THIS  Guest Opinion WITH MAPS AND PHOTOS IS PUBLISHED ON CROSSCUT.COM 

Buckley Dam: Stop killing the salmon

After years of delay, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has a deadline to fix the fish-killing structure. But will the work happen?

Guest Opinion

by Michael Garrity: 

The annual return of salmon to the White River, which flows from the Emmons Glacier on Mount Rainier to the Puyallup River, is a cause for celebration among Indian tribes, anglers and everyone who appreciates the unique place salmon hold in the culture of the Pacific Northwest. But that joy turns to dread when thousands of the fish are killed at the 100-year-old Buckley Diversion Dam. Buckley Dam’s fish passage system is terribly outdated, and thousands of salmon – often hundreds of thousands – die as they try to make their way upstream to spawn.

If you visited the Buckley Dam in August…