The Duwamish River is the name of the lower 12 miles (19 km) of Washington state's Green River. Its industrialized estuary is known as the Duwamish Waterway.

History

At one time, the White and Green Rivers, which combined at Auburn, joined the Black River at Tukwila to form the Duwamish. In 1906, however, the White River changed course following a major flood and emptied into the Puyallup River as it does today. Later, in 1912 the Cedar River was diverted to empty into Lake Washington instead of the Black River, though the lake itself still emptied into the Black. Then, with the opening of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1916, the lake's level dropped nearly nine feet and the Black River dried up. Hence, the point of the name change is no longer the confluence of the Green and Black rivers, though it has not changed location.

The Duwamish River is named after the Duwamish tribe.

Modern Use

The Duwamish Waterway empties into Elliott Bay in Seattle, divided by the man-made Harbor Island into two channels, the East and West Waterways.

Due to 20th century industrial contamination, the lower five miles (8 km) of the Duwamish was declared a Superfund site by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The contaminants include PCBs, PAHs, mercury, and phthalates. The cleanup of the river has been controversial: the original plan was to dredge the river and dump the resulting sludge in Tacoma's Commencement Bay, 26 miles to the southwest. Local opposition to this plan forced the sludge to be shipped to Klickitat County in south central Washington.

Along with the contaminants already mentioned above the Duwamish River faces other types of pollution as well. One other major form of pollution is fecal coliform caused by sewage overflow. Even if these overflows were to be cleaned up the overall quality of the water would not improve much. Contamination would still occur from farms, surface runoff, wildlife, or failing septic tanks. Also the Duwamish River's most common pollutant is petroleum. This is because it is used in many different ways by many different groups of people.

Wildlife

Despite the industrialization of the duwamish river, it remains an important habitat for the thousands of salmon and trout that visit the marshes and estuaries each year to spawn. The Duwamish supports Chinook, coho, chum and steelhead, not to mention the more rare pink, sockeye, sea-run cutthroat trout and bull trout.

In the Media

In the television series The 4400 the character Jordan Collier annexes a square mile of Seattle property and declares it an autonomous city called Promise City. The characters in the show claim that this is a portion of the "Duwamish River delta" and refer to it as one of the most polluted locations in the country. However, the map that many characters use for this location does not correspond to the Duwamish river at all (much less the delta), and in fact all scenes featuring Promise City were shot in Vancouver (presumably at a location within the Burrard Inlet).

See also

• Frank B. Cooper School, a public school located nearby in Delridge

External links

References