By Becky Chan
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
The King, mouth gaped open showing its teeth, arched its white belly skyward with such force that it caught air. Splat, it landed on the pier, again. Its brilliant silver coat sparkled under the sun while the spots on its tail flickered with each arch. It isn’t going back into the brackish water. The throngs of admiring fishermen made sure of that.
“Smiley” Dunstan Cabilas from Burien, just caught his first of two salmon allowed of the day at the Seacrest Park pier in West Seattle, where the Lower Duwamish Waterway (LDW) empties into Elliott Bay.
Prime salmon run is now. Leaving the expansive Pacific Ocean, the salmon enter the Puget Sound en masse, journeying upstream to their natal spawning ground. They evade hungry preys and fishermen, combat rising water temperature, and dodge whatever’s in the waterway to reach their birthplace. Their last act is to deliver the next generation. In death, their carcasses feed the river’s ecosystem—their lifecycle complete and revered by all.
South Seattle’s more diverse neighborhoods sit along the waterway, surrounded by various industries that for a century used the Duwamish as the dumping ground, making it one of the most polluted rivers in the country. The main culprit was polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), widely used in consumer and industrial products until banned in 1976. PCBs toxicity is due to its persistence in the environment and ability to move up in the food chain. The other toxins are arsenic, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins, and furans. They’re invisible and carcinogenic. Humans and wildlife can be exposed to these chemicals by consuming contaminated foods, such as fish.
Long ago, the Green River tumbled and serpentine down from the Cascades, merging with the White and the Black rivers to form the Duwamish, before it flowed into Elliott Bay. Named for the Duwamish people who lived around the large area of mudflats and marshes, the Duwamish Valley was a rich habitat that provided for their livelihood for generations.
In 1913, the lower Duwamish was straightened and dredged for industrial development and shipping navigation. Nine miles of meandering estuary widened and deepened into five miles of working channel. Twenty million cubic feet of its sediment removed and contributed to the formation of Harbor Island, bisecting the river.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 97% of the salmon habitat in the Duwamish River was lost due to the reshaping of the estuary. The estuary, vital to young salmon migrating from the Green River and its tributaries downstream, helps the fry adapt to their future home at sea. Not only are the salmon habitats lost, gone are habitats for a diverse wildlife population.
In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated this last five miles of the Duwamish as a Superfund site—urging federal, state, and local agencies to collaborate on a massive cleanup project. Boeing, having a large presence on the waterway and the lone private partner in the Lower Duwamish Working Group (LDWG), along with the City of Seattle, King County, and the Port of Seattle—advance cleanup plans led by EPA. Despite stricter environmental laws, permit regulations, and systematic waste management controlling industrial discharge, century old toxic sediment lingers in the waterway.
“It took decades to get to this point. It’s (the cleanup) an ongoing process,” said Meshach Padilla, public affairs specialist with EPA.
EPA oversees the cleanup of the sediment in the river while Washington Department of Ecology (WDE) manages source control, identifying and limiting contaminants going into the river.
“We hit a major cleanup milestone this summer at the Upper Reach,” said Scarlet Tang, communications manager, Northwest Region, WDE.
According to Tang, WDE established that source pollution is sufficiently controlled at the Upper Reach and recommended to EPA to begin sediment work in that area. The upper reach is the southern end of the LDW, largely occupied by Boeing.
Based on WDE’s recommendation, EPA will begin remediation of the Upper Reach in October 2024.
The cleanup doesn’t stop the communities from using Seattle’s only river. Pockets of green space, a sliver of pier, or piles of rocks provide easy access to the waterway amidst the concrete buildings and cargo ships.
On Aug. 26, just a couple miles upstream from Seacrest Pier, at the toolalt Village Park, the Lao American Resource Center fishing club held a welcoming party for new members. The hosts were Lawan Bunphoath and Sam Somphet, the Lao American leads for the Community Health Advocate (CHA) program for Seattle & King County-Public Health (PH). The event was part of PH’s “Fun to Fish, Toxic to Eat” program to promote safe seafood consumption. The CHAs are community members who have been trained to educate their fellow fishers on what’s good and what not to eat.
Salmon are the only fish safe to eat from there, according to PH. Resident fish, shellfish, and crab spend their entire lifecycle in the same water, unlike the migratory salmon which are only in the Duwamish for a short time. The resident fish are permanent residents of the polluted river, feeding off the toxic chemical-infused water and sediment.
Bunphoath and Somphet want to heighten awareness of the toxicity in the LDW in their community. They found in their outreach that people are often surprised to learn about contamination in the river.
“They eat anything and everything,” Bunphoath said.
She added that some fishers are from low-income households and the seafoods from the Duwamish may be their main source of protein.
“A lot of our people who use the river may not understand the impact [of eating contaminated seafood] to our family,” said Somphet.
Besides the fishing club, the CHAs also run a “mom group” to teach their community the proper way to prepare salmon. Asians enjoy eating the whole fish, wasting nothing.
“No skin, head, or belly,” said Bunphoath. That’s where the toxin accumulates.
A 2016 LDW Fisher Study by the EPA concluded that more than 20 ethnic/language groups commonly fish there. Non-English-speaking fishers were more likely to catch and eat resident fish. The study found that “Unseen chemical risks did not appear to be well understood.”
Post study, in 2017, the EPA accepted a proposal from PH to develop a community outreach curriculum deploying teams of CHAs to promote safe seafood consumption targeting fishers of the Duwamish and their families.
Besides the Lao group led by Bunphoath and Somphet, there are Vietnamese, Khmer, Spanish, and a multi-ethnic youth group.
On Aug 26, Sophorn Sim, the lead for the Khmer group, had a table full of information in multiple languages on the Duwamish River Cruise. The free cruise, sponsored by the LDWG of which PH is a partner, educates the public about the Superfund site.
Sim has been involved in the CHA program since inception and takes pride in her role as an advocate in her community.
“We are not experts, but we learn from the experts,” said Sim about her outreach. She often asks her community to decide on “good taste or good health” when eating fish from the Duwamish.
The CHAs all agreed the lack of physical “damage” on contaminated fish and the absence of immediate ill effect after consumption turn fishers into skeptics. The fishers assume the CHAs are trying to convince them not to fish to protect the fish.
Sim said, “Fishing is their right. I want to help my community to be healthier, and to take precautions.”
The CHAs also act as a channel for the communities to receive information about the cleanup. In turn, the feedback from the communities may be valuable in the government’s decision-making affecting them.
The CHAs will hold a fishing competition amongst the fishing clubs at the Spokane Bridge on Sept. 9.
To learn more about the Lower Duwamish Waterway cleanup and activities, click on the links below.
Lower Duwamish Working Group, http://ldwg.org
King County Public Health, http://kingcounty.gov
EPA, https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=1002020
Washington State Department of Ecology, http://ecology.wa.gov
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, http://wdfw.wa.gov
Duwamish salmon recovery efforts:
https://www.portseattle.org/news/new-habitat-attracts-salmon-duwamish-river-peoples-park
Duwamish cleanup efforts:
https://www.portseattle.org/projects/duwamish-cleanup
Becky can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.