By Abbey Myrick
Olympia’s Capitol Lake is a manmade body of water created when the Deschutes river was dammed in 1951. Environmentalists are calling for removal of the 5th Ave Dam and reversion to an estuary, citing such issues as invasive species and poor water quality being a direct result of the lake’s existence. Opposing groups worry about such considerations as cost to taxpayers and negative effects on tourism and the local economy.
According to the Squaxin Island Tribe’s Natural Resource Department, the original proposal for the Capitol Campus, designed by Walter Wilder and Harry White, called for diverting part of the Deschutes to create an attractive reflecting pool while allowing the majority of the river to continue flowing into Budd Inlet. “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,” reads an article put out by the department. The result would have created a waterfront park similar to downtown’s Heritage Park but would have avoided the total impoundment of the river.
The reason for damming the river completely may have had something to do with a community occupying what is now Heritage Park. Dubbed “Little Hollywood”, this town within a town consisted of homes and businesses built of debris dragged in on high tides and left to beach on the mud flats. The jobless and hungry of the town pooled here, mostly the result of the severe nationwide economic downturn of the 1930’s, along with bootleggers, gamblers, and sex workers. Little Hollywood was cleared out in 1941 along with the adjacent community of Chinese immigrants in anticipation of the Capitol Lake construction. The Treaty of Medicine Creek and the fishing rights indigenous peoples have fought to maintain also bring up issues with the lake’s construction, and today’s activists question if those most affected by decisions regarding the land can be heard any better now than nearly eighty years ago.
Current problems associated with Capitol Lake include poor water quality, invasive species of plants and fish, as well as potential flood issues due to sedimentation and rising sea levels. What to do about the situation has polarized communities within Olympia and the surrounding area. The Capitol Lake Improvement and Protection Association (CLIPA) argues that the invasive snails and plants showing up in Capitol Lake can be found in other regional bodies of water and are not as detrimental as commonly presented. CLIPA points to a cease in maintenance dredging, rather than water quality, as the culprit in excess algae blooms. “The water quality has been clean enough, good enough to swim in the past fourteen years. It’s the algae that’s floating on the top that makes it look sick or ugly,” Bob Wubbena, co-chairman of CLIPA stated at a Rotary Club of Lacey meeting early last year. He continued, “It’s because its not been maintained for the last thirty years by the state.”
Since colonization, according to U.S Geological Survey (USGS) statistics, up to eighty percent of Washington’s wetlands have been destroyed due to development and dams. The Deschutes is only one of many struggling rivers where communities continue to grapple with their impact on the environment. Further North, the Elwah River was originally host to ten yearly runs of anadromous fish (species reliant on both fresh and saltwater) but was dammed twice, once in 1913 and again upriver in 1927. According to the USGS, 19 million cubic tons of sediment had accumulated behind the dams, and the fish population had shrunk to five percent of its historic numbers by the time dam removal began in 2011.
Currently, the options being considered for Capitol Lake would include either allowing the lake to continue to fill with sediment with little management, removing the Fifth Avenue dam and reverting the ecosystem back to an estuary, or a combination of both which would maintain a reflecting pool while also allowing the Deschutes to flow freely into Budd Inlet once again.
Funding for the proposed $4.9 million needed to run an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is currently being considered for the capital budget. No forward movement can be made on the issue without the EIS which will allow data analysis to inform decisions. According to Department of Enterprise Services communications official Linda Kent, “An EIS will examine issues such as sea level rise, determine whether we need updates beyond existing studies and information, and make recommendations regarding management options.”
Taking into account the outcome of the EIS, the Department of Enterprise Services is authorized to implement a management plan which will have the least negative environmental impact while maintaining cost feasibility. Comments and input from the community will continue to impact decisions at key intervals, including the extent of the EIS once funding is secured.
