Visioning a healthy urban estuary

I am a long time local Olympia resident who enjoys visiting healthy regional lakes. One easy way to examine the health of a lake is to view it by satellite on Google Maps. If a lake is bordered by little algae and appears blue that’s OK. But if the lake contains masses of algae it tells me that it is too shallow, too warm, too enriched with nitrogen, and too low in dissolved oxygen to support aquatic life.

This week I viewed Capitol Lake via Google Maps. It showed all of these telltale traits. A recent letter to the Olympian (May 27) written by David Milne of Shelton claims that the dammed river above the Fifth Avenue Bridge (Capitol Lake) is not sick.

I dispute that. Our out-of-town visitors viewing the lake in September will see decaying algae flowing from our imperiled Deschutes River basin into Budd Inlet. There, in salt water, in West Bay and East Bay, the lake’s dead algae will rob oxygen from our southernmost Sound causing our local seashore to once again not meet national water quality standards. The only solution to restore water quality is to remove the dam and invite a return to the river’s original estuary.

This story was originally published June 7, 2017 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Visioning a healthy urban estuary."