Changes at Tumwater Falls Park will bring visitors ‘face to face with fish’
Work is underway to improve the visitor experience — for both humans and salmon — at Tumwater Falls Park.
In late February, the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife launched a $9 million effort to revamp its salmon facilities at the park, including building larger adult holding and juvenile rearing ponds and an extended fish ladder with observation windows for the public.
Crews are staging construction so that “fish critical” elements — the ponds, pumps and ladder — should done by late summer when the salmon return, Harry Knechtel, an environmental engineer with Fish and Wildlife, told The Olympian on Friday.
The park, which is owned by the Olympia Tumwater Foundation, already gets 250,000 visitors a year. The viewing feature is expected to draw more.
“You’ll be face to face with fish — that’s the cool thing about it,” said Lee Wojnar, president of the Olympia Tumwater Foundation board.
The state built fish ladders in the early 1950s to help spawning salmon get up the Deschutes River. When Tumwater Falls Park opened in 1962, the foundation allowed for hatchery operations at the top of the falls, according to the foundation.
But the old ponds were small and needing repairs, and viewing opportunities were limited.
“The infrastructure wasn’t there. This is very much about park and (salmon) improvements — it’s hand in hand,” Knechtel said.
More changes are coming. The foundation plans to launch a fundraising campaign this year to pay for other park improvements, while the city of Tumwater is working to install a trail by next year connecting Tumwater Falls Park to the city-owned Tumwater Historical Park downstream on the Deschutes.
Eventually Fish and Wildlife wants to build another facility nearby to house young salmon until they are large enough to be released, instead of trucking them to faraway facilities. State funding for that work has not been approved.
