The fate of Capital Lake is an issue much larger than the coalition. The coalition has been set up to get things done, not plan or debate. We are focused on funding and taking priority actions in the watershed where the implementation can begin immediately–like the mouth of Lake Lawrence which the Ecology TMDL technical report identified as a hot spot for summer water temperatures and the Cities of Olympia, Lacey and Yelm have purchased for mitigation and restoration. Once the fate of Capitol Lake is clear, the coalition will evaluate if and how it can contribute.

While no government policy positions have changed as a result of the formation of the coalition, it is important to remember that the science still says that fixing the environmental issues in the upper watershed will not fix the problems in Capitol Lake!

From the Save Capitol Lake website:

Broaden focus to watershed for improved water quality: The CLIPA findings support more effective management of the upper Deschutes Watershed to address water quality issues including: dissolved oxygen, temperature, nutrient loading, sediment control, and removal of point discharges of other contaminants.

Actually, water quality problems such as dissolved oxygen, temperature, nutrients and sediment are inherent to the lake itself and aren’t caused by an up-river problem.

John Konovsky, environmental program manager for the Squaxin Island Tribe recently gave a presentation on how little watershed actions can do for the health of Capitol Lake:

We totally agree with CLIPA that a watershed approach is essential the maximum water quality benefit to the whole system. Where we kind of disagree is that a watershed approach is not sufficient to clean up the lake. The lake has some inherent problems.

Konovsky’s main points:

• Capitol Lake is too shallow and stagnant to control temperature.
• 75 percent of the fine sediment coming down to the lake is natural.
• The lake would need to be 300 feet deep to control algae blooms.

You can view Konosky’s entire presentation below:

Salmon smolts from numerous Puget Sound river systems migrate into Budd Inlet. The Squaxin Island Tribe has been monitoring salmon usage there and we’ve found extensive use by juvenile salmon all over the region.

This isn’t really surprising. Deep south Puget Sound is one of the most productive areas in the world for the food juvenile salmon need. Its natural that they would evolve to migrate to a place with a lot of food before heading out to the ocean. To increase the habitat they prefer here would only benefit them.

The image above is based on coded wire tag (CWT) data taken from salmon found in Budd Inlet. CWTs are tiny pieces of metal inserted into the snouts of hatchery salmon so scientists can determine their origin.

While its likely there were some Deschutes origin chinook that were caught in the study, we can’t quantify their use accurately since they aren’t fitted with CWTs. We did see a surge in fish soon after the Deschutes hatchery made their releases.

Puget Sound chinook are currently listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.

An article in the right hand column of page 12 of this magazine summarizes the tribe’s research in juvenile salmon usage in Budd Inlet and throughout deep South Sound.

The creation of what we now know as Capitol Lake was not the natural outgrowth of a landscaping plan for the Capitol Campus. Rather, it was the result of a decades-long lobbying effort by local businessmen, politicians and city-fathers to create an appealing water feature and “scrape the moss off” Olympia.

Recently, lake defenders have distorted the origin story of Capitol Lake for use as a cloak of legacy. The defenders of the lake present the argument that the Wilder and White plan for the campus was the origin of the lake idea. This position is wrong. They claim that restoring the estuary would disparage our own history. The true origins of Capitol Lake inform not only our misunderstanding of local history, but also how we move forward with the future of the lake and the Deschutes River estuary.

The initial campus plan called for a modest reflecting pool, but it was a group of prominent Olympia citizens that suggested creating a much larger lake by impounding the Deschutes River with a dam running east-to-west. This more drastic proposal was not embraced by the State Capitol Commission and was immediately rejected.

The first suggestion of a dam at the mouth of the Deschutes actually pre-dates Wilder and White by more than a decade. Ironically, Leopold Schmidt, the founder of the Olympia Brewing Company, proposed damming the river with a set of locks in 1895 to facilitate shipping to the planned brewery (The Daily Olympian, 1895). Later opposition by Tumwater and the Olympia Brewing Company would prove to be one of the largest impediments to the damming of the river for decades to follow.

Capitol Planners Called For Free Flowing Deschutes River

During the early days of drafting a capitol campus plan, Wilder and White worked with the large and renowned Olmsted Brother firm to develop a larger landscape plan for the campus. Based on Wilder and White’s rough drawings that included some sort of reflecting pool, the Olmsted firm added more detail to the plans.

There are numerous representations by Wilder and White about what shape the campus could eventually take. This image below in particular has been used by current lake defenders as the best representation of what their vision for the lake was.

This is actually a draft that was meant to show the arrangement of the buildings in the capitol group, not to show details of a proposed water feature. While you could read into the picture a proposal similar to the current lake, it included no actual detail of how that would be accomplished. It simply presented the idea of a pond.

When the planners started putting details down on paper, John Olmsted wrote about a reflecting pool that changed with the tides. From a Jan. 19, 1912 letter to the State Capitol Commission:

…extend a dike with a driveway upon it along the east side of the channel from Capitol Park to 6th Street (Legion Way) and to acquire all the flats between the river and the proposed Capitol Avenue, this area to be mainly devoted to a salt water pond which would be kept nearly up to high water level, merely fluctuating a foot or two at every tide so as to ensure a change of water.

(Epstein, 66)

Here is the more detailed plan for the Wilder/White and Olmsted saltwater pond laid over a more current aerial photo of Capitol Lake:

This reflecting pool would have had a much smaller footprint than the current version. Olmsted, along with architects Walter Wilder and Harry White never intended to block the Deschutes River or block the incoming tide to create a reflecting pool.

Actually, the entire idea behind the originally proposed reflecting pool was to take advantage of the tides. The pool itself would be filled by salt water and refreshed by the tides. A sill would keep the pond filled and ensure mudflats weren’t exposed, but the tide would not be totally blocked.

As late as 1927, when construction of the domed legislative building was in full swing, the designers of the campus continued to pursue the modest saltwater tidal pond rather than an aggressively dammed estuary (Epstein, 67).

Carlyon’s Lake becomes Capitol Lake

Today’s Capitol Lake strongly resembles a plan drawn up by former Olympia mayor and state legislator P.H. Carlyon. His 1916 plan would have included a dam at 4th Avenue (just north of the current dam), replacing the wooden bridge that at the time spanned the mouth of the Deschutes River.

While the Carlyon lake plan was likely popular locally, it lacked any further support:

Vigorously oppose closing waterway

City’s proposal is fought at hearing before state commissioner.

…State Lands Commissioner Clark V. Salvidge has taken under advisement the petition presented by the city of Olympia and by Senator P.H. Carlyon in a hearing before him last Tuesday, for the vacation of the Des Chutes waterway, the construction of a dam in the river at Fourth street and the creation of a lake south of that street…

The city officials and Dr. Carlyon are practically alone in their advocacy of the change…

(Olympia News, 1916)

Carlyon’s lake was impossible at the time for two reasons:

• The so-called Des Chutes Waterway was privately owned. The state-owned Capitol Campus at the time was limited to the bluff at Capitol Point and didn’t include any lowlands. It wouldn’t be until 1937 that the state started a serious effort to purchase property that would be inundated by a dam.
• Closing the Deschutes by an east-to-west running dam would stop water traffic from reaching Tumwater and possibly ruin power generation at the Deschutes falls. In the early 1900s, Tumwater’s downtown businesses still depended on water traffic.

Carlyon’s lake proposal was not his first effort in municipal terraforming. During his time as mayor of Olympia, he made significant efforts to complete the Carlyon fill, which created dozens of city blocks on the east side of downtown. This fill coincidentally also obliterated acres of the Moxlie and Indian creek estuaries (Newell, 242).

Carlyon’s interest in the construction of the eventual permanent capitol campus (and lake) was primarily to put Olympia in its proper place among northwest cities.

This episode took place soon after the initial approval of the Wilder and White plan in 1911 (Newell 246):

Olympians were delighted when the plan for a complete capitol group was complete… (but) Everett boosters had been engaged in a last minute plot to steal the capital for their city and a bill had been introduced to move the supreme court and library to Seattle.

…Representative H.E. Foster of King county led the opposition with the traditional charge that Olympia was a sleepy village inhabited by mossbacks. “What has Olympia ever done for the state?” he wanted to know. “Although it’s been the seat of government for 50 years it has been at a standstill, progressing very little. Olympia is asleep and does not deserve any consideration from us.”

Dr. Carlyon, representative from Thurston County, having just put together the great downtown dredge and fill project, was speechless with indignation. William Ray, also of King County, added his voice to the defenders of the capital city, explaining that “the reason Olympia hasn’t been going ahead with other cities in the Northwest is simply this: every legislative session, some cranks come down here with some idea of moving the capital and agitate the question during the session. No business man or eastern capital is going to invest here until the question is settled once and for all…”

Even though it was rejected soundly in 1916, the Carlyon’s Deschutes Waterway project did not go away.

In 1937 the state Legislature allowed the use of bond revenue from state trust land to start buying property along the Deschutes waterway, the first step in the process to complete the aggressive lake plan. A 1941 ad for a mayoral candidate listed “develop the Deschutes Waterway” as a campaign goal (Olympia News-Graphic, 1940).

In early 1941, with the land in the waterway being bought up by the state (Olympia News, March 1941), a delegation of state capitol campus commissioners and “prominent Olympians” visited a Tumwater town meeting to persuade their neighbors to drop their objections to the larger lake plan. And, by a 29-3 vote, the Tumwater residents agreed. (Olympia News, June 1941). Among the reasons for Tumwater’s acquiescence was a new overland rail line that made shipping by water unnecessary.

Olympia’s final push for Capitol Lake

The final 1947 debate on whether to fund closing the Deschutes waterway was certainly a debate between Thurston County and the rest of the state. The proposal to issue $1 million in bonds for the project actually received a negative vote in a House committee due to its proposed funding mechanism.

Rep. Ella Wintler (R-Vancouver), chair of the committee that gave the negative vote, was quoted as opposing the bill because it took the state’s priority away from constructing buildings. She added that the only reason it advanced to the House floor after receiving a poor committee report was because of consideration for Olympia’s Rep. George Yantis (Daily Olympian, February 1947).

Rep. George Kinnear (R-King County) added:

It is high time the Legislature settled down and realized we are in big business. Miss Wintler’s thoughts are so sound they are irrefutable. There are serious responsibilities we have begun to overlook the business for which we are here – conducting the business of the state.

After passing the House, it was only because of an extraordinary effort by another Olympia state senator, that the bill got any consideration in the Senate. State Sen. Carl Mohler (Thurston County) worked out a deal with a Senate committee chair to give the committee extra time to consider the bill. Mohler’s arguments put a strong emphasis on the project’s funding; the funds would come from a trust, not directly from the pockets of taxpayers. (Daily Olympian, March 1947).

The lake bill passed by a 70-20 vote in the House and a 29-4 vote in the Senate, but only because state Legislators from Olympia pushed hard for it. The lake bill was not considered a high priority otherwise.

An editorial in the Olympian (and reprinted in the Tacoma News-Tribune) as construction on the lake was about to begin in 1948 gives credit where credit is due (Tacoma News-Tribune, 1948):

Campaigning for the basin was a discouraging task at times but city officials, the chamber of commerce, various civic and fraternal organizations, real estate groups and numerous individuals kept plugging away until their perseverance was rewarded last week by the assurance that a long-fondled hope at least will be translated into reality.

News that the much-needed improvement will be started as soon as is feasible was received with immense satisfaction by the residents of Olympia and suburban areas… (Capitol Lake) will be a source of much pleasure to the people who already are established here, but also will convince visitors that Olympia is a mighty pleasant place in which to live and work.

The advocacy, funding and creation of Capitol Lake goes well beyond the intention of the capitol campus designers. Their intention was for a modest reflecting pool as part of the landscape of campus in balance with the built environment of the campus and the surrounding landscape. It was not unreasonable for the designers of the campus to consider a reflecting pool, but what ended up being built was an obese exaggeration.

When you view the Wilder, White and Olmsted tidal pond in the true historic context, it is only one mention in decades of discussion, certainly not the original vision.

Works Cited

“Capitol Lake Plan Sent to State Senate” Daily Olympian, March 4, 1947.

“Des Chutes Basin Plan to be Aired at Meet Tuesday” Olympia News, June 12, 1941.

“Deschutes Basin Improvement Gets Unfavorable Report to Legislature” Daily Olympian, February 26, 1947.

“Details on Basin Project Wanted” Olympia News, March 7, 1941.

Epstein, Mark B. “A history of the Washington state capitol landscape.” 1992.

“Improvement at Olympia” Tacoma News Tribune, July 21, 1948.

Lane, Horrace M. “Letter to the Citizens of Olympia” Olympia News-Graphic, November 21, 1940.

“Last Objection to Improvement Withdrawn” Olympia News, June 19, 1941.

“Leopold Schmidt Announces Plans to Build Brewery” The Daily Olympian, September 18, 1895.

Newell, Gordon. “Rogues, Buffoons and Statesmen.” 1975.

“Senate Approves Lake Project” Daily Olympian, March 10, 1947.

“Vigorously Oppose Closing Waterway” Olympian News, Friday, May 26, 1916.

One of the myths that defenders of Capitol Lake like to mention is the danger of ever present mud flats on a restored Capitol Lake. Obviously, they like to point out, a quiet and peaceful dammed river is much preferable to mud flats. What they don’t mention is the scientific studies that point out how untrue this is.

The recent publication by the Capitol Lake Improvement and Protection Association compared a photo of the current lake with one during the extended drawdown two years ago. That in itself is an inaccurate comparison since that drawdown took the lake to an extremely low water level for an extended period of time. Compared to the twice daily flooding of the estuary, this is a pretty unfair comparison.

From the recent edition of CLIPA’s Capitol Lake Clipper:

Also, from the CLIPA website (under “Know the Facts“):

If we stop dredging the lake and allow this sediment to be dumped into our waterfront the accumulated sediment will: Revert the lake area to stinky mud flats

On the other hand a recent study on how exactly tides would fill the estuary had this to say:

All four restoration alternatives show little to no difference in the amount of submerged or exposed lake bottom. The model predicts that the North Basin, much of the Middle Basin, and the main channel, which would reform quickly after dam removal, would be under water 80% of the time.

If  the estuary were restored, we wouldn’t be trading a beautiful lake for a muddy swamp. Rather, we’re trading a full basin that is polluted and sick for a basin that is full 80 percent of the time and is healthy.

Here is a map that shows to what percentage of time different parts of the current Capitol Lake would be underwater in a restored estuary.

Not exactly the nightmare you’re led to believe.

Here’s a photo from the Washington State Digital Archives (full size version here) showing a typical view of the Capitol Campus in the mid-1930s.

More information: Deschutes Estuary Feasibility Study (Hydrodynamics and Sediment Transport Modeling)

We know that South Sound is dying. Squaxin tribal researchers recently conducted a study of how many coho salmon leaving streams in southern Puget Sound actually survive long enough to swim past the Tacoma Narrows. Coho populations have been dropping for more than a decade around here, and we’ve been studying them to understand why.

What we came up with was shocking. Only 3 percent of coho that originated in southern Puget Sound made it past the Tacoma Narrows. Typically around 2 percent of any given salmon run return as adults, so South Sound coho are practically seeing a lifetime’s worth of mortality in only a few miles.

Another reason the non-tribal community argues against restoring the Deschutes River estuary is there are other, more convenient places to restore. They can spend their restoration dollars in places they’ve already decided aren’t better suited for a yacht club or a port. But the Squaxin Island Tribe has no other place to go. The tribe is bound by tradition and by a treaty with the federal government to fish close to home in the same waters they have fished for centuries.

The non-tribal community can point to Budd Inlet and say, “this place is too important economically to ever restore the estuary.” But for the Squaxin Island Tribe, there is no more valuable place to restore than the Deschutes River estuary.

…a recent letter from the state Department of Ecology to the Department of General Administration (which owns the property around the lake and therefore manages it) sheds a lot of light on the water quality debate.

In short, the letter spells out the water quality problems in Capitol Lake are being caused by the lake’s very existence. Because the artificial lake is by its very design shallow, warm and sluggish it becomes a haven for algae growth that leads to its many water quality problems.

You can read the entire post here.

This Thursday morning, CLAMP will discuss how the restoration of the Deschutes Estuary would impact recreation around where Capitol Lake is now.

A draft chapter of our Alternatives Analysis outlines the options. It pretty basically says that certain docks would be high and dry during low tide and that different sorts of fish would be available because a freshwater lake is different than a estuary. For example, the non-native bass that prey on salmon smolts wouldn’t survive in an estuary.

One thing the chapter doesn’t spell out is the benefit to fishermen, most obviously hook-and-line sport fishermen. Anyone can take a look at the crowds along the estuary of nearby Kennedy or McLane creeks in the fall and see the interest that those fishing opportunities generate. Access to these tidelands, which would increase if the Deschutes Estuary were restored, would benefit sport fisherman access to returning salmon. Over 10,000 chinook returned to the hatchery on the Deschutes River this last year (here’s a pdf of the state’s hatchery report).

You can read the entire draft chapter here or download it here.

Clam Psc 020509 a 4

The City of Olympia is already talking about how to engage their citizens in the process. You can read more about that here, here and here.

CLAMP’s agenda’s are regularly posted on the website of the Thurston Regional Planning Council. Here is this month’s agenda.

There have been regular reports presented to CLAMP covering various broad topics, such as how the various options presented to CLAMP would impact wildlife, flooding, public restoration, among other topics. I’m going to try to over the next few months go back to these papers and blog a bit about how restoring the estuary would be a benefit.

This month we’re going to talk about public recreation and how it would be impacted by the eventual fate of the estuary.

The Squaxin Island Tribe is firmly committed to the restoration of the estuary. The tribe has always depended on the natural resources of the region and the Deschutes River estuary was a big part of supporting these resources.

You can go here to find out more about the tribe’s position on restoring the estuary.