Black Diamond NOW

Sunset Highway (aka I90)

The historic Sunset Highway, now known as Interstate 90, was the first road to cross the Cascade mountains over Snoqualmie Pass and second only to the Naches Trail crossing over the Cascades at Chinook Pass.  Initially just a cleared wagon road, the first car made it over the pass from east to west in 1905, at which point the road became State Highway #7.  Not too many roads or cars back then.  Mainly just horse and wagon traffic - far easier to take the railroads at the time.  As automobiles grew in popularity, so too did building roads and by 1915, the Sunset Highway was designated a "primary state highway".  Still just a dirt road and a bit of an adventure to make it across the pass, it would be until 1934 before the road was "ironed out" (no pun intended) and paved.  

Among the commerce that thrived during the early days was logging and sawmilling.  Here was a road that could be used by trucks.

Postcard image courtesy Washington State Historical Society, 2013.124.4, circa 1930

Sure beats a skid road, but not by much.  You can also see why the early highway needed a little ironing out.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, 1998.10.15, circa 1910's

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, 1983.10.9989.1, circa 1915

 

Lumbermen Love Electric Power Circa 1921

Who were early northwest pioneers in the use of electric powered vehicles?   Lumbermen?  Apparently so.  The following photo of the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Co. sawmill in 1921 shows the electric transfer cars used for moving lumber around the mill.

Photo courtesy University of Washington Libraries, CKK0811, Clark Kinsey photographer, circa 1921

The drivers cab is not the most aerodynamic but it does provide shelter from the rain.  Why use electric power and not diesel power at sawmills during this period?  Note the size of the load - very heavy but not a problem for electric power, which could easily out perform diesel.  Less fire risk too but I expect electric power was also the cheapest way to go.  Sawmills burned scrap lumber and sawdust to generate electricity to power saws and other mill equipment.  Providing a little extra for mill transfer vehicles running on rail would not be a problem.

Print Your Own Money

Long before the days of crypto currency, banks in the U.S. could print their own money and make it look like the real thing.  Here's legal tender issued in the early 1900's by the Bank of Kent.

At first, bank notes clearly obligated the banks and not the fed, to make good on the currency, but as time wore on in the late 1920's and early 1930's, they came to look just like federally back currency with virtually no oversight.  Sure looks like the real thing.

Although banks had to receive approval from the U.S. Treasury Department, I guess we know how well that ended with the great depression.

Currency images courtesy Kent Historical Society

Today, of course, the fed prints our paper currency but commerce has moved far beyond this into the digital age.  Paper currency is now but a small fraction of the money changing hands in everyday commerce.  We have credit cards and debit cards and now even crypto currencies like bitcoin where there is absolutely no overt tie between the banks and the feds or anything else for that matter, except your imagination.  Even blue chip bank Goldman Sachs has it's own crypto currency.  Total market capitalization as of today for all these crypto currencies now being used - would you believe $280,664,884,334.  Security?  I guess we'll find out when the stock market crashes again and the banks have to get bailed out like they did in 2008.

More Lake Sawyer Mysteries - The End

One last post regarding the mysteries of Lake Sawyer water levels - I promise.  We all know that Lake Sawyer water levels fluctuate significantly throughout the year, rising in wet winter months and falling during dry summer months.  But why does it fall so much?  Granted, both Ravensdale Creek and Rock Creek no longer provide significant inflow during summer and early fall.  However, we do have a weir to help keep from draining the lake during this time of year.  We do get some rainfall in the lake even though the creeks may stop flowing, but it's not sufficient to maintain lake levels.  Where then does the water go?

Following is a closer look at how much rain we get during the months May through September compared to the rest of the year..  

Between 5 and 10 inches of rain over 5 months isn't much and often we find no flow coming into the lake from Rock Creek and smaller flows coming from Ravensdale Creek before they too stop all together for a period.  Thus, we are bound to see lake levels decrease.

During this period of the year, there are several ways in which we lose water in the lake:

Evaporation

Previous studies from DOE in the early 1990's quantified the amount of evaporation we lose throughout the year.  It's a lot more than I would have thought and more of a factor during the dry season.

The above data is based on climate conditions in 1990.  And since water evaporates faster when temperatures are higher and when it's drier and windier, we might expect evaporation rates today to be even higher than when this data was calculated.

Groundwater Loss

Past studies have identified areas, called meltwater channels or recessional outwash soils, through which water flows from the lake into groundwater.  They are thought to be located in the northeast corner and southwest corners of the lake and are not thought to interact with Covington Water District wells located to the northwest of the lake.  As you will see, these flows play a very significant role in declining lake levels during summer months.

Heavy rainfall in November and December are  typically large enough in the watershed to refill the lake and export even more flow to groundwater.  Here's another chart from the consultant study.

Yard Irrigation

What about water that's pumped from the lake by residents for irrigating yards?  There's no precise way to measure this that I am aware of, but I made some assumptions just to get a sense of the potential.

I would think these assumptions to be on the high end but it's not a small amount of water.  In the consultant studies, any irrigation volumes at that time would have been included in the groundwater numbers shown above.

Summary

Unfortunately, to prepare a complete water balance, we would also need to have available measures of how much water from Ravensdale Creek and Rock Creek are still flow into the lake during this period.  Certainly, not enough to prevent lake levels from receding during late summer as groundwater outflows increase.

To read earlier posts regarding this subject, follow these links to The Mysteries of Lake Sawyer Hydrology and More Lake Sawyer Mysteries.

Juvenile Bald Eagles

It's going to be a great week with lots of sunshine.  A perfect time to go birding in the Samish Flats along Bayview Edison Road near the town of Edison in Skagit County.  Salmon runs up the Nooksack and Skagit rivers have ended and a large number of eagles head west to feed on migrating birds that congregate here.  I saw over 30 eagles perched in one tree.  What caught my attention was the large number of immature juveniles under 4 years of age.  At least two thirds were juveniles.  How can you tell a juvenile from mature bald eagles?  Pretty easy.  Following is a picture of a youngster learning to fly here at Lake Sawyer.  

Despite being just 3 or 4 months old, Junior (my nickname for him/her) had grown to be pretty large by then - nearly the size of an adult.  Junior was learning to fly by hopping between branches where they were nesting.  Note the black beak.  That's a sure sign of a first year bald eagle.

Here's another 1st year juvenile feeding on fish in our front yard.  They grow to full size quickly.  Note their feathers - more white feathers on their back and definitely not very graceful.

In the second year, juveniles acquire more white mottling on their back and underwings and their bill begins to turn yellow-brown.

As you can see, they aren't afraid to take on the adults.

In year three, almost there.

And finally, in year 4, ready for a post card.

 

 

More Lake Sawyer Mysteries

Why do lake levels seem to be getting lower each summer and higher in the winter?  The following graphic, updated daily at Lake Sawyer Weather, shows how big the fluctuations have been in recent years.

As discussed in my recent post The Mysteries of Lake Sawyer Hydrology, there appear to be no easy answers to our many questions.  We know that water enters the lake from three main sources, direct precipitation and stream flow from both Ravensdale Creek and Rock Creek, and exits the lake over the weir into Covington Creek, through lake evaporation and groundwater outflows.  But where do we start to better understand these flows?  The most obvious starting point is with precipitation and thanks to the weather station at Lake Sawyer Weather, we have great local data.

Seasonal data can be even more revealing.

What begins to complicate matters, however, is to remember that the Lake Sawyer watershed, which feeds Ravensdale Creek and Rock Creek, is a very large area - totaling over 8,120 acres.  Thus, we also need to understand what is happening throughout the entire watershed.

That's why being concerned about the John Henry Mine and its impact on the Rock Creek sub-watershed is important.  And that's also why we are concerned about stormwater from development within these watersheds.

Given all of this information at our disposal, we should then be able to understand, for example, why water levels in Lake Sawyer reached such a low point of nearly - 40" below the weir in 2015.  Right?  Well, not so easy.

First, we need to recognize that 2015 is not the lowest point we have on record.  That dates back to 1994 when water levels below the weir fell to -40.41".

So what caused 2015 water levels to fall so far and then to rise so dramatically above the weir in such a short time?  As it turns out, it was simple in this case - beaver dams.  Water levels in Ravensdale Creek had backed up and risen so high that WSDOT became concerned about the safety of the SR 169 bridge where it crosses the creek that crews were brought in to remove some of the dams, causing a gush of water to run into the lake raising water levels in a very short period to over 15" above the weir. 

Rock Creek faced similar problems, though not as dramatic.  A local group of volunteers called the Rock Creek Restoration Team obtained a hydraulic permit from State DOE and removed the Rock Creek beaver dams during the summer of 2016.  Thank you all!

Beaver dams are likely to be a recurring problem that we should monitor.  All you have to do is take a walk along the trails of Ravensdale Creek and you will still see lots of them.  

In addition to beavers, the timing of rainfall appears to be a very large factor in how low water levels become.  For example, 2017 rainfall totaled 51.64", the highest annual level we saw in the last 10 years, yet lake water levels still reached a low point of -23.16".  However, little of this rain fell in drier summer and early fall months.  When it did begin to rain in October, the lake filled quickly, rising from -23.16" on October 12 to +0.79" on November 15.  This last year in 2019, rainfall totaled just 35.1" for the year, yet the lake level fell to a low of just -20.7".  That's because more rain fell in summer/early fall months in 2019 than it did in 2017.

This still doesn't answer the question of whether Covington Water District or Kent Water District wells, or lakeside irrigation pumps are draining the lake and by how much, but enough for today.  I'll address these questions in a subsequent post.

P.S.  Thanks again to Bob Edelman for all your work in maintaining the Lake Sawyer Weather website and weather station.  It's invaluable.

The Mysteries of Lake Sawyer Hydrology

Have you ever wondered why Lake Sawyer and other area lake levels fluctuate up and down the way they do?  Is there something nefarious going on?  Are the Covington and/or Kent Water Districts pumping water from our lake? Unfortunately, when dealing with lake hydrology, there are no simple answers.  For perspective, let's take a quick look at Horseshoe Lake, Lake Wilderness and Lake Sawyer.  

Simplest is Horseshoe Lake.  It has no inlet, no outlet and aside from a little rain, it's water levels are essentially 100% dependent on groundwater.  The underlying soil is highly permeable and as groundwater levels rise, so too do lake levels and when groundwater levels fall, the lake dries up.  Flooding here is a long time problem with water at one time even pumped into Rock Creek and then into Lake Sawyer to relieve the flooding.  Thanks to help from Ten Trails developer Oakpointe, it now appears that a long term solution to flooding at Horseshoe Lake is now in the works.  More about this in a future post.

To the north of us, 69 acre Lake Wilderness is also dependent on groundwater "seeps".  It has no permanent stream flowing into it but being larger, it does receive a greater volume of rainwater and also receives stormwater runoff from the surrounding 318 acre urban watershed.  Unlike Horseshoe Lake, Lake Wilderness does have an outlet in Jenkins Creek.  During times of rising groundwater and rainwater runoff, like we saw this past week, the lake rises with some minor flooding but Jenkins Creek eventually relieves the pressure.  In dry weather with declining groundwater levels, lake levels fall accordingly.

At Lake Sawyer, with 279 acres of surface area and a watershed of 8,120 acres feeding two significant streams (Ravensdale Creek and Rock Creek), surface water flows supply the vast majority of lake water.  Another significant stream, Covington Creek, serves as the lake outlet.  As a result, understanding Lake Sawyer hydrology is a lot more complex.  The most complete studies of lake hydrology that I've found date back to 1989, 1990 and 1991.  This was the time when the Black Diamond sewage treatment plant discharged into Lake Sawyer and amid algae blooms and deteriorating water quality, finding an alternative was essential.  Based on these studies, a Water Balance for Lake Sawyer was estimated to be as follows:

Seasonally, the lake's water balance varies significantly as one would expect.  The following chart shows what the study consultants described as the Typical Year given Typical Weather.

But, as we know, weather patterns change and significant variability can occur from year to year.   

Weir water level graphic shown above is courtesy of Bob Edelman and Jack Sperry.  It's no surprise that lake water levels tend to be higher in wet winter months and lower in dry late summer and early fall.  But why the increasing variability?  What's causing it?  Has something fundamentally changed, such as more water being withdrawn from the lake by wells?  Or are we getting less rain now than before? Or what?

I'll explore these questions in future posts.

Goodwin Shingle Mill Circa 1910

Did our Goodwin clan actually have a shingle mill at one time?  But alas, as far as I can tell, no shingle mills in our branch of the Goodwin clan.  Pretty impressive looking shingle mill though!

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, log mill 021, North Olympic Library Digital Collection, circa 1910

The above mill was apparently located on the Olympic Peninsula in Clallam county.  It's a pretty significant mill for being in such a remote region of the state.  Perhaps they shipped their shingles to Puget Sound area markets via the Mosquito fleet?  Any ideas as to why they might have had two large water towers on site?  How in the world would they pump water up into these water towers?  Note how big the cedar trees were too, brought to the mill via a pole road on rails made of wood.

It's Been Raining!

Not exactly a blockbuster headline, but there certainly has been a lot of rain over the past several days.  Fortunately, we have not faced the flooding that other communities in our area have seen.  I took a drive around town earlier today and found very heavy stormwater flows but no flooding, except perhaps at the bridge along Abrams Ave.   The most visible sign of heavy rains are the high water levels in Lake Sawyer.  According to Lake Sawyer Weather, the local website maintained by Bob Edelman, lake levels peaked earlier this morning at 15.9" above the weir.  Definitely covering our dock.

You might want to find an alternative location for watching water flowing out of Lake Sawyer and into Covington Creek.

Where's the weir?

What weir?  Although water levels are high, we did have higher water levels in the lake as recently as 2016.

Graphics courtesy of LakeSawyerWeather.com

Today's weather forecast shows some easing off of the heavy rains and maybe even some sunshine by Sunday.  Let's hope.

 

Hiking the Trails of Mount St. Helens In Winter

About 5 years ago, Judy and I made our first hiking trip to the trails around Mount St. Helens National Monument and have been hooked since.  Forest service roads providing access to the east side are now closed but the Visitors Center at Castle Rock and the Forest Learning Center further up the road continue to be open on weekends.  And if you want to go all the way to the Johnston Ridge Observatory, you can do that too if you are ready for a 12 mile hike/snowshoe trek this time of year.  The gate is currently closed at Coldwater Lake, which is an epic beauty in it's own right.

From here, you can (1) take a 3 mile hike on the trail surrounding Coldwater Lake, (2) follow the short but interesting Hummocks trail to the south of the lake, (3) follow the Hummocks trail for about a half mile and then head east on the trail that leads you along the ridgeline all the way to the Johnston Ridge Observatory or (4) do all three.  Or you can hoof it up the road to the Johnston Ridge Observatory (also about 6 miles one way).  After enjoying some lake time, I chose the Hummocks Trail and then on up the trail to Johnston Ridge.

A surprising number of tarns and small lakes just out of the parking lot.  Here's a view of the mountain I had not seen before.

Yea, I got to see Mount St. Helens dressed in snow!  Heading east from here, the trail leads you to an overlook of the river below and mountain above.

I didn't realize how much land was carved out by the river following the eruption.

You can see the trail along the ridge line to the left.  For the most part, even though I was breaking trail with no clear path in the snow, it was reasonably easy to find my way, though I wouldn't want to do it relying on a headlamp for lighting the way after dark.

The bright sun was great for hiking but not so good for photography.  

Beautiful to see whatever time of day.  The biggest disadvantage of hiking/snowshoeing here is the distance from home.  It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive.  But so much beauty and you won't run into many people either.  I only saw 4 hikers the entire time - on a weekend.  Well worth the trip to get there!

Black Diamond Airport - FAA 95WA

True enough, we have an official FAA recognized airport here in Black Diamond.  You may have a tough time making connections for a flight to Hawaii, however.  With runways 18 and 36 having a runway length of just 2,100 feet long by 40 feet wide and with no radar or ground communications, the airport's use is limited to single engine private planes.  You would also need approval of the private owner, Darrell Bryant, before landing here.  Following is an aerial map from King County showing the runway's location (the label and arrow were inserted by myself)..

Though the FAA officially activated airport 95WA in March 1980, there seems to be limited use with two single engine planes parked here.  Has anyone heard or seen an airplane taking off or landing here?   For more about the airport, follow this link to Airport 95WA.

p.s.  Black Diamond actually has two airports - 95WA and Lake Sawyer.  The lake has long been home to float planes, at least for as long as we have been here dating back to 1981.  Jim Hawk (aka the "First Family of Lake Sawyer") at one time was an avid and frequent flyer, mooring his float plane at the lake during summertime.  With several pilots now living here, we still see plenty of take-offs and landings.  Lake Sawyer certainly has a plenty long runway.  And we shouldn't also forget Crest Air Park located just a few miles to our west, so make that three airports in the vicinity.

Coho Salmon Run Update - No Luck Yet

This past week, I went for a hike along Ravensdale Creek that took me from Lake Sawyer to Ravensdale Lake and back.  Good exercise but no luck in spotting any Coho salmon making their way upstream just yet.  Here's a photo of what we're looking for taken a few years ago.

Let us know if you spot any.  So much fun to watch them spawn.