Dobrowolsky's Seattle Views

documenting Seattle's built environment... since 2003

 

Port of Seattle Duwamish 101 Public Tour

The following was posted to Seattlest.com on October 17th, 2008. ( link to original )

Life on the Duwamish

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The other day—which is Seattlest-speak for "about two weeks ago"—the Port of Seattle offered the third in their series of Port 101 tours. This one sailed from Pier 66 down the Duwamish Waterway. The Waterway, of course, is that lower portion of the Duwamish River that has been straightened, channelized, and dredged into a human-made representation of its former self. But evidence of the past remains. If you take a close look at the street plat of the Georgetown area, you'll see swaths where, illogically it seems, there are no streets. This is where the river flowed.

The Duwamish River Clean-up Coalition prints an amazing paper map. While it's true that we hardly met a map we didn't like, this is one of the best maps we've seen in a long time. It has a ton of notes on it and spotlights historical, industrial, cultural, and environmental points of interest.The Port also maintains several public parks and viewpoints all along the waterfront, with many of them on the Duwamish. They, too, have a map.

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The two bridges linking Fortress West Seattle to the mainland form a nice gateway to the Waterway. Contrary to popular belief, this tower does not keep the inmates in West Seattle; rather, it controls the Lower Spokane Street Swing Bridge. The fascinating thing about the bridge (right), is that it opens by having one leaf, or both, swing horizontally, not vertically, about a pivot. If you've never seen it in operation, it's pretty surreal to watch its roadway and light poles swing away from you sideways.


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Kellogg Island. This is the only wooded island on the lower Duwamish; it is a sort of natural preserve and habitat restoration area. In the foreground and proceeding to the right is the straightened channel of the Waterway. The channel going behind (west) the island is a natural meander of the Duwamish river. It is the only natural meander left in this lower portion.


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The river has its share of Superfund, and otherwise polluted, sites but that should not stop the intrepid urban adventurer from exploring. If you do go out in a small vessel like this fellow, make sure you are adept at navigation, as you'll have to steer clear of large tugs, barges, fishing nets bouyed close to shore, and apparently an emphatic ebb current.


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Local Native tribespeople fish the river using seines, which are nets that hang just below the water line and are suspended by buoys. Due to the nature of the water, eating more than sparse quantities of fish from the river is not recommended.


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Containers aren't just restricted to Harbor Island proper. The stretch from the Island upriver to Georgetown has piles of them sitting next to the shore. From the water, they look like they are going to tip and capsize the shore into the river.


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photo photo Continuing Seattle's domination of Alaskan maritime affairs, barges like the pictured Stikine Provider load up all manner of goods for transport up north. As this photo shows, things like pick-ups, trailers, box trucks, and even pleasure boats are just loaded on naked and chained down for the ride.


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One of two car-crushing yards in the area is located right here on the banks of the river. Our tour spent quite a bit of time here because navigation further upstream was not possible do to some tied-up barges and (fishing) gilllnets that were in the way. That was quite alright, though, because, as television commercials tell us, everybody loves car crushing mayhem.


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But we saw more than just the crushing of automobiles. This plant also seemed to be shredding the old carcasses, presumably to be able to separate the recyclable metal from the plastics, glass, squeezings of young children, and other materials that are found in your average Pontiac. The result is what, from far away, looks like a refined pile of fine metal that mechanized yard machines constantly sift, pick, and fuss through.


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Of course, to maintain and sustain all of this activity, especially the heavy industry, the lower Duwamish's channel must be maintained at a sufficient depth for large ships, this requires several large fleets of dredging vessels equipped with cranes to scoop out the river bed. By far, and perhaps second only to tugs, these were the most numerous of all the vessels we saw tied up in the Waterway.


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We've got to hand it to the old salts who operate in various capacities on this urban stream. Despite the sometimes gloomy talk about pollution, things are being done to mitigate some of it. There's been some successful clean here and there. Local groups, as well as local Native tribes, are working to restore habitat, for example. Both the Port and the City have peppered the working waterfront with small public accesses. And despite the fact that the Duwamish remains a heavily industrialized waterway, at the very least the various bits of floating infrastructure are absurdly colorful and pretty to look at.


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Our good friend and Seattle native, Mr. JT Glover, commented to us that the Duwamish is

such a striking example of American riverine life. In the days of my father's Ill-Fated Boat, it was docked in South Park and we would take it down to the mouth of the river, piddling around. Herons, industrial waste, mud the color of concrete...

Piddling around. That's what we did the other day and it's something we'd like to come back and do on our own sometime. Waterways are excellent for piddling, and this river seems to be especially suited for it, as there is so much to catch your eye. Grab a friend sometime and check it out.

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October 1st, 2008

 

track: Duwamish 101 Tour

 

 

The Port of Seattle offers free public tours of its various facilities. The Duwamish 101 tour took us from Pier 66, across Elliott Bay, and down the straightened, dredged, lower portion of the Duwamish. Upstream, it may be rightfully a "river" with meaders but here it is a dredged "waterway".

[ 252 track points ]

Center of track:

map of photographs in 20081001--Duwamish_101

 

 

Seattle Views >> Waterfront >> 20081001--Duwamish_101

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150 photographs in folder: 20081001--Duwamish_101

(click images to see more sets within)

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manipulated slightly to enhance the blue sky

 

 

 

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There is an osprey nest on top of this light pole. It resides in a box that some local boy scouts built as a project.

 

 

 

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that's a lot of antennas

 

 

 

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one of several parklike nooks on the Duwamish.

 

 

 

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Kellogg Island. This is the only wooded island on the lower Duwamish; it is some sort of nature preserve. In the foreground and proceeding to the right is the straightened channel of the Waterway. The channel going behind (west) the island is a natural meander of the Duwamish river. It is the only natural meander left in this lower portion of the Duwamish "Waterway".

 

 

 

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Workers hook up the massive tow chain that will allow an ocean tug to pull this huge barge to Alaska.

 

 

 

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Stuff going up to Alaska... no space is wasted and anything will be hauled.

 

 

 

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This reminds me of my many moves during my undergraduate days when I would pile as much junk in my car as I could stuff in and haul it to my next place.

 

 

 

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the Stikine Provider, homeport Juneau, Alaska, which is near the Stikine Region.

 

 

 

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a lone tree

 

 

 

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1st Ave South Bridge

 

 

 

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This is apparently one of the largest car-crushing yards in the area.

 

 

 

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After the cars are crushed, they are shredded. Presumably, shredded metal will be easier to pick out of the glass, plastic, and other junk since that can be done using a large electro-magnet.

 

 

 

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Many local Native tribespeople fish the river, even though eating fish and shellfish from this water is somewhat discouraged. They use seines, which are nets suspended below water level using floats and bouys. In places, considerable manuevering is required to navigate around the nets and random barges tied up along the banks.

 

 

 

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A pair of seals swimming upstream.

 

 

 

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Another little resotred natural area behind the yellow boom.

 

 

 

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Kellogg Island again.

 

 

 

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view upriver (south).

 

 

 

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This is the eastern pivot upon which the eastern leaf of the Lower Spokane Street Swing Bridge rotates. Rather than moving up and down, the two leaves of the bridge move away from each other horizontally.

 

 

 

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Watching these two ferries, one arriving and one departing, it looked as if one ferry was getting swallowed by the other.

 

 

Seattle Views >> Waterfront >> 20081001--Duwamish_101

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All images Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License by Rev. Tom Dobrowolsky