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Salmon Recovery Project Falls Apart
Chris Halsne
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter
Posted: 8:50 am PDT March 20, 2009
Updated: 6:30 pm PDT March 23, 2009
SEATTLE -- A series of multimillion-dollar, tax-funded salmon restoration projects are in shambles following January's big flood.
We start by focusing on the Cedar River, several miles southeast of Renton.
KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne unravels which aspects of these expensive projects worked and which failed.
Mother Nature can take much of the credit for causing such destruction along King County’s rivers, but a KIRO Team 7 investigation also found human error, buoyancy miscalculations and lack of anticipation of a serious flood event added tremendous cost to this disaster.
One of our viewers provided home video of massive bundles of trees, chained together and floating down the Cedar River in January. Hidden underwater, scraping along the bottom, dragged one of these concrete ecology blocks. Obviously this isn't a natural occurrence.
Dave Miles lives along the Cedar River and has witnessed parts of the failed salmon restoration project float by several times.
“Sounds like thunder when it's dragging the rocks. If there was any salmon eggs, they are gone,” Miles said.
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Salmon Recovery Board
King County DNR
He is unimpressed with King County's latest effort to curb flooding while trying to save Chinook and Sockeye Salmon. He points to the chaotic flood aftermath along a bend near his house.
“I don't think they should do it because that's partially what creates the flooding here is when there log jams create log dams and back the water up into my yard. I'm going to pay for that? I'm not happy about it. No. They shouldn't be messing with the river.”
Last summer, the King County Department of Natural Resources, along with the Salmon Recovery Funding Board finished a $1.8 million project on the Cedar River.
About a million dollars of the budget went toward "buying out" a couple property owners, then widened the space between banks. DNR flood manger Steve Bleifuhs says that part of the budget was money well-spent.
“This project performed exactly how we intended it perform. It was a project to open up for flood plain and set back the levees, provide additional areas for flood waters and reducing velocity potential.”
But not everything went as planned.
Using another $850,000, King County designed a salmon recovery area. That included clearing river bank, adding pebbles, then chaining up about 40 bundles of cottonwood trees. They tied the enormous wood piles to big rocks.
During some mild flooding in November, some of the bundles floated away. Crews came back here to add more chain, plus a bunch of concrete blocks. Then, during record flooding in January, some of the bundles floated away a second time. This time some of them jammed under bridges and ended up clogging the river near Lake Washington.
Bleifuhs admits county DNR employees miscalculated high water effects on buoyancy.
“No the chain and block is not natural. What we saw is an element of the project that didn't work as we intended it to, which is the placement of the wood. It started to mobilize during the November 2008 flood event, so we came in as a temporary measure to bring in some blocks and chains to provide additional protection to keep the wood from floating downstream. So, it’s a temporary measure.”
KIRO Team 7 Investigators have learned that now, tax payers will have to fork out more money to fix this salmon project again next summer.
That's something King County resident Stu Soules questions given the current economy and what he considers a lack of proof that any of the measures really work.
It (the Cedar River) is gorgeous and I'm very much for preserving that. I think that from this point, houses have been here for 100 years. People have lived in harmony with the wildlife and I hate to say it, I think if the county would leave things alone, we'd be all right. By trying to help, they're doing more harm than good.
The salmon return up the Cedar River was expected to be weak this year anyway, but one fisheries expert told Halsne that flooding in January had an absolutely devastating effect on the few salmon eggs that were still there.
King County officials tell us dozens of other salmon restoration or flood control projects also need to be repaired due to flooding. They are still estimating the amount of loss and expect to release financial details in the coming weeks.
Copyright 2009 by KIROTV.com. All rights reserved.
Jim's Fishing Charters
www.JimsFishing.com
http://ca.youtube.com/user/Sushihunter250
Chris Halsne
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter
Posted: 8:50 am PDT March 20, 2009
Updated: 6:30 pm PDT March 23, 2009
SEATTLE -- A series of multimillion-dollar, tax-funded salmon restoration projects are in shambles following January's big flood.
We start by focusing on the Cedar River, several miles southeast of Renton.
KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne unravels which aspects of these expensive projects worked and which failed.
Mother Nature can take much of the credit for causing such destruction along King County’s rivers, but a KIRO Team 7 investigation also found human error, buoyancy miscalculations and lack of anticipation of a serious flood event added tremendous cost to this disaster.
One of our viewers provided home video of massive bundles of trees, chained together and floating down the Cedar River in January. Hidden underwater, scraping along the bottom, dragged one of these concrete ecology blocks. Obviously this isn't a natural occurrence.
Dave Miles lives along the Cedar River and has witnessed parts of the failed salmon restoration project float by several times.
“Sounds like thunder when it's dragging the rocks. If there was any salmon eggs, they are gone,” Miles said.
Salmon Recovery Board
King County DNR
He is unimpressed with King County's latest effort to curb flooding while trying to save Chinook and Sockeye Salmon. He points to the chaotic flood aftermath along a bend near his house.
“I don't think they should do it because that's partially what creates the flooding here is when there log jams create log dams and back the water up into my yard. I'm going to pay for that? I'm not happy about it. No. They shouldn't be messing with the river.”
Last summer, the King County Department of Natural Resources, along with the Salmon Recovery Funding Board finished a $1.8 million project on the Cedar River.
About a million dollars of the budget went toward "buying out" a couple property owners, then widened the space between banks. DNR flood manger Steve Bleifuhs says that part of the budget was money well-spent.
“This project performed exactly how we intended it perform. It was a project to open up for flood plain and set back the levees, provide additional areas for flood waters and reducing velocity potential.”
But not everything went as planned.
Using another $850,000, King County designed a salmon recovery area. That included clearing river bank, adding pebbles, then chaining up about 40 bundles of cottonwood trees. They tied the enormous wood piles to big rocks.
During some mild flooding in November, some of the bundles floated away. Crews came back here to add more chain, plus a bunch of concrete blocks. Then, during record flooding in January, some of the bundles floated away a second time. This time some of them jammed under bridges and ended up clogging the river near Lake Washington.
Bleifuhs admits county DNR employees miscalculated high water effects on buoyancy.
“No the chain and block is not natural. What we saw is an element of the project that didn't work as we intended it to, which is the placement of the wood. It started to mobilize during the November 2008 flood event, so we came in as a temporary measure to bring in some blocks and chains to provide additional protection to keep the wood from floating downstream. So, it’s a temporary measure.”
KIRO Team 7 Investigators have learned that now, tax payers will have to fork out more money to fix this salmon project again next summer.
That's something King County resident Stu Soules questions given the current economy and what he considers a lack of proof that any of the measures really work.
It (the Cedar River) is gorgeous and I'm very much for preserving that. I think that from this point, houses have been here for 100 years. People have lived in harmony with the wildlife and I hate to say it, I think if the county would leave things alone, we'd be all right. By trying to help, they're doing more harm than good.
The salmon return up the Cedar River was expected to be weak this year anyway, but one fisheries expert told Halsne that flooding in January had an absolutely devastating effect on the few salmon eggs that were still there.
King County officials tell us dozens of other salmon restoration or flood control projects also need to be repaired due to flooding. They are still estimating the amount of loss and expect to release financial details in the coming weeks.
Copyright 2009 by KIROTV.com. All rights reserved.
Jim's Fishing Charters
www.JimsFishing.com
http://ca.youtube.com/user/Sushihunter250
