Biologists Will Use Mud To Bring Tideflats To Life

Biologists are counting on mud to entice wildlife back to the Tacoma Tideflats.

When a $500,000 project is completed later this month, a five-acre tangle of blackberries along Commencement Bay will be transformed into mud flats, salt marsh and lagoons.

Biologists hope worms, crabs, shore birds and young salmon will come to stay.

“The bottom line is, we’re putting the wetland habitat back into the tideflats and benefiting the natural resources,” said Dave McEntee, environmental manager for the Simpson Tacoma Kraft Co.

“It’s almost like a nature experiment.”

Biologists also hope the restoration project will lead to similar ventures, creating a network of oases in the middle of one of the West Coast’s busiest ports.

Simpson and Champion International, former owner of Simpson’s Tacoma pulp mill, are paying for the work under the federal Superfund program for cleaning up polluted sites.

When the tide is out, about 20 acres of mud are exposed in the waterway. Simpson plans to extend the mud flats, build two lagoons and create a sloping bank of salt marsh, one of the rarest habitat types in the Tideflats.

“Even though these areas may look like yucky old mud flats, they really do provide a lot of benefit to fish and wildlife,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Judy Lantor said.

“As the tide comes in every day, juvenile salmon can come in and feed on the little bugs that live in the salt marsh.”