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The Reading Room

THE PURPOSE OF THIS WIKI IS TO ALLOW US TO SHARE WHAT WE KNOW.

The relevant background readings - the stuff to track down and digest to get started with a solid foundation for understanding this discussion can be found in a small collection of books.

One from the USDA-FS, two books from Washington Sea Grant program (one by Robert Burns and the other by John Downing) and a magazine article by Jim Lichatowich (who will probably be recognized as one of the most important people in the history of anadromous fish on the Olympic Peninsula, if we actually do manage to save them).

But I am sure that there are books and stories I have not found yet, and that is where you come in: If you want to add to this wiki, you can. You just have to ask. This system is open to public comment. But if you want to become an editor - put that in a comment and you can become an editor, and add material or make corrections.

BACKGROUND READING

Robert Burns - The Shape and Form of Puget Sound

FOrested Plant Associations of the Olympic National Forest

I can't find my copy of Luna Leopold to scan the cover for this section. That is BAD!
I believe that you will have to read both of the SeaGrant books, as their content overlaps in important ways. The good news is that they are both still reasonably easy to find and delightful. The USDA-FS ECOL book is getting harder to find. We got copies of it when it was published for each of our local libraries but that was years ago and I have no idea if they are still around. There is no clearer introduction to the role of forest fires in our landscape and I will excerpt large blocks of that section for this site.

TECHNICAL PAPERS and REPORTS

After this come a collection of technical papers that assume you are familiar with the concepts and vocabulary developed in the books above and were intended for a "technical" audience. I have downloaded a lot of them and scanned some of the ones that are long out of print, and esoteric and therefore not available for download, and I will continue to add more titles to this collection over time.

JUST FOR NOW

The magazine article is reproduced here, at least for the moment. I have made repeated attempts by various pathways to contact the author for permission, and gotten no response at all, my best guess is that he may be out of the US at this time.

peninsula magazine spring 1991

Jim Lichatowich's story "River of Stone" was published in Peninsula Magazine in Spring 1991. This brief article sets the stage for his 1999 Salmon Without Rivers, and contains one of the core concepts necessary for understanding the current instream flow dilemma, set forth with such mathematical purity that I am sure that a school-child can understand it.

"An aggraded river is difficult to detect and repair because it changes so slowly that we forget what the river looked like in its pristine state. Our collective memory does not go back far enough to associate today's condition with a deteriorated change. I've had people tell me, "Well the river has always looked that way." The events that led up to the present problem may have originated back in time beyond the memory of present-day residents of the Dungeness Valley. But natural and man-made markers can help us gauge long-term changes in the river. One of those gauges is the lower river levee. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the levee to contain flood waters along the lower 2.5 miles of the east bank of the river. When the levee was completed in 1964 it was capable of containing flood waters the magnitude of which we expect to see in the Dungeness only once every 200 years. Now, twenty-six years later, the levee is only capable of containing the flood waters we expect to see once in every twenty-five years. In other words, today the levee will contain a much smaller flood than in 1964. The levee hasn't worn down, the river bottom has risen-the result of gravel aggradation."

The situation Jim explains is NOT simply the result of human activities like diverting the river into irrigation ditches, diking the river bank, or building bridges that stand with their feet in the river. This is a problem that began far upstream in the glacial lakes, with the sediments and gravels at the bottom of the fjords that formed while ice was still heavy on the land. It is the millions of cubic yards of gravel that came down from Canada with the ice and were left behind, perched in valleys as much as 5000 feet above sea level.

Father upstream, in the canyon of the Graywolf you can see it clearly in the landscape. On one side of the river is the basalt bedrock - the remains of that seamount that got stuck in the subduction zone - but on the other side, where there is a trail, the ground slopes steeply into the river. What you see if you stop to look, includes layers of lake bottom clays and a river that continues to downcut along the rock wall.

Some of the these sloping sediment layers are exposed far above the river, under the duff of the forest floor. Every so often the river takes a bite out of the eastern bank, and chokes on it, sending a breif torrent that moves more gravel toward the sea. And every few hundred years, fire returns and in the wake of the fire, water finds its way onto the clay between layers and lubricates a huge landslide that falls into into the river and yet another pulse of material begins its journey to the sea.

Jim wrote:
"The heavy load of gravel in the Dungeness channel has affected all the people and animals that depend on the river. As the layer of gravel gets thicker, more and more water flows subsurface through the gravel instead of above where it can be used by people, fish and animals. As the channel widens due to bank erosion, the remaining surface water spreads out and becomes shallower. In some places, the amount of water flowing on the surface has been reduced to the point where it is too shallow for adult salmon to migrate upstream to spawn without help from man. Water withdrawals for irrigation and other uses such as municipal water supply increase the problems the salmon must deal with. Farmers can point out that they have been withdrawing water from the river for 100 years without hurting the salmon. The slow changes in the river of stone have altered the relationship between farmer and fish. The ripples have radiated out to encircle both farmer and fish in a struggle for water, a struggle neither created but neither can avoid."

UNPUBLISHED TECHNICAL STUDIES OF LOCAL GLACIAL GEOLOGY

The following unpublished 1972 manuscripts by W.A. Long USFS Geologist are w/o doubt some of the best available science - arguably some of the best science ever done in this region, and they explain what is going on under the surface in far more detail than most of the peer reviewed stuff can, cuz they are the real thing: geology done by a geiologist walking around with a sighting compass and an altimeter and a rock-hammer, following the trail of the glaciers, breaking rocks and making maps. We put a complete set of these in the Library in about 1993, but I did not see it last month when I was looking for old documents there. I still have at least 6 volumes of these complete with maps.

W.A. Long Glacial Geology of the nothreastern olympic mountians, washington

W.A. Long Glacial Geology of the nothreastern olympic mountians, washington

Glacial Geology of the Eastern Olympic Peninsula, Washington

Glacaiation of the Dungeness River Drainage System, Notheastern Olympic Peninsula Washington

BEST AVAILABLE SCIENCE

Start with the BOCC's explanation of the BAS problem. Click Here

Breskin's recent BLOG re BAS Click Here

BOCC letter of frustration re:BAS Click Here

BEST AVAILABLE SCIENCE PDF’s
Seven Foundations of Biological Monitoring and Assessment Click Here

MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR URBAN STREAM REHABILITATION Click Here

Biological Indicators of Watershed Health : "Health" and "integrity" are meaningful for environmental management Click Here

Biological Indicators of Watershed Health : Understanding Biological Responses Click Here

Graphs Reveal Biological Responses Click Here

Integrating Multiple Factors Click Here

: Sampling protocols Click Here

: Properly classifying sites is key Click Here

Multivariate statistical analyses often overlook biological knowledge Click Here

Instream Flows in Washington Click Here

Measuring Biological Integrity - DRAFT - James R. Karr University of Washington Click Here

Progress on Watershed Planning and Setting Instream Flows Click Here

Characterizing lowland streams: riparian and watershed influences on urban and non-urban channels Click

AGENCY KNOWLEDGE REPOSITORIES

Department of ECOLOGY : GROUNDWATER RESOURCES

A Preliminary report on the geology and ground-water resources of the Sequim - Dungeness area, Clallam County, Washington
Water Supply Bulletin 11 (1960) describes the geology and ground-water supply and quality for the Sequim-Dungeness are. This bulletin includes well records, partial chemical analyses of randomly sampled well waters, and well logs. The study area described in this bulletin includes portions of Clallam County, WA.

Pleistocene stratigraphy of Island County, Pt. 1 and Ground-water resources of Island County, Pt. 2
Water Supply Bulletin 25 (1968), Part 1 describes a reconnaissance study of the geology of the late Pleistocene glacio-marine sediments of Island County, WA. Part 2 of this bulletin describes the occurrence, quality and quantity of the groundwater resources and includes geologic descriptions, well log records and chemical analyses for Island County, WA.

Reconnaissance of sea-water intrusion along coastal Washington, 1966-68
Water Supply Bulletin 32 (1971) describes an investigation of seawater intrusion into wells along the marine coastline of Washington State. This bulletin includes general well records and partial chemical analyses for wells in Grays Harbor, Pacific, Clallam, Jefferson, Mason, Thurston, Pierce, Kitsap, King, Snohomish, and Island counties, WA.

Geology and ground-water resources of eastern Jefferson County, Washington
Water Supply Bulletin 54 (1981) describes an investigation to determine the aerial extent, thickness, and water-yielding capabilities of the geologic units in Jefferson County, WA. This bulletin includes geologic descriptions and well log reports for selected wells.

Seawater intrusion into coastal aquifers in Washington, 1978
Water Supply Bulletin 56 (1984) describes an investigation of the extent, severity, and long-term trends of seawater intrusion in 14 counties of coastal Washington, by comparing chloride data collected in 1978 to chloride concentrations 1966-1968 and in 1978. This bulletin includes water quality data from selected wells in portions of Clallam, Grays Harbor, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Mason, Pacific, Pierce, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish, Thurston, and Whatcom counties WA.

Geology, water resources, and seawater intrusion assessment of Marrowstone Island, Jefferson County, Washington
Water Supply Bulletin 59 (1994) describes an investigation to assess the extent and severity of seawater intrusion on Marrowstone Island and to determine how the Island’s geology, hydrology and water-use patterns contribute to its seawater intrusion problem. A secondary objective of the study was to provide Ecology staff with examples of common analytical and graphical techniques for evaluating water chemistry data for evidence of seawater intrusion. This bulletin contains geologic descriptions, well log reports, water level data and water quality information for select wells in Jefferson County, WA.