WatershedEvents

BEATTY / MCLANE CREEK CONFLUENCE

A long overdue and much needed visit to Mclane Creek Natural Area, and the Mclane/Beatty Creek confluence this afternoon. There wasn't much moving at the beaver pond - if you are familiar with Kitty's landscape paintings you'll recognize the big snag right away. It was fairly quiet along the boardwalks covering sensitive areas (below) as well.

The fall colors this year seem particularly strong to me, given the terrible heat and limited amounts of rain we had in early to mid summer. I'm thrilled with it all, and feel tremendously lucky to be living in such a wonderful area.

The confluence lies on dry ground just outside the extreme southwest boundary of the nature trail itself. A short walk through the woods puts you at the base of a very large, multi-trunk, western red cedar - the confluence lies directly below the group.

In the photo above, Beatty Creek comes in from the lower left and merges (about dead center of the shot) with Mclane, which flows left-to-right through the top half of the photo. There is not much in the way of running water in Mclane Creek right now, and only soggy gravel and soggier leaves in Beatty.

Salmon won't begin plowing upstream until the rain gives both creeks a good first flush. The coho will be first, probably sometime in the first or second week of November. In all likelihood the chum won't be able to venture into Beatty Creek's main channel until sometime just before Thanksgiving, when there will be (hopefully) an inch or two of water passing over the log jam currently blocking most of the channel. Chum can't go airborne like coho, so rapids without side channels create total blockades. Last year's strongest flows though the natural notch shown below were deep enough to allow large numbers of the great beasts to fight their way into the deeper water on the other side. (The viewpoint shown here is roughly 180 from the one above, and looks straight upstream from the confluence itself)

Several solid and potentially productive pulses of Pacific moisture are headed this way in the next few days, and we've had a fair amount of rain already this month. I'm hopeful it will be a good year for the runs in both creeks - a couple years ago Beatty was bone dry until mid-December, well after the chum run had come and gone. Not a single fish made it into the creek in time to spawn. 

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PS - HOW LUCKY AM I?

A hard left turn at the base of this towering mass of second-growth, big-leaf maple takes you back to the pond at the heart of the reserve; but a hard-right puts you on the trail back to my house, about a half-mile away as the crow flies. I am truly blessed, thanks to the foresight and ongoing efforts of a large number of people who, for many years have put their give-a-damn where their mouths are. Thank you, one and all.

A FLUSH ON BEATTY CREEK

Record rain to begin the New Year - 2.26" fell at the Olympia airport on the 2nd of January, 2021, the day I started working on this post. Our backyard rain gauge showed more than 6" for the week (12/28/20 - 01/02/2021). I plot rain totals sporadically, and by the time I got to the gauge Saturday, it had long since been filled to overflowing. I decided to visit Beatty Creek and see what it was up to.

I headed for the place I've come to call The Bend. It's a great place to study basic stream dynamics. All but the creek's uppermost reaches flow over land once entirely covered in the deep glacial till deposits left behind by the comings and goings of the Puget Lobe of the Fraser Glaciation. The till lies upon large deposits of weathered basalts mostly visible only in the uppermost portions of the watershed. The creek’s headwaters are not far from the Puget Lobe’s terminal moraine, which means it lies in one of the first regions of Puget Sound to be reclaimed by vegetation after the last Ice Age. That was somewhere around 12,000 to 15,000 BPA (source references dependent). The area’s lowland soils consist of a shallow top layer of sands, gravel and decaying detritus lying over a deeper layer of semi-consolidated sands and gravels which covers a deep and highly compacted layer of gravel and sand – “hard pan” it’s called and for good reason. Over the millennia the creek has meandered across these lowlands more or less at will. Maps based on older surveys suggest the reaches I study have migrated over a hundred yards east of their current location.  

Stream flow reaches the Bend after passing through a relatively long and straight reach. For the area I'm discussing, total elevation change is not extreme - about an 80 foot drop over a half channel-mile of terrain. But the flow is still packed with a substantial portion of the energy it gained as it tumbled out of its headwaters area 3 miles and 1200 feet higher in elevation. It's also loaded with suspended solids - rocks, gravels, sands - that add to the abrasive actionof the flow. The weight of the atmosphere and the pull of gravity keeps that powerhouse from literally exploding when it slams into the 90^. angle at The Bend; instead, it boils its way through the curve and continues downstream - checked but not broken and regathering power and material as it flows. As tumultuous as the surface looks, the real action is taking place in the water body below – the cutting, grinding and plucking actions taking place along the steeper portions of the bank are fierce and relentless.  

Artifacts of this continuous process are abundant in the area. For example, in the photo above, the downed tree stretching left to right across the frame was upright and a good foot from the edge of the channel when I first came to this place in 2014. It's been down and in the channel since the fall of 2016. The Bend itself – its hard-left turn – was not quite so pronounced, and the gravel bar directly behind the upright snag (right-center) was not as well developed.

Flow events at The Bend are also impacted by changes in the channel immediately downstream. The large debris pile shown below (right of center in the photo) has split the stream, creating a good sized bar in the middle. This blockage actually dams the flow enough to raise the water level upstream, which increases the height and breadth of the cutting action taking place in what you might call the stream’s elbow. These kinds of obstructions come and go and are constantly changing shape and characteristics. They are crucial to the continued good health of fast flowing streams such as this one. How long they last can vary from hours to decades, many factors dependent. Right now this formation promotes rather than hinders salmon spawning; but other such piles of debris have totally prevented any fish from this year’s chum run making it to these upstream areas. 

Below, a recently fallen tree just a few yards downstream is beginning to trap debris between it’s trunk and the water. I suspect it won’t have much impact on stream flow until it breaks in half, or until the bank supporting one end or the other erode enough to put it directly in the water. That could take several decades.

 

CHANNELING SANDY DIEDRICH

My standard creek-crawling kit - waterproof camera bag, black coffee, good gloves, and crackers.

I went down to the creek this afternoon and put in a little sweat-equity pulling ivy and archangel. In the process I took the time to remember the legacy of Sandy Diedrich, an environmental advocate who lead the charge against vast stands of English ivy that were enveloping large areas of her beloved SW neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon. I never knew her personally; she passed away a year or so before I got involved with the advocacy side of Fanno Creek issues. But she made a huge difference by recruiting, training, and inspiring a generation of wetland warriors. Her work goes on today and her legacy is celebrated annually in the form of Portland’s Environmental Stewardship awards. She – and all the other Watershed Folk back in Portland were much on my mind as I teased out stems and runners from the roots of ferns and the general detritus covering the banks of Beatty Creek.

Below, before and after photos of a small area (roughly 35 sq. ft.) covered with young English ivy. I suspect it washed down here from higher elevations just a couple months ago – the main part of its root system was mired in a mix of silt and gravel right at the edge of the embankment.

Next, a bit further downstream, before and after shots of one of the ubiquitous stands of archangel that crop up every 300 feet or so along the bulk of the stream. I know for a fact that it can be found as far upstream as the 500’ level about 1.5 miles from this site, which lies at 180’.

I haven’t completely finished work on this patch – still have a dozen square feet to work through. Archangel is way more time consuming to pull than English ivy; but like the ivy, it can propagate from mere pieces of stem or leaves.

I re-photographed the hogweed stand. It is thick on both sides of the stream in this area, and also well established a scant 100 feet further down the bank. If and when it is possible to round up some protective gear, I will try my hand at cutting it down and hauling out the remains.  That will at least slow it down until a professional crew can come in and do a number on it.

Except for the hogweed infestation, the other two I worked on today were quite "minor," in the sense that the vegetation involved was both relatively sparse, and not yet deeply rooted - precisely the kind you most want to tackle. It's slow going because the goal is to tease out as many segments of root material as possible - have to work a strand at a time. If you try your hand at this sort of thing, make sure to pack along a couple hand warmers.

Below, one of the reasons why fighting back against invaders like ivy and archangel and hogweed and all the rest is so important. I don’t know just how these little stream violas figure in the overall scheme of things –what benefits they bring to the ecosystem and all that; but for now I’ll just work to preserve their place at the table. Maybe a little further downstream enlightenment will come….

IT'S ON....ALMOST.

Buddy and I took advantage of a break in the weather to visit the creek today. The temperature was in the upper forties, until we entered the woods. Brrrr. I'm not sure where the weather will take us this year. November was too dry; December rains came too late; January rainfall pushed the record books; February...well, it may end up a pretty dry month. That sense of organic impatience characteristic of the pre-spring woods is simmering just below the surface of things. The Indian plums are putting on leaves, and the big leaf maples are festooned with pollen hangers...but only the toughest early bloomers are up and moving so far.

The mosses are hard at work; but they never rest. 24/7/366. What prodigious little wonders.

Nothing moving in the water but beams of light today. I'll start turning rocks over to see what's clinging to the bottoms of them in a week or two. I wonder what kind of hit the ecosystem takes - the bugs, birds, and other critters - by way of availability of nutrients, when a salmon run doesn't happen? This time last year the carcasses were all gone, but you could still find remnants of the die-off: skeletons, shreds of skin, jaw bones, that kind of thing. Not a single chum made it up Beatty in November...

 

RECENT CHANGES ON BEATTY CREEK

A visit to one of my favorite places on Beatty Creek this morning turned up this interesting development: A new tangle of “big wood,” which has created a fairly extensive gravel bar smack in the middle of this section of the creek. In this downstream view of the channel, the tapered shape of the bar is just visible behind the debris pile:

Here’s the downstream tail-end of the gravel bar:

Note the reddish color along the far side of the stream, where a portion of the channel’s bank is being removed at a rapid rate:

The heavy rains also helped the creek rebuild a previously established gravel bar further down the channel (left hand side of the photo):

All of these changes have taken place in just the last few days, the aftermath of the heavy rains which hit the area a week ago today. The composition and placement of such bars are precise visual interpretation of the energy exchange processes which take place as the creek redistributes the organic and inorganic materials in its channel and surrounding banks.

While the presence of wood in riparian corridors is generally desireable, too much wood can clog small streams such such as beatty Creek. Currently, the log jam at the creek's confluence with McLane Creek could pose an insurmountable obstacle to the chum in next year's run. I will be discussing this issue, along with a couple others when I visit with a representative of the Stream Team later in the month.

THE FLUSH ON BEATTY CREEK

Above, a before and after photo of the impact of a good rain on Beatty Creek.

In the brief interval since my last post about Beatty Creek, a substantial amount of rain has fallen - enough to cause flooding in many of the low-lying areas around Olympia, and more than enough to turn the creek into a torrent. Wednesday-Thursday, in fact we set a record for rainfall for the period - almost four inches in a 48 hour period.

The watershed for Beatty Creek is not very flashy, meaning it doesn't operate like an on-off water valve the way badly degraded watersheds often do; but it rained a fair amount a day or two running up to Thursday's downpour, so the sponge was saturated well before the peak event. It is still raining from time to time today, but the great flush has passed and the water level is beginning to fall. In a day or two, any chum still waiting for a shot at its upstream breeding grounds should be able to make a run for it. However, IF any are still out there in Eld Inlet, I'll be surprised. 

BEATTY CREEK - UPLANDS RECONNAISSANCE

Roughly 2.8 stream-miles (Smi) lie between Beatty Creek’s headwaters in the Capitol State Forest and its confluence with McLane Creek. A few days ago I performed a quick survey of 6 viewpoints located at easily-accessed locations on the stream’s corridor. All but two of these were at places where a roadway crossed the main body of the creek. Designated and ranked by elevation, these included:

VP 1130’ / Headwaters – no direct access, not visited

VP 679’ / Smi 0.5 – no direct access, not visited

VP 374’ / Smi 1.3 – Bridge on Westhill Drive SW  Northill Drive (corrected 12/15/2020)

VP 302’ / Smi 1.6 – Bridge on Arnesen Lane SW

VP 240’ / Smi 2.0 – Bridge on Chelsie Lane SW

VP 200’ / Smi 2.2 – Ravine on unmarked, unpaved, unmaintained road

VP 155’ / Smi 2.7 – Bridge on Capitol Creek Lane SW (private road)

VP 148’ / Smi 2.8 – 50 yards SW of McLane Nature Trail

Above, a view upstream, at VP 374’. A nearby sign identified this area as being part of a nature trail under the jurisdiction of the Alpine Hills HOA. Note the English ivy on the young alders. Other highly invasive plant species in abundance at this site include Archangel (lamium) and Herb-Robert.

Similar infestations of the same invasive plant species appear at VP 302’, both up and down the stream corridor. I was unable to access the area where the light colored material is concentrated, but my best guess is it is sawdust.

At VP 240’ the view upstream (above) is typical; however, the culvert itself appears to be failing (below). Why this culvert has begun to fail isn’t clear from the site itself. One way or the other, it is potentially very bad news for the home-owners further to the north in this part of the neighborhood.

Below, an upstream view of VP 200’. This portion of the stream was clearly once bridged; but there remains no sign of the single lane structure that used to be here. Furthermore, the “road” leading to the sight shows signs of not being maintained for many years – perhaps decades.

My brief survey wasn't scientific, but it anecdotally confirms details of previous studies of this creek and its environs. It clearly shows the Urban Stream Syndrome at work; and while some of the views I've presented here may appear to show a stream in good health, nothing could be further from the truth. (1) Tree cover, the all-important variable in stream temperature control, is steadily decreasing over large areas of the stream, thanks in part to ongoing development in the non-Capital State Forest areas, but also in part to infestations of English ivy. (2) Corridors in the upper elevations are unstable; the products of attendant landslides contribute significantly to overall turbidity. (3) Some of the most destructive and persistent invasive plant species are abundant. I've only commented on the ones shown in the photos, but others are known to be present and abundant in the environment. I'll detail those more fully in future posts.  

(Note: Photos of VP 155" and VP 148' were shown in the previous post.)

 

HARD TIMES ON BEATTY CREEK

The two photographs below require a bit of explanation: The first was taken at the confluence of Beatty and McLane Creeks. I was standing at water's edge of McLane, and the view is directly into the mouth of Beatty Creek. For the second shot, I stepped over all that debris and pointed the camera directly upstream. What's important here is what's NOT to be seen, specifically the dark, sinuous motion of several large chum salmon fighting their way up Beatty Creek to their natural spawning grounds. 

It is nearly mid-December. In a typical year I would not be able to stand on dry land at this spot along McLane Creek, even if I might want to - the stream would be so deep and the current so strong it might knock me down. Only a few salmon would be entering Beatty Creek, only a handful sweeping away at their redds further upstream. The peak of the run would have passed. The scene along the way would be mostly one of carnage, the stream and its lower banks littered with rotting carcasses - the bleak aftermath of a successful spawn. Instead, today only a paste of rotting leaves remains on the damp gravel. The heavy and steady rains of November have yet to arrive, and purge the creek. Furthermore, the forecast for the rest of December suggests they may not arrive until 2020, well paste the time for spawning.   

This is not the first time late or otherwise insufficient rain has wrecked an annual run on Beatty Creek. It is an ephemeral stream to begin with, and even in a good year its bottom is dry as a bone by June. In the fall that bottom will be covered in a thick mix of leaves and other detritus offered up by the surrounding deciduous trees and shrubs.

Then, usually in the first week or two of November, a series of wet warm fronts will blow into the area from the Pacific coast, one right after another. They usually come through only a day or so behind each other, creating a kind of wet pulse which soon translates itself into surging crests of stream flow in the creeks.

Then comes the surge - the full force removes virtually anything in its pathway. It’s wonderful to watch the cleaning process; even more wonderful to see what happens when the cycle settles long enough for the chum to run up stream and lay their eggs.

Sitting (or sometimes lying) quietly along the banks of Beatty Creek, just a few feet away from the chum, can be a deeply moving experience. I will miss it this year, it appears. But that won’t diminish my love for Beatty Creek, nor will it keep me from studying and recording its ways. I will not, however, write a book about the experience – been there and done that with Up Fanno Creek. Instead I’ll simply journal my efforts on this blog from time to time. I may also pull a weed or two, and pick up the occasional bits of litter I happen across. If you are a wetlands lover, as I am, stay tuned.

WAITING FOR THE CHUM....

 

 

I'm always amazed by how rapidly time seems to fly these days. I haven't been on this site for months...been keeping my whining mostly to myself. I'm still writing about Bretz, and just recently made what I hope will be the breakthrough that will let me get this publication monkey off myback. More about all that as it develops - in the meantime, if you are interested, check out this LINK. It will take you to a podcast by Nick Zentner of Nick on the Rocks.

One of the issues I deal with continually is the surprising fact that I simply don't have time to get to everything I've loaded onto my plate. What makes this so surprising is I am fully retired, and am the master of at least 95% of my time. There are so many possibilities, some of which are purely pleasurable, but others more focused on "paying it forward."

The work on the Bretz material falls somewhat into both categories, although the pleasurable component has been somewhat strained for the last few months. Many very busy people gave me so much of their valuable time during the early stages of research, and I feel so indebted to them that I absolutely must deliver a final result. I also feel  miserable about the poor progress I've been making since I finished my first rough draft. 

Another activity, one which is more "community contribution" focused involves a nearby salmon stream. Beatty Creek it's called, and I'm going to try to put together a Friends-of group to work for its welfare. It is so small and so relatively remote that it isn't even on most maps of the area. It is also intermittent - a status which generally puts it more at risk than its cousins, the so-called perrenials. But every late November-early December it litterally teems with chum salmon, many of them over three feet in length. Up until now, I've tried to leave the advocacy work behind me - I had pretty much shot my bolt with the publication of Up Fanno Creek...or so I thought. 

At any rate, the rains have begun, and the chum will not be long behind. They are already in the lower reaches of Mclane Creek, the major stream into which Beatty Creek flows. It is only a matter of a few more inches of rainfall before they will be able to ascend the 200 verticle feet they must travel before they appear in our neck of the woods. Meanwhile, we wait...

 

 

WHEEL GOES 'ROUND

The chum run in Beatty Creek struggles. November’s rains came too late, and in quantities too small to provide much traction for fish intent on spawning in the mid-to-upper reaches of the creek’s three-mile channel. We are well into December now, and it's been over a week since the last meaningful rainfall. Water levels in the stream have been dropping steadily, to the point that the future of late arrivals is seriously in doubt.

Here – at an elevation of 160 feet above sea level – long stretches of the stream are so shallow that the tops of the gravel beds are nearly dry. These mid-elevation shallows are potential deathtraps for fish attempting to swim further upstream. Those making a run for it risk being stranded high and dry.

Between these dangerous shallows lie pools of deeper water, each of them crowded with dead and dying salmon, as well as with those still attempting to spawn. As the water levels drop, the desperate plight of the fish in these pool intensifies - the overcrowding, combined with shrinking surface areas and the processes of decay, will soon rob the pools of what little oxygen remains. Only a good rain can forestall the inevitable long enough for these stranded populations to make it up stream to fulfil their destinies. The next rain is still several days away. Nature can be so hard...

It is a terrible time on Beatty Creek, but better days are ahead. The Solstice fast approaches…the Wheel goes ‘round…the Buddha smiles...

Chum Salmon and the Weathering Process

Chum salmon contending for position over a spawning female (obscured by wave action photo left)

As I've written several times previously, each November chum salmon spawn in a small ephemeral stream not more than a quarter mile from our front door. Beatty Creek it's called, and I have loved it since the first time I laid eyes on it. This creek differs in almost every respect from Fanno Creek, particularly with regard to its bottom. The waters of Beatty Creek flow over deep beds of well sorted gravel; those of Fanno Creek flow over a bottom that is almost entirely composed of an exceedingly fine mud. 

Ironically, these creeks share a common ancestor: the Fraser Glaciation that invaded Washington State during the last glacial maximum. Fanno Creek's geological history is tied to the Purcell Lobe of that glaciation and its relationship to the great Missoula Floods that took place 16-12,000 years ago. The creek lies in the Tualatin Basin, a deep bowl of land in northwest Oregon. The Missoula Floods visited this basin at least once, leaving behind vast quantities of debris, including millions of tons of loess. The muddy bottom of Fanno Creek is directly attributable to that great abundance of that material. 

Beatty Creek, on the other hand, owes its salmon-friendly, gravely bottom to the Puget Lobe of the same glaciation. As that monstrous body of ice plowed through the Puget Sound, it carried with it enormous quantities of mineral-rich rocks it had literally ripped out of the mountains of British Columbia and Washington. When the glacier retreated, around 12,500 years ago, it left behind great piles of rocky debris, which in turn were washed and worn by glacial meltwater and all the other agents of the weathering process. The deep glacial drift that covers the lowlands of the Puget Sound are one of the artifacts of that weathering process. 

Great things happen when the rains of October and November flow through the ancient gravels of the Beatty Creek watershed. 

 

The Chum Cycle

A view of Beatty Creek in early fall of 2015. This bent tree caught my attention when I first visited Beatty Creek in the spring of 2014. The creek was full at the time, and  I was blissfully unaware of how intermittent the flow in this reach could be. I've visited this spot a dozen times since. The embankment from where I took this shot was flat and relatively free from salmon berries. I would sometimes sit or squat there for a half hour or more - just listening to the water and admiring the epiphytes and other vegetation. 

Taken a few days later, after a particularly heavy rain. The water was running strong, but not yet at full flood.

I returned once more,two weeks later. The rains had increased steadily from a few hundredths at a time to inches. The stream was running a a nearly full boil and was fully engaged in restructuring its bed. In just a few days the creek had carried my favorite perching place away. But I found a new one just to the left of where the old bench had been, a place where I could once again sit and marvel at the miracle of water. I'm weeks overdue for another visit. 

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POSTSCRIPT: I went back yesterday morning and was a little surprised how close to drying up the stream has become in just a few short days. This is late April, which seems very early in the year. However, the soils around here drain very quickly, and rainfall here in the Olympia/Tumwater area is more than an inch less than "normal" for the month. 

I checked a couple of pools and they both contained small fish, probably similar to the one's Jake and I discovered last summer (see previous post). I never got a positive ID on them, but the best guess is they were coho that made a wrong turn when they came to the Beatty - Mclane Creek confluence. The spot shown here is at roughly 40 feet higher in elevation than that confluence. The reaches upstream from here are are probably close to bone dry already. There's still a great deal of moisture in the stream bed, so fresh water will be entering the pools through seepage for at least a few more days. But if the next round of rain isn't better heavier than its been in some time, the little fish in these isolated pools won't be flushed out and taken further down stream. I'll keep an eye out on the process, and maybe try later to set up a "taxi" service for a few of them.

Well Enough, Left Alone

Grandson Jake and I ventured down the block to Beatty Creek the other day. He had never seen the stream before, and I was curious to see how it might be holding up during this extended drought. What a shock! The creek was dry as a bone.

We decided to head down stream to see if could find a puddle or two. Sure enough, just a few dozen yards closer to where the stream makes its confluence with Mclane Creek, we found a couple small pools crowded with small fish. The idea that these little critters were likely going to end up dying of suffocation didn't set well with either of us, particularly after we discovered there was a much large pool just another fifty feet downstream. I promised Jake I would return the next day with a bucket and a net, and move them to the larger pool.

Next day, net and bucket in hand, I went down to the creek bed and began scooping out the juveniles in the first pool.

I stopped at one point and examined one to see if I could identify it. As near as I could tell they were chum salmon, which was consistent with the only sightings of mature salmon I've made in the last two years.

I was about half way through the process when I realized that the knee I had placed next to the pool was soaking wet. I started pulling back gravel in several places, each one further from the puddle. The sand below was filled with water, and wherever the hole I'd dug was deep enough, it began to fill with ice cold water. It then dawned on me that, although the puddles were quite small, the water was very cold and crystal clear. I let all that sink in for a few minutes. Then, as gently as I could, I put the little critters back in their puddle. Nature ALWAYS knows best, and almost always needs less help from us than we need from it...even today.