Did You Know...

. . . that since the construction of Culmback Dam on the Sultan River, a tributary of the Skykomish River 30 miles northeast of Seattle, and the start of electricity production at the Jackson hydroelectric plant in 1984, pink salmon runs on the Sultan have risen from an average of 5,000 to an average of 50,000 fish a year?

The dam protects redds (gravel nests where the pinks lay their eggs) from being washed out by flooding, the single largest threat to pinks. This fall's pink run was particularly impressive, with close to 100,000 fish in three miles.

Keith Binkley, an environmental coordinator for Snohomish County Public Utility District, said that by early October, two weeks before the run was expected to end, there was so little room left for newly arriving fish to make redds, that some were laying eggs on top of those laid by other fish, and the river may be at capacity.

Part of Binkley's job is to pitch each spawned-out fish that washes onto the river bank back into the water, so the decaying corpse will help feed the tiny fish that hatch next spring from eggs laid by the females and fertilized by the males. "These bring a lot of nutrients back to the ecosystem," he said.

Source: Daily Herald, Everitt, Washington, October 6, 2005.

(reprinted from the USSD Newsletter, November 2005, page 3)