Water release will aid salmon

Tacoma Power, Skokomish tribe reach deal on dam

By Chester Allen | The Olympian • Published March 17, 2008

More water is flowing down the North Fork Skokomish River these days.

That's good news for struggling salmon and steelhead runs not only in the river, but also in lower Hood Canal.

But it will hit the pocketbook of Tacoma Power customers in the form of higher electricity rates.

The utility is trying to balance cost efficiency with environmental stewardship, said Pat McCarty, generation manager for Tacoma Power.

The Skokomish tribe and Tacoma Power have fought a decades-long legal battle over river flows and other effects from the Cushman Dam project, which was finished in 1930. The two parties have reached an agreement that requires at least 240 cubic feet per second of flow out of the second dam into the North Fork Skokomish River.

Previously, it was 60 cubic feet per second. A cubic foot of water is equal in volume to a cube of water that measures 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 foot.

Reduced fish runs, wrecked habitat and damaged cultural sites have all caused pain for the tribe, said Tom Strong, deputy tribal secretary.

"The North Fork issue affected every part of our tribe," Strong said.

Further talks

Negotiations continue on adjusting flows out of the dam to create a more natural habitat for fish, McCarty said.

Other issues, such as habitat restoration and creating a system that gets salmon above the Cushman project to spawn in the upper Skokomish River, are under discussion, McCarty said.

More water in the river gives salmon and steelhead a chance to recover from years of low water, said Marty Ereth, habitat biologist for the tribe.

"It will make pools deeper and wider," Ereth said. "We'll have a lot more water to flush juvenile salmon downstream, and we'll have a lot more water for fish to spawn."

Biologists for the tribe and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife say there is a tiny chance that increased flows from the natural Skokomish River might help ease the chronic low-oxygen zones — and related fish kills — in lower Hood Canal.

The reason it's a small chance is because the water flowing out of the Skokomish River is fresh and tends to float on top of the denser salt water in Hood Canal, while the low-oxygen zone is near the bottom, said Greg Bargmann, Fish and Wildlife marine scientist.