Commencement Bay Dedication Ceremony
Remarks by Dr. Jeff Koenings, WDFW Director
October 11, 2000

• Thanks for inviting me to be part of today's festivities. This is a day to celebrate successes in the restoration of the Commencement Bay environment. But maybe even more importantly, it's a day to celebrate the collaboration that has allowed these successes to occur.
  
  
• A century ago, the Puyallup River Delta probably looked much like the Nisqually River Delta looks today. But over the years, Commencement Bay was drastically altered. For example, the original wetland areas was dredged to create eight waterways. And more than 98 percent of the aquatic habitats were lost. Water and sediments were contaminated through a variety of commercial activities.
  
  
• All of this, in turn, contributed to the decline of the bay's fish and wildlife resources. Probably the most well known example was the decline of Puget Sound chinook, recently listed as a threatened species.
  
  
• Commencement Bay, of course, is not an isolated example. Statewide, we've lost a significant percentage of our wetlands. We've lost 70 percent of our Puget Sound estuarine wetlands. And fish and wildlife species everywhere have paid the price. Besides the Puget Sound Chinook, for example, there are 13 more salmon stocks listed as threatened in Washington state. Two are listed as endangered.
  
  
• One of the things we are constantly saying in my department, the Department of of Fish and Wildlife, is that unless we restore and protect habitat, salmon recovery will not become a reality. Here in Commencement Bay, we're talking about providing the things chinook and chum salmon need -- migration corridors and intertidal wetlands for juvenile rearing.
  
  
• We can change our harvest practices -- and we have and still are -- and we can change our hatchery practices -- and we have and still are --but unless we tackle the habitat part of the equation, with the same fervor, we're doomed to fail in our quest to restore our wild salmon populations and, in the process, protect and conserve scores of other fish and wildlife species.
  
  
• I like to think the Department of Fish and Wildlife in putting its money -- and its efforts -- where they are most effective, using science to guide the way.
  
  
• Recently we celebrated a success with the completion of what is known as the Deepwater Slough habitat restoration project on the Skagit River. There fisheries and engineers reconfigured a dike to open the mouth of the river to tidal influence, creating intertidal areas where juvenile salmon can feed, begin to acclimate to salt water and grow, without becoming prey. These intertidal areas with their mudflats and aquatic plants are essential to salmon and its survival.
  
  
• Today, here at Commencement Bay, we are celebrating our success in beginning to restore some of these necessary types of intertidal areas. These successes include:
  • Creation of three off-channel feeding areas at Mowitch, within the tidal influence zone at the mouth of Hylebos Creek.
  • Creation of an intertidal emergent marsh near Squally Beach in the Hylebos Waterway. Juvenile salmon from the Puyallup use this waterway, so we expect salmon populations from both the Puyallup and the Hylebos systems to benefit.
  • Increasing the aquatic area here in the Middle Waterway by removing upland soils and planting aquatic plants to restore resting and feeding areas.
  • Guaranteeing habitat for the future by purchasing intertidal parcels of land on the northeast shore of the bay and holding them in trust.
  • Working with partners such as the Trust for Public Lands to get lands in trust, and the Puyallup Tribe, which will manage these lands set aside for future habitat. DNR has moved subtidal parcels along that northeast shore out of commercial lease status and into trust status, as well.
  
  
• In the grand scheme of things, these may seem like small steps. But they represent enormous progress when we consider how difficult it is to reverse the tide of so many years of damage and degradation, and when we consider the extent of the urbanization that has taken place here in Commencement Bay.
  
  
• The work still ahead is monumental. So we need this pause today to applaud our efforts with our partners, draw strength from our accomplishments and keep working together. Thank you.

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