Salmon stuck below White River dam

BUCKLEY, Wash. – The fish were so thick in the rivers you could walk across on their backs. The oft-repeated tale sounds like a phenomenon never to be witnessed again.

Yet a visit this week to the White River near Buckley brings that image to mind. Thousands of pink salmon have backed up below Puget Sound Energy’s old wooden diversion dam, eager to head upstream and reproduce.

The presence of a huge number of pinks has renewed a protracted dispute among the agencies and interests that control the river’s flow and the fish that inhabit it.

“They’ve got a fixed amount of energy, and they’re just wasting it beating themselves against the dam,” said fish biologist Russ Ladley, the Puyallup Tribe’s resource protection manager.

He and other tribal biologists predict a massive salmon die-off if something isn’t done to allow the pinks to migrate upriver. A state fish biologist familiar with the scenario isn’t so sure.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is obligated to move the fish past its flood-control facility farther upstream, is ready to authorize an intervention.

And a spokesman for Puget Sound Energy, which owns the dam, says the utility’s willing to step in and attempt a fix if they get the corps’ OK and it’s safe to send workers into the river to do it.

Between 30,000 and 60,000 pinks are expected to head up the White River this season, said fish biologist Blake Smith, who also works for the Puyallups.

Pinks, also called humpbacks or humpies, are only 2 years old when they return to the rivers to spawn and die.

Those who have studied the pinks’ life history say they commonly colonize new habitats. And although pinks are relative newcomers to the White River, a run two years ago was similar in size, Smith said.

Erected starting in 1911, the dam is a vestige of the utility’s White River hydropower generator, which shut down in 2004. The corps now has a cooperative agreement with the utility to maintain the structure. But flooding in November 2006 damaged it, so the dam no longer blocks the rushing river.

Even so, fish can’t get past without human intervention. Ordinarily, enough water would flow past the dam to attract fish to an adjacent ladder, where corps workers trap the fish and truck them upstream. But it’s late August, typically the river’s driest month, and most of the water left in the river hurdles over the broken dam rather than rushing through the fish ladder.

Although hundreds of pinks have found their way up the ladder, the bulk of the run appears distracted by the force of the river near the dam.

“Amazing,” said Russ Rodrigues, assistant supervisor of the Muckleshoot Tribe’s hatchery, across the river from the trap and near where most of the fish were staging. “There’s probably 500 to 700 right there, waiting to get upstream,” he said.

The corps trucks 250 fish at a time to a spot about five miles above its flood-control structure, the Mud Mountain Dam outside of Enumclaw. From there, fish head toward spawning grounds in Huckleberry Creek, the Greenwater and Clearwater rivers, and the White’s upper reaches, Smith said.

Ladley and Smith said the corps has failed the fish.

“They knew months ago they would have a low flow and the trap is not working very effectively,” Smith said.

Jeff Dillon, a corps fish biologist and environmental coordinator for Mud Mountain Dam, is unwilling to shoulder the blame and points the finger instead at tribal and state fish managers who he said were unwilling to make necessary repairs earlier in the year.

Officials expected the river’s flow would drop low enough for utility crews to work safely on the Buckley dam. Unlike previous years, the corps can’t hold the river back at Mud Mountain Dam because of maintenance there, Dillon said.

Dillon said corps officials last week asked Puget Sound Energy to repair the Buckley dam as soon as its workers are able. The corps will pay whatever it costs, officials said.

Roger Thompson, a Puget Sound Energy spokesman, said Tuesday that the company’s crews have not received final approval from corps officials but are readying equipment.