kilgannon
I’m reading the long anticipated new book by Robert Macfarlane wherein he poses the thought-provoking question, “Is a river alive?” He swiftly plunges us first into the Los Cedros Cloud Forest of Ecuador in his quest for an answer and I gingerly follow him, but I’ve also been reading river stories closer to home. I’ve been searching out the work of marine biologist Harry Branch as he seeks to answer the same questions about our local waterways. I was especially intrigued with his studies of local creeks such as Moxlie and Schneider, the first emptying into East Bay and the other into West Bay. Both creeks suffer long stretches of confinement in culverts before, literally, seeing the light of day again in their respective bays. Deprived of sunlight for much of their final journeys to salt water, these former estuary waters are drastically low in dissolved oxygen, the life-giving element they historically delivered to the bays. The creeks, once sparkling and thriving salmon streams are, at best, “near” death.
Branch reminds us of the critical role estuaries play in the health of the entire watershed of Puget Sound. Historically, the zones where fresh water mingled with salt water were the richest and most populated places for human settlements, as documented by Nisqually tribal historian, Cecelia Svinth Carpenter. There, sunlight playing over the waters nourished phytoplankton, which created stores of oxygen and the conditions for flourishing populations of forage fish. Sand lance, surf smelt and herring fed salmon and other fishes, which, in turn, supported thriving pods of orcas and other apex predators. Scores of bird species enlivened the scene: diving ducks and others fed and raised their young there. Audubon Christmas counts and other studies assessed the area for its number and variety of water birds in 1980 and counted 3670 birds in Budd Inlet. Forage fish abounded.
Two decades later, Bob Morse noted that the number and diversity of birds “had dropped significantly.” The list of birds “facing local extinction” included Red-necked, Horned and Western Grebes; Pelagic Cormorants; Surf Scoters; Barrow’s Goldeneye; Hooded, Common, and Red-breasted Mergansers; Ruddy Ducks; and Bonaparte’s, Mew, and Glaucous-winged Gulls. White-winged and Black Scoters, American Wigeon, Canvasback, and Rhinoceros Auklet he considered already extinct in Lower Puget Sound.
Other parts of the Sound were not as drastically impacted. Branch flatly declares, “Populations fell more quickly here because there’s something particularly wrong here.” His diagnosis pinpoints: “too many nutrients and too little dissolved oxygen” caused by the long and dark journey creek waters are forced to take in culverts where no sunshine can balance the nutrient load in a more usable form before it enters salt water. The culverts have facilitated much of the near shoreline to be built upon, devoted to pavement and buildings, with plans for more development right down to the shoreline of both East and especially West Bay. We are rapidly closing off solutions that could restore health and life to our home waters by daylighting our local creeks and returning to science-based practices long proven to support both humans and a diversity of other-than-humans. Branch has much more information and ways we could improve our environment, if only we put ourselves to the task.
For more analysis and encouragement, Harry Branch’s website gardenbayblog.com offers four essays on issues of critical importance for estuary health:
The Death of Science
City and Port Control
Restoration
The Crossroads
His glossary of terms appended to the essays, both scientific and political/bureaucratic, are well worth your study for a better grasp of our situation and need for action. His wry sense of humor on display here helps, too.
You can find more on his work in conversations with Kim Dobson, host of Parallel University, posted by Esther Kronenberg in Olympia Works in Progress, June 2025.
More Internet digging will add to your study of creek conditions and other issues.
These sites will at least introduce you to Harry Branch, whose knowledge and dedication to the health of our watersheds and community will inspire and inform you… he says it’s not too late: “Riparian nearshore areas are part of the public trust, species that are facing extinction rely on them. We couldn’t find a worse place to build eight huge buildings. We couldn’t find a better place to restore.”
Photo credit: The Chehalis River, by Rachel Hudson.
