DuPont, Washington Time Traveling

I had a work project in DuPont last week. After completing my work, I made a time travel journey that encompassed nearly the entire history of Puget Sound. DuPont perhaps more than any other site in Washington State has been repeatedly rearranged by human land use. A short bit of driving through the community and a bit of hiking is to pass through the spectrum of Washington State and land use changes in no particular order. One era of land use replaces another with the past repeatedly obliterated by the subsequent land uses. I took a short drive through the old historic company town of DuPont.

Old DuPont

The town got its start associated with the development of explosives munition manufacturing in the early 1900s. A stone tablet in front the museum lists a long list of Washington State firsts as well a commemorating Old Fort Nisqually.

I parked near the head of Sequalitchew Creek  a bit west of the old town and hiked to down the stream valley along a gravel path that was a former narrow gauge rail line towards the shore of South Puget Sound. The main north-south Burlington Northern rail line passes along the waterfront along this shore with a large berm cutting off the mouth of the creek from the beach. The former narrow gauge line passes under the BNSF line and provides a nice pathway to the shore.

Remnant of narrow gauge rail passing through the BNSF railroad embankment.  

The former narrow gauge rail grade is now a trail down the stream valley and former site of Sequalitchew Village

The narrow gauge tracks end abruptly a short distance to the north.

The tracks are from the days when explosives were moved down from the uplands above to a long gone wharf for loading explosives onto ships. DuPont made explosives that changed landscapes elsewhere - Grand Coulee Dam and the Panamá Canal to name a couple of places.

The beach is a gravel/cobble beach with a fair fetch to the west-southwest and the shore armoring protecting the old rail lines has begun the slow failure process. I suspect the situation is not helped by the presence of miles of main line rail armoring along this shore reach cutting off shoreline bluff erosion and the sediment supply.

The view across to Anderson Island appears to be a possible large deep-seated landslide.

There are other bits of the old history of the DuPont Explosives days at the lower end of the creek valley.

But the fading remnants of the explosives plant operations obscure an older landscape. Sequalitchew is named after the original village that was located here prior to arrival of Europeans. First Nations peoples had occupied the area for an estimated 5,000 years and given evidence found elsewhere western Washington a few more millennium than that.

I suppose a good archeologist might be able to see some hints of that First Nations period, but the subsequent land uses not just at the end of the creek but elsewhere have obscured the landscape.

We do however, have descriptions of the landscape from the time Sequalitchew was used. Sequalitchew was very welcoming to the Hudson Bay Company and the Hudson Bay Company under the direction of Archibald MacDonald built a trading post/fort on the upland above the mouth of the creek in the 1830s. It was a very mutually beneficial arrangement. Hudson Bay Company used the site to gather furs from trappers and Indians, to raise farm crops and animals to supply their trade network and had a landing place at the south end of the Sound for traveling between Vancouver (on the Columbia River) and Langley (now Canada) and Victoria. The Indians were able to obtain trade goods in exchange for furs and other services and the presence of Hudson Bay Company provided protection from raiding tribes from the north.

The United States Wilkes expedition came to the site in the 1840s as part of the US exploration of the Oregon Country that was at that time under joint US and British occupation. HBC treated Wilkes very well and he left a group at the fort to make surveys and observations while he himself headed on the overland route to Vancouver and the Columbia River. He provides a very favorable description of the site and the prairie landscape surrounding the fort area and the farms that had been established by the HBC. The Indians had been utilizing the prairie for millennium in a form of agriculture for acorn gathering, camas harvest and hunting. Wilkes' accounts of the southwest Washington prairies are an important source of ecosystem information.

Wilkes did document one of the severe downsides of the Indian HBC interactions. Huge population declines associated with disease had already swept through some of the tribes and the landscape Wilkes was observing was about to change simply due to the population loss of the people that had been shaping and maintaining the prairie ecosystems for a great many centuries.

From the creek I hiked up an unmarked by clear trail to the bluff south of the creek. A marker has been placed at the site of the Wilkes Expedition Observatory on the top of the bluff.

From the observatory marker I headed overland along an unmarked gravel road to a clump of trees surrounded by a fence. There are no signs or anything to denoting the fenced area. If one did not know that this was the site of the fort the fence would be a curiosity. There are bits of concrete and rubble inside and just outside of the fence, but that has nothing to do with the fort. This fort site is the original HBC Fort site. The topographic map and the histories of the area note a second fort site was established in 1843. That fort location is a bit easier to reach as it is near the paved road. That larger fort built in 1843 was moved to Point Defiance Park in Tacoma; hence there is not much to see.

Original 1833 Fort Niscually site

The former prairie landscape and farm fields have been obliterated. This was the area where munitions facilities were located and the removal of the munitions facilities as well as some gravel mining and soil cleanup has removed any hints of the past prairie landscape. The landscape has been invaded by Scotch broom, a non native pestilence, and Douglas fir. Outside of the Scotch broom and fir invasion of the former prairie the alteration of the landscape has included a common anthropogenic landscape.

There is a remnant of the past prairie landscape near the new city hall.

Oaks and grass land, a remnant of the former oak/prairie landscape

The march of Washington State history and landscape changes continue at DuPont. Big changes have continued to shape the landscape in DuPont. To the north of Sequalitchew Creek is a very large open pit gravel mine and to the northeast buildings of a scale that make the word "big" an understatement.

Amazon's DuPont warehouse

Its a bit challenging to take in the scale of a 1,000,000 square-foot building

Another big building is the Intel facility built in the 1990s.

Computer chip maker Intel is selling the building and is moving or laying off most of the remaining work force. Some of the work force will be moved to Oregon. The building was never fully occupied and parts of the parking lot were becoming moss covered.

Regardless of the hard times for Intel facility there are other new business developments and swaths of new apartments and homes throughout DuPont. Excepting the rather small old company town, Dupont has the feel of an instant city.

DuPont, 1990

DuPont 2013

Valdez Alaska: Massive Avalanche and ice dam in Keystone Canyon

Besides being rather impressive in the near term, the lake formed by this avalanche does cause me to wonder a bit about the deposition behind the ice dam and how some future geologist might interpret a broad silt deposit across the valley floor. Article: highway-to-valdez-to-be-closed.







Big mountains and lots of heavy snow. Valdez is a remarkable location of huge mountains and massive snow. This winter has been mild Valdez setting up massive avalanches.

Valdez is also the terminal for the Alaska pipeline that brings oil to tankers and ultimately to northwest Washington refineries. Apparently geologists and engineers back in the 1970s felt it best to bury the pipeline through this section of the route.  I'll add that I worked on the pipeline project manufacturing insulation jackets for the pipe in Pasco, Washington. The insulation was loaded onto barges that headed down the Columbia River and then up to Valdez. The work did pay for most of my first two years of college; but the 90 plus hour work weeks did take a bit off my early season cross county races.

Undammed Rivers Updates

Ian has an update on the Elwha and the most recent lowering of the Glines Canyon dam http://coastnerd.blogspot.com/2014/01/glines-canyon-dam-now-invisible.html.

Steve Stampfli has been documenting the post dam removal on the White Salmon and documents a recent cliff face collapse that was formerly submerged http://whitesalmontimelapse.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/landslide/#respond.

I suspect the cliff face may have pealed off due to freeze thaw action which would have been on pause when the cliff was submerged. Of course the driver is also slow undercutting by the river that formed the cliff in the first place.
 

Maury Beach

My associates over at Coastal Geologic Services have suggested the name Maury Beach Park for the new park on Bellingham Bay in Bellingham. The City of Bellingham is seeking input on name suggestions cob.org/government/departments/parks/projects/cornwall-beach-park-master-plan

Former waterfront garbage landfill at the end of Cornwall Avenue and the future new park

The appreciation of shore forms such as the beach at the site was greatly encouraged by Maury Schwartz (maury-schwartz-has-left-us). A waterfront park named for a scientist that worked on understanding beach processes would be a great way to remind folks that shorelines are dynamic and in a setting like Bellingham Bay take some thought.

There is tendency to call this site Cornwall Beach because it is at the end of Cornwall Avenue. The Cornwall name morphed from the site being called the Cornwall Landfill. The park is a former municipal garbage landfill and has recently been covered with dioxin tainted sediments dredged from the I&J Waterway and covered in white plastic (post the aerial image above).

Dioxin sediment disposal site all sealed up at the former Cornwall Landfill (picture from City of Bellingham)

Perhaps getting more people down to the shore area of Bellingham will generate more interest in doing better with our shorelines. Perhaps naming the beach for someone that cared about shorelines may inspire future Bellinghamhamsters to be more inspired on the waterfront than recent actions (on-waterfront-bellingham-local-poltics). 

My Favorite Washington State Landscape Painter

Morning Rain Copyright 2014 Lisa McShane

Lisa is having an art show opening (lucia-douglas-gallery-show-this-thursday) this Thursday. The exhibition runs from January 30th through February 22nd. A reception will be on January 30th from 5 to 7 pm at Lucia Douglas Gallery at 1415 - 13th Street in Bellingham. 

Lisa on occasion accompanies on my field work, but more often we sort of have a collaborative scheme where some place works for both of us.  

Wallula Gap

Or I may send a picture her way and it turns into an inspiration for painting. 

Storm clouds on the plains

Celebrating the Lake Whatcom Reconveyance

Whatcom County Executive Jack Louws on left and Whatcom County Parks Director Mike McFarlane cut the ribbon in celebration of the new 8,800 acre Lake Whatcom Park

A bit of a public celebration on Saturday added to a more quiet personal elation back in March 2013 (lake-whatcom-reconveyance-halleluja) when the County Council made the final vote on the park. Policy and activism is fun! The process to achieve this park took some time and the alignment of some critical people at critical times. A detailed history of most of the steps that ultimately led to the park designation can be found at (lake-whatcom-reconveyance), a few more steps including the important March 2013 vote having taken place since.

Mitch Friedman, hard at work 

A few folks should be mentioned. The reconveyance would never have happened without Mitch Friedman and Conservation Northwest. Mitch made the Lake Whatcom forest a priority for Conservation Northwest and as can be seen above worked hard throughout the process. Perhaps it helped that for a period of that time Lisa McShane worked at Conservation Northwest.

Lisa delivers the scissors

Lisa's work on the Lake Whatcom Park continued for long after she left Conservation Northwest and it was great fun to have a family project that turned out so well.

Mike McFarlane, second from left with Jack Louws 

I can say with absolute certainty that the Lake Whatcom Park would not have happened without Mike McFarlane. He believed in the project from the very start, knew how to get the project completed and provided clear honest assessments of what the park would be and how it would be managed. When I met with Mike in 2005 about the park idea, I came away absolutely certain it would happen. Perhaps we did not realize how long it would take. Anyway Whatcom County is lucky to have such a great park director.

I would note that when Jack Louws came in as County Executive, he expressed skepticism regarding the wisdom of the park, but once he got the facts he fully supported the park and it was great to have him at the event.

In March 2013 I noted that one of the many heroes of the reconveyance and park was Whatcom County Council member Sam Crawford (one-of-the-reconveyance-heroes-sam-crawford). Alas Sam was working on Saturday (Whatcom County Council is a part time elected job) and was not able to make the celebration. Also missing Saturday was former County Council member Kathy Kershner who voted for the park despite lots of political pressure from her political tribe and very little political upside.

Pete Kremen, former County Executive and now County Council member also was not there which is really too bad. The park would not have happened without him as the process would have never even started. He was Executive when this project began in 2005 and stayed fully supportive throughout the process. It would have been entirely appropriate for him to have the scissors for the ribbon cutting.  

Ezra Klein - I'll be Looking for Your Next Gig

Ezra Klein signs off from the Wonk Blog: wonkbook-so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-charts. He along with fellow Wonk Blog member Dylan Mathews are moving on. I am looking forward to their next gig.

In the mean time I am leaving Wonk Blog on my side bar in hopes of steering other readers that way. Ezra Klein and Dylan Mathews may be leaving, but it has become an institution with lots of great reporting. Posts by Brad Plumber have led to some of my own posts here. It is the kind of media and reporting we need more of, and they set an appropriate bar on how to report on issues - keeping away from the inane "this side said this and the other side said this", or worse someone who knows nothing be given any credible amount of news time.

Please read Wonk Blog it will be good for you.