The connections between climate and hidden hydrology is a continuing theme, and inevitably will result in more examples that can be documented making the connections between present and future impacts and historical ecological systems. Each of these has a specific context, which influences the extent of impacts (urban/rural) and the hydrological dynamics (lakes, rivers, shorelines). The recent flooding in November of this year in the town of Abbotsford, which lies near the border of Washington State and British Columbia is one recent example. The connection was made via Twitter by @tornadodc (Lisa Genialle), who posted the following image of flooded highway overpass with the quote “Anyone who knows their local Fraser valley history, this used to be a lake back in the day. Before it was drained to make way for settler farming.”

I had little reference for this particular region or the Sumas Lake specifically, however was supplied with more context via the subsequent thread of responses, many of which yielded Chad Reimer’s 2018 book “Before We Lost the Lake” which explores the ‘biography’ of the lake and its ‘natural and human history’. This provided some much-needed context for what existed and how the flooding takes the shape of this lost lake.

Reimer outlines a similar story found in many locations, a waterway that had been a vital and ecological benefit to the surrounding environment and a resource to milennial of indigenous people, and was summarily ‘reclaimed’ for farmland through drainage, canalization and pumping in 1924. From the review in the Chilliwack Progress: “For thousands of years, Sumas Lake sat near the centre of local culture and life. Then, nearly 100 years ago, engineers drained Sumas Lake, built a canal to harness the Vedder River, and, in the process, radically transformed the area.” A big missing piece of the narrative also covered by Reimer’s book is the displacement of the indigenous people, who have sought compensation for the lost cultural resource, both as a place of hunting, fishing, and gathering that was eliminated when the lake was filled.

Beyond the Sumas First Nation people, the lake is forgotten by most, or at best a historical footnote. As mentioned on the publisher’s site: “Today, few people are aware that Sumas Lake ever existed. The only reminder is a plaque erected on the old lakeshore, at a rest-stop along the Trans-Canada Highway just east of Whatcom Road, on the historic trail blazed to BC’s gold fields. Yet for millenniums, Sumas Lake was a dynamic, integral part of the region’s natural and human landscape.”

The narrative that hidden hydrology is gone but not forgotten is both a cultural phenomenon (in histories and place names for instance), and ecological one (the loss of ecosystem services by removal of function and resilience), and a hydrological one (systems impacted yet still wanting to function and flow as they once did). The extreme storms exacerbated by climate change take shape in these old patterns. For Sumas Lake, a series of maps show the devolution and the impact of the most recent flooding. The first from Wikipedia is an animation of the lakes removal over the years between 1827, the filling in 1924 and the development through the 1940s. It includes the extent of devastating 1894 flood, which was the impetus for the eventual drainage.

From the Fraser Valley News, an undated map (pre-1924) of the lake shows the original extent of the historic shoreline (referenced here as Lake Sumass) which covered between 9,000 and 11,000 acres inside the valley.

Map of Lake – image from Chad Reimer – via Fraser Valley News

The area had been developed over time, starting with transformation into agricultural fields and while mostly rural productive lands, have also since been developed with some other residential and commericial uses. The map below from an extensive analysis of the flooding by the Tyee as part of an article “Mapping the Flood in Abbotsford“, show the original lake, and also showing the dashed line outlining the extent of the 1894 flood within the confines of the valley as well.

The extent of flooding in 2021 came from the Nooksack River and breached the Sumas River dike. The amount of water overwhelmed the series of pumps, which are able to move 250,000 gallons per minute of water, which became unable to keep up with the sheer amount of flooding and the area was quickly inundated, cutting off roadways and stranding people and livestock. The shape of this water corresponds to the former lake bed, with significant depths estimated in a 2020 study to map worst-case flood scenarios, proved to be a hint at what impacts were to come in an extreme event.

The actual flooding is not as bad as the map scenarios above, but did expand into many areas outlined in the former lake bed, the deepest sections potentially inundating more than 3 meters. The post from the Fraser Valley Current shows many of the scenes of flooding near Abbotsford (seen below) which cut off some routes of evacuation, with some people rescued via helicopter. Sparsely populated, the impacts were severe but could have been much worse in a zone of higher population density.

The impacts to property and life are not to be dismissed and my goal here was not to extensively cover the events at Sumas Lake. The bigger picture was that we do need to make the connection between areas where the historical draining and filling waterbodies for progress and development (and often, ironically for flood protection) does have the potential to give hints at the future impacts of extreme events such as the flooding at Sumas Lake, beyond the loss of habitat and other ecosystem services and the lost resource for indigenous people. The photo below, circa 1900 shows the original lake from Daily Hive (which also is a great overview of the lake’s history), which looks remarkably similar to the photo above of flooding here in 2021 (with another major flood in 1990).

The case in point, that water will inevitably ‘find the level’ and create massive impacts, the memory recall I used to outline this post, and this has implications for life and property with real economic and social impacts. As noted in the Daily Hive story: “A 2016 study by the Fraser Basin Council on the Lower Mainland’s flood management strategy estimated that a repeat of the severity of the 1894 flood would currently cost about $23 billion in damages, including $9 billion in losses to residential, commercial, public, and institutional buildings; $7.7 billion in interrupted cargo shipments; $4.6 billion in infrastructure losses; and $1.6 billion in agricultural losses.”

It’s probably too early to tell how large of an impacts was absorbed by the events fall, but history can instruct us in perhaps knowing the location of impacts and using this as a guide for prevention. This is a more rural example, and I’m working on similar urban examples, which, as climate change continues to impact rainfall and other weather events, will be more and more useful in helping us understand, and plan, for what’s next.


Header Image: Sumas Lake circa 1920 prior to drainage – Agassiz-Harrison Observer

Building on my recent post about the anniversary of the catastrophic flooding of Vanport, I had the opportunity to visit some of the events at the Vanport Mosaic Festival from May 25-June 5. One highlight was a series of tours being offered as part of the events on Memorial Day weekend. The tour started at the Portland Expo Center and looped through key areas of the site, and it was exciting to get access to a few areas that are typically off-limits to people on a regular basis. It was also available as a self-guided walking tour, so they had maps for referencing key Vanport locations overlaid with current conditions

Vanport Tour Map (via Vanport Mosaic)

The back side of the map is supplemented with imagery of sites along the route, giving a feel for what it was like during the height of Vanport. It’s interesting to see these spaces and activities from 70 years ago, and for the most part discover that few traces of this still exist on-site.

Vanport Tour Map (via Vanport Mosaic)

The tour took a bit over an hour, and was led by Clark College professor of geography Heather McAfee, who layered stories and facts onto the tour, and demonstrated a passion for the need to tell the stories of Vanport more widely. While I wished we were able to hop out and explore a bit more, there were a few stops along the way, including this kiosk at one of the parking areas.

A Place in Time Called Vanport – Kiosk

The trail adjacent to the site led Force Lake, one of the amenities of the original Vanport community that was formerly adjacent to the original Recreation Center, and had beaches at the margins. The perimeter is now overgrown and a large wetland zone that is mostly inaccessible except from some narrow paths or to golfers on the west side.

Force Lake

Those other uses are a part of the story. South of the kiosk is a good orientation to the current land use of the majority of the Vanport site today with the western portions occupied by Heron Lakes Golf Course and portions of the east side of the site occupied by Portland International Raceway (PIR), making most of the site not publicly accessible.

Heron Lakes Golf Course
Track at Portland International Raceway (PIR)

Both of these uses contribute to the lack of remnants that remain from the original Vanport site. As our tour wove between the two atop short levees, we struggled to look from map to site and make any meaningful connections, so disconnected these areas were from their original site, with staring golfers wondering why a seemingly lost tour bus was lumbering around in the middle of nothingness as they went about their rounds.

One area that was protected, through the advocacy of groups wanting to preserve some remnant, the old foundation of the original Theater is still visible on a small margin adjacent to one of the sloughs, protected from construction of PIR (Another remnant area of roadway, a portion of North Cottonwood Street) was incorporated into the straighaway of the racetrack). While indistinct, even this tracery of crumbling foundation serves as a powerful marker, even more so due to the almost complete erasure. Many on our group walked on the surface, paused in a moment of silence, and then moved on. It seems odd, but it had a power, and seemed almost sacred, becoming a tangible touchstone for the past.

Remnant foundation of original Vanport Theater building

McAfee (here pictured) used this location, pointing up at the top of a tree to show the relative height of the floodwaters, which were between 22-28′ high depending on where on the site one stood. As McAfee mentioned, people came into the theater to warn of the breach, shouting:

“The Dike has Broke!”

Seeing this and imagining a water line many feet above your head, coupled with the fact that there was a direct sightline here to the original railroad embankment breach point along the western edge of the site, it hammered home the immensity of the event. It also left me in amazement that even more people hadn’t perished.

Tree marking the height of flood waters

The southern apex of the tour swung by Drainage Pump No. 1, which was built in 1917 and worked to remove water from the interior of the levee bottoms. While it helped slow the flood a bit, the fact that it pumped water outside into already swollen creeks meant that it was fighting a losing battle. The pumps still work to dewater the interior the areas today as part of the larger drainage system.

Original Drainage Pump Station

The tour looped to the southeast and a second breach point, then wove back by the original site entrance along Denver Court before returning to the EXPO center. One stop adjacent was a larger wetland area, with another public sign adjacent to the dogpark that also tells the story of Vanport.

Informational signage adjacent to dog park
Additional information marker from Oregon Travel Information Council

The Vanport Wetlands were adjacent to the site, nestled between PIR and the original Vanport site, and the EXPO center to the north. These and are protected today and support a range of wildlife, according to the Travel Oregon site: “This is an excellent site for waterfowl in winter, and southbound shorebirds in late summer, including Pectoral Sandpiper. Summering ducks include Cinnamon and Blue-winged Teal. Many swallows forage over the water in season. Check the wooded edges for warblers, vireos, and tanagers. Yellow-headed Blackbird has nested here. Red-shouldered Hawk appears occasionally, while American Kestrel, Red-tail Hawk, Osprey, and Bald Eagle are expected. Another 0.5 mi NW on Broadacre is Force Lake, a good place to view migrant grebes, ducks, and shorebirds.”

Vanport Wetlands Interpretive Signage
Vanport Wetlands

Vanport Mosaic Exhibits

At the EXPO center post-tour, there were a number of exhibits and groups showcasing topics related to Vanport, social & environmental justice, arts, and culture. The Vanport exhibit was a chance to explore many of the themes around Vanport flood, not just as a historical retrospective but as a way to use this to have new conversations around race. From the site:

“Join us for two weeks of memory activism opportunities, to explore and confront our local past and recent history of “othering” and its tragic consequences.  Through exhibits, documentary screenings, tours, theater, and dialogues we will celebrate the lessons of resilience and resistance as defined and told by historically oppressed communities.”

According to this article about the exhibit from OPB, quoting Laura Lo Forti, the Vanport Mosaic co-founder and co-director:

“…it’s important to remember because I feel like we are experiencing yet another wave of collective historical and cultural amnesia.” 

Vanport Spirit mural

Lots of interesting side stories, including learning more about Levee Ready Columbia, working to protect from flood risk in the context of development and climate change in the slough today, as well as finding all the ways to access some local waterways via the Columbia Slough Watershed Council’s ‘Paddlers Access Guide‘. From the artistic side, a few related events include a documentary of Portland stories around trees, Canopy Stories, and a cool project exploring stores of place through music from the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble “From Maxville to Vanport”. Similar geography, the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center highlights a fascinating slice of Oregon history, and many other stories can be found via the Oregon Heritage Tradition, which “recognizes events that are more than 50 years old, reflect Oregon’s unique character, and have become associated with what it means to be an Oregonian.” Lots more folks at the event, so this is just a snapshot of a few.

Additional Stories

For a more permanent look at some of the art that looks back at Vanport, you take the yellow line north and stop at the Delta Park/Vanport MAX Light Rail Station. From the TriMet site outlining the Public Art on the Yellow Line, there are a number of elements that reference Vanport. Artist Linda Wysong was the primary creator of this stations installation, built in 2004. Elements include foundation remnants embedded in sidewalk, and a range of other specific elements.

These mosaic tile (the original Vanport Mosaic?) of community maps overlay the current Delta Park site onto the city grid of Vanport. Another map shows local river context within the location of the station.

Vanport Mosaic
Close-up of Mosaic

There are also these beautiful bronze railings, which are a nice touchand easy to miss if you’re not looking, featuring “cast artifacts from the Chinookan culture, Vanport and the Portland International Raceway.”

Bronze railing
Close-up of artifacts

Another piece that slipped my attention was some “CorTen steel sculptures recall rooftops adrift in the 1948 floodwaters”. There are also works by Douglas Lynch and Timothy Scott Dalbow are reproduced in porcelain enamel on steel, and “…a cast-bronze scupper channels stormwater into the bioswale below.” Lots I missed as it also seems like there an adjacent water quality pond a sculpture called “Waterlines” which had “Massive steel arcs allude to the engineered landscape and Liberty ships made by Vanport residents” as well as a “glowing monolith of stone, steel and acrylic symbolizes the unity of human and natural worlds.” Guess I need to make another visit.

The stories of Vanport are told in multiple locations, with the help of groups like Vanport Mosaic and local artists. However, as mentioned in the OPB story, our “collective amnesia” about historical events, especially those that involve racial inequities and displacement, requires us to first understand and next confront these narratives. As I talked with people around Portland, it was a mixed bag of whether people even knew about Vanport (many had not) or had any real knowledge of the significant (many, myself included, had not). Hopefully the Vanport Mosaic Festival continues, and energy around more ways to discuss, celebrate, and interpret this spatially, so that these hidden histories and made more visible and persist.


HEADER: Force Lake – image by Jason King (all images in post by Jason King unless otherwise noted).

I’ve been wanting to write this one for a bit, as I often stumble upon interesting articles that veer widely away from the core subject matter but still have a resonance with the hidden hydrology project (or at least my expansive view of it). While cosmic in nature, are there clues to be gleaned from other worlds and applied to our planet that can inform our relationship with water? Even if not, if you’re interested in water, it’s pretty fun to explore the most distant and hidden hydrological processes, even in brief, from the Moon, Mars, and some of the interstellar stories around our solar system.

CLOSE TO HOME: MOON

Our Moon is unique is having been studied extensively, and due to proximity, having had humans visit and walk on the surface. There has been speculation on water on the Moon, and when viewed from afar, a long history of people seeing ‘rivers’ on the moon. These may be features like this depression, seen here via the Earth Science Picture of the Day, showing Rima Hadley, “…an ancient rille… [which] may be the remnant of a collapsed lava tube. Lava from an erupting fissure may assume drainage patterns similar to overland water flow.”

Rima Hadley – image via EPOD

More recent work is augmenting these hydrological stories with data about the actual presence of water. Some of this, via Express: “NASA’S scientists have found proof to suggest surface waters on the Moon have been hidden in plain sight for decades, according to a shocking lunar meteor impact study.” The water vapor released by the impacts explains a bit of the mystery of water on the Moon, which accumulates at the polar caps, which had been posited to have come from other sources like solar winds. The water vapor lasted a short time, which is indicative of the relatively small amounts of lunar water, around 200-500 parts per million. Or, by another measure, per the article: “It is so dry that one would need to process more than a metric ton of regolith in order to collect 16 ounces of water.

RED PLANET/BLUE PLANET: MARS

Similarly, the presence of subsurface water is also changing our perceptions of Mars. Most recently, a parade of articles discussed evidence of, water on the red planet, with some speculating on this a proof of alien life, others speculating about gushing rivers that were wider than the Mississippi. The consistent theme as mentioned in the Independent, is the presence of “…a vast and active system of water running underneath the surface of Mars.” While it is broadly a reference to our further our understanding of Mars as a planet, scientists say it could also yield some clues for Earth hydrology, as it is speculated that the water was coming from “a deep pressurized source from where water is pushed up.” This is a similar to desert systems here on our planet.

From the image above: “The bright top line represents the icy surface of Mars in this region. The south polar layered deposits – layers of ice and dust – are seen to a depth of about 1.5 km. Below is a base layer that in some areas is brighter than the surface reflections, highlighted in blue, while in other places is rather diffuse. The details of the reflected signals from the base layer yield properties that correspond to liquid water. “

Analysis of the specifics show the water ‘carving’ the landscape, and creating valleys, with additional topographic analysis revealing complex watershed on the surfaces.

” This colour-coded topographic view shows the relative heights of the terrain in and around the network of dried-up valleys on Mars. Lower parts of the surface are shown in blues and purples, while higher altitudes show up in whites, yellows, and reds, as indicated on the scale to the top right. ” via Independent

A similar story from Space.com explains the theories that “Mars Had Big Rivers for Billions of Years“, which discusses the persistence of flows after loss of atmosphere, up until a billion years ago. Scientists conducted: “a global survey of Mars’ ancient waterways, characterizing more than 200 such systems using imagery and other data captured from orbit. They derived age estimates for these rivers by counting craters in the surrounding terrain. The team’s work suggests that Martian rivers flowed intermittently but intensely over much of the planet’s 4.5-billion-year history, driven by precipitation-fed runoff. The rivers’ impressive width — in many cases, more than twice that of comparable Earth catchments — is a testament to that intensity.  It’s unclear how much water Martian rivers carried, because their depth is hard to estimate. Determining depth generally requires up-close analysis of riverbed rocks and pebbles, Kite said, and such work has only been done in a few locations on Mars, such as Gale Crater, which NASA’s Curiosity rover has been exploring since 2012.”

There are also lakes, which are indicated by reflectivity, adjacent to larger areas of frozen ice near the poles of Mars. The Guardian, from a 2018 article “Mars: huge underground lake raises prospects of life on planet, astronomers say.” which makes the connection not to Martians in the sci-fi sense, but rather to the conditions for simple life forms:

“It is the first time that researchers have identified a stable body of liquid water on the red planet. The finding raises the likelihood that any microbial life that arose on Mars may continue to eke out a rather bleak existence deep beneath the surface. “

A deeper dive worth reading is also this article from published in the Planetary Society in 2017, “Unraveling a Martian enigma: The hidden rivers of Arabia Terra” which provide more investigation of remnant traces of what may be “Mars’ largest flood plain”.

Topographic map of mars – via Planetary.org

Speculation on the climate of Mars as potentially hotter and wetter, which may . The author posits that frozen ice sheets in the northern segments regularly thawed from heating events, and this liquid water would flow and create river systems. Strangely enough, these former rivers express themselves in inverted channels, which are described below:

“A river preserved as a ridge seems like a bit of a paradox, but inverted channels are fairly common on Mars. They occur when the river sediment within the channel becomes resistant to erosion (this can happen chemically, due to interaction with water, or by the deposition of large pebbles and boulders within the channel). Once the channel ceases to flow, the material adjacent to the channel—perhaps flood plain deposits—gets eroded at a faster rate than the channel, leaving the channel upstanding in the landscape. Inverted channels are also found in desert environments on the Earth, such as in Oman or Utah, where low rates of erosion can aid with their preservation. “

Inverted channel on Mars (Aram Dorsum) – via Planetary.org
Inverted channel on Earth (Green River, Utah) – via Planetary.org

EUROPA SPACE GEYSERS: JUPITER

The beauty of these flows are represented similarly on Europa, a moon of Jupiter that has had an icy surface that shows a varying mosaic on its surface. From CNET: “New analysis of measurements taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft over 20 years ago provides more evidence that water from an ocean beneath Europa’s icy shell is shooting out into space via at least one large geyser.” The story goes on to add:

“Europa’s hidden waters have become a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life…”

The layering of imagery from Galileo from 1997, combined with more detailed analysis. Below, the striations and flows are highlighted, and in the second shown with “The blue-white terrains indicate relatively pure water ice, whereas the reddish areas contain water ice mixed with hydrated salts, potentially magnesium sulfate or sulfuric acid.”

image via CNET

The space geysers are also reinforced with more recent views from the Hubble Telescope, which has necessitated a future mission to gather more info. A recent fly-by by Cassini of Saturn, which has moons of similar type with a large under-ice ocean, has also led to even alien life. This combination of heated water under ice, in a interstellar ocean of Europa, and a similar Saturn moon, Enceladus, could, as posited here, also be the building blocks for life on other planets.

RAIN ON TITAN: SATURN

Beyond Mars and the Moon, more distant planets also have also liquid stories. A 2017 article in Universe Today, pointed out that Titan, the largest moon of Saturn “…is the only other world in our Solar System that has stable liquid on its surface.” This liquid surface is not water, but made up of methane and ethane, along with nitrogen, and the Cassini mission provided interesting info on the constantly fluctuating surface, including a disappearing and reappearing island, along with speculation of wave action. It’s also pretty interesting to note that there is precipitation as well:

On Titan, it rains. But the rain is composed of extremely cold methane. As that methane falls to the surface, it absorbs significant amounts of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The rain hits Titan’s surface and collects in the lakes on the moon’s polar regions.

This is most evident in polar lakes, referred to as ‘mare‘, from the latin for sea, which, like the moon, reference their being seen as water bodies similar to earth.

Ligeia Mare, a large polar water body on Titan – image via Universe Today

To take this idea to the logical extreme, a map of the Ligeia Mare with the adjacent drainage shows that hydrology (In this case not hidden, just very distance), whether it be Earth-based on a distant moon of Saturn, and consisting of water or a brew of methane, still follows those similar characteristics of gravity, topography, and flow.

A Map of Ligeia Mare by an amateur cartographer (Peter Minton) – via Wikipedia

HEADER: Image of Mars taken by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express satellite show the marks that an ancient network of rivers have left on the planet’s surface – via Independent

The story of Vanport is a critical narrative woven into Portland’s water history, and gives a hint at the dynamic nature of river/city interactions, along with formative context for race and class relations that shaped the community, both in positive and negative ways.  This 2016 documentary from the Oregon Experience provides a compelling and well illustrated history of the Vanport community that’s worth a watch.

From the cover of the video: “During the early 1940s, Vanport, Oregon was the second largest city in the state and the single-largest federal housing project in the country.  Built quickly to house men and women coming to work in the Portland/Vancouver shipyards during World War II, Vanport boasted some 42,000 residents at its peak and offered progressive services for its diverse population. But one afternoon in 1948, a catastrophic flood destroyed the entire city, leaving about 18,500 people still living there suddenly homeless. Vanport tells the story of a forgotten city: how it was created and once thrived; and how it changed the region forever. It features first hand, personal accounts of former residents and dramatic, rarely-seen archival film and images.”

The origin story here is around World War II, and the wartime shipbuilding, and Henry J. Kaiser, who operated 3 major shipyards that built over – two in Portland, in St. Johns and Swan Island, and another across the river in Vancouver, which built over 750 ships and employed around 100,000 people at their peak in the early 1940s.

Kaiser Shipyards – Oregon Encyclopedia

In order to house the growing and diverse population of shipbuilders, who were coming for a mix of opportunity and patriotism, Kaiser proposed in 1942 to build what would become the largest wartime housing project in the United States, a new community of over 40,000 people in a 650 acre tract wedged between the Columbia River and Columbia Slough in North Portland. The plan of the community, completed in 1943, shows the general layout, including over 9,900 individual apartments, built cheaply and quickly. The size and diversity of the community, which included a diversity of White, Black, Asian, and Native American workers, as well as a large percentage of the workforce made up of women, who were recruited from all around the country to come to Portland to support the war effort.

Map of Vanport – Oregon Encyclopedia

From the documentary, the community also had a hospital, police station, library, fire station, transit, shopping, grocery, schools, recreation centers and even a move theater. While there was an effort to make the community livable, and improve ‘quality of life’, the goal was also production, with buses ferrying workers to and from shipyards, which operated 24 hours a day.

Aerial view of Vanport – from the Oregon Encyclopedia

The relationship of the plan is woven around water, and the history of flooding of the wetlands and sloughs within which Vanport was built could be said to be both amenity and omen. Some images from the documentary show life around these waterways, including beaches on one of the two lakes, and some exploration around the Slough and it’s tributaries that wove throughout the community.

Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)

As mentioned in the documentary, the cafeteria was located adjacent to the beach on one of the lakes, with water-loving cottonwoods woven throughout. And beyond what was referred to as a “slightly ill-kempt public park”, kids found waters of the Slough the real playground, using make-shift rafts to find turtles, bullfrogs, and tadpoles.

Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)

Post World-War II the idea was for the temporary city to be demolished, and as people starting moving out, some structures were removed. A housing crisis kept Vanport a necessity, as a combination of post-internment Japanese, blacks who could not find housing due to red-lining in the greater Portland area, and lack of housing for post-war returning soldiers, all combining to provide affordable, if somewhat ramshackle, housing for a variety of residents. There was also a Vanport College, founded in some of the vacant buildings, which eventually became Portland State University. For the growing Portland area, “mud on the shoes” meant you were from Vanport, which was seen by the greater Portland community through the lenses of racism as a slum.

In the winter of 1947-48, conditions started to shift towards catastrophe. Heavy snowfall coupled with more intense spring rains swelled the Columbia Rise, which flowed in mid-May at a rate of 900,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), which was almost double the normal flow. This led to the need for reinforcing dikes and sandbagging, along with regular patrols by the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure the perimeter was solid. At this point, there was a question of whether to evacuate, and an emergency meeting was held, but the thinking was that the dikes would hold, and if not people would get plenty of warming. A few days later things changed dramatically.

River Stage levels in late spring 1948 – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)

The entire Vanport area, as former lowlands, was surrounding on all four sides with dikes in order to keep the adjacent waters at bay. The massive vulnerability of the perimeter meant a lot of potential failure points. The dike along the railroad lines to the northwest of Vanport separated Smith Lake from the lower-lying Vanport area was just that failure point, seen in the map below.

Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)

The 30′ berm was ostensibly about protection of the railroad, so the integrity to hold that massive amount of water back during a huge flood event was less a priority, so water levels from Smith Lake started spilling over the dike, the railroad berm started degrading with water boils appearing and seeping thorugh, and on 4:17pm on the May 30th, the breach happened, as mentioned, a “600 foot section melted away.”

Railroad embankment failure – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)

Sirens blared, and people grabbed anything they could get their hands on to evacuated to nearby Kenton. As people recounted stories of “a wall of water” and climbed to their roofs to be rescued, it was exacerbated by the housing, which was built cheaply and without solid foundations, which began to float around, knocking into each other, as seen in the images below.

Houses in the aftermath – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)

The sloughs filled up with the initial flows, so people had 30 minutes to escape. With only one route available, Denver Avenue, the road was quickly jammed, and people started fearing that this area would also fail, so continued to sandbag and reinforce this zone, and people started walking through water as vehicles and buses were stuck. By Monday morning, Denver Avenue was also breached, along with other perimeter dikes, inundating the entire community. The extent of flooding wasn’t localized to Vanport, as it impacted the entire city and it was estimated to have caused over $100 million in damages throughout the basin. The displacement of 1000s of people meant that the flooding of Vanport was some of the biggest impacts, and they were long-lasting well after the water subsided.

via Vanport (Oregon Experience)

There have been a number of stories that have covered the events around Vanport life and flooding, including loss of life, as well as its aftermath, such as investigating the absence of accountability for inaction on evacuation and the lack of dike maintenance that could have prevented the disaster. I’ve not seen critical analysis in general of the general wisdom of occupying the spaces and places like Vanport and its flood susceptibility, which were chosen hastily to fill a need, such as emergency housing in war-time, but are perhaps much less suitable for people to live long-term. Should the city have been demolished after ship-building slowed? It shows the impacts of larger social forces on disasters, and the brunt of that impact being felt by frontline communities.

Some of that aftermath is capture in this snippet from the Oregon Encyclopedia: “Refugees crowded into Portland, a city still recovering from the war. Part of the problem was race, for more than a thousand of the flooded families were African Americans who could find housing only in the growing ghetto in North Portland. The flood also sparked unfounded but persistent rumors in the African American community that the Housing Authority had deliberately withheld warnings about the flood and the city had concealed a much higher death toll.”

Iconic image of man holding boy – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)

The erasure of that history is part of this larger story, with little remnant or physical marking of the place and event as what was left of Vanport was demolished, burned, or auctioned., which is now occupied in parts with West Delta Park, Portland International Raceway, and Heron Lakes Golf Course. As summed up in the Oregon Experience, there is to this day:

“Little to remind anyone of a ‘once thriving city.'”

It an important piece of history around both race, building, and hydrology to investigate in Portland, so expect to hear more about this. The Vanport Mosaic site provides a great opportunity to learn more, and there are some other films on the topic, including a documentary ‘Vanport and the Columbia River Floods of 1948‘, produced by the National Weather Service, and ‘The Wake of Vanport‘, produced by local independent paper The Skanner in 2016.


HEADER: Image of flooding with newspaper Headline – via Oregon Experience

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Leaflet, \r\n© OpenStreetMap contributors

I’ve been wanting to write about Seattle’s Green Lake, which is an addition to round out the post these small Seattle lake stories, and supplement the coverage of the larger lakes Union and Washington.  Green Lake has a special place for me, having lived close to it our entire time in Seattle, it’s been a place for fun, recreation, and even protest.  This really cool cross-time image from Then & Again shows the juxtaposition of the current with the old, and Green Lake spanning this , here with “…the majestic USS Macon gliding above Seattle’s Green Lake on August 22, 1934. The airship was traveling to its new station near San Francisco but took a leisurely route with time for a number of photo ops along the way.”

The history of the lake goes back to similar era to the smaller Bitter and Haller Lakes and the larger Lake Union and Washington, as mentioned on the Seattle Parks website: “Geologists say the Vashon Glacial Ice Sheet, which also formed Puget Sound and other area lakes, formed Green Lake 50,000 years ago. Dredgings of Green Lake have produced volcanic ash from an eruption of Glacier Peak that occurred about 6,700 years ago.”  The original lake was lowered 7-8 feet as park of early 20th Century Park improvements, and this 2014 article from Seattle Greenlaker  ‘Olmsted and the Origin of Green Lake Park‘ offers a good introduction to the modern incarnation of the park and this process. In that post, it links to this great map from 1907 from the National Association of Olmsted Parks, which shows the development of Green Lake Boulevard and the areas near the lake as part of this process, and the first evolution of Green Lake as part of the overall Park System.

Via Seattle Greenlaker – Caption: Courtesy Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, National Park Service, 02714-21. Used with permission.

If you were, like me, temporarily disoriented for a bit, it helps to rotate this drawing so north is up, and the more familiar shapes and lobes of the lake become clearer. I’ve also highlighted the old shoreline (dashed line) and the new shoreline (solid line w/ blue fill), so it’s clearer where the drawdown left space for the trails and more usable open spaces, with amenities like Boat Houses and beaches.  The map also has information on the inlets and outlets, which I’ve highlighted below in a bit more detail for reference.

If you remember back a bit to my post of the exploration of Licton Springs, the sketch above is instructive, as this inlet #1 shows an inlet with a specific reference: the “Brook inlet box culvert 2’x6′ from Licton Min. Sprg.”, showing the subsurface connection to the spring that had been filled in previously but was still flowing from the north.  A Bathhouse is shown, which does not currently exist, but there is a swimming beach access which is still in place today, along with the splash play and some open spaces.

There is another pair of inlets #2 a bit further west, near Corliss Avenue, with a label “Inlet box 1 1/2′ x 2′” and near there is one with a note “Old Inlet 18″x18” wood box” which has a note “very little flow now – some sewerage seems to enter it now.”

The final inlet #3, is to the west, showing a connection to an “Inlet-brook, 6′ wide, 3″ deep” that comes from the northwest, running under the streetcar track in a culvert before coming into the lake.

On the opposite side of the Lake, heading southeast, there is the Outlet, which is marked #4, near 4th Avenue (a few blocks from the proposed boulevard which would become current day Ravenna Boulevard), which was the natural drainage of Green Lake into Ravenna Creek.  The reconfiguration of this zone and the shift of the shoreline created a larger area that now has sports fields, as well as a boat house and what is a popular beach access spot today.  This is also adjacent to the larger commercial zone which is the hub of activity adjacent to the lake.

 

These flows in and out correlates somewhat with the 1850s maps, but does closely align with the the USGS Topo Map from 1894 (see below) of Green Lake that identify three inlets from the north and the Ravenna outlet heading southeast – which does line up with the hydrology shown on these 1907 drawings.

Historical Topographic Map Collection

The formal plan as presented to the Seattle Parks Commission in 1910 mirrors much of the modern day condition, with the lowered water levels providing for perimeter trails, new plantings, a new island, some amenities such as beaches and boathouses, and the boulevard that rings the park (the western half of which was transformed with the routing of Aurora Boulevard (Highway 99).

 

And another version, this one from 1925 showing a more colorful version of this, “Proposed Plan for the Development of Green Lake” via the Seattle Municipal Archives Digital Collections.  This map dashes in the existing and proposed shorelines

I posted previously about the fun bathymetry maps, which included Green Lake. Another map I like is this one ‘Showing Depth Contours of Green Lake’ via the Seattle Municipal Archives Flickr page, which was done in 1938 as part of the Sanitary Survey by the WPA and featured in the “Report on Green Lake Algae Control”, which highlights perennial water quality issue . It reinforced that the lake is relatively shallow, with maximum depths no greater than 25′ feet on the western edge.  It also identifies some of the hydrology, including overflows, intake from the City resevoir, and to the west, a “permanent inlet from deep springs” which is a fascinating addition both due to it’s mystery and also it’s location, which is not shown on later maps but does appear in the 1950s map.

The history of the lake beyond that Olmsted plan has many facets and this Chronology is helpful to see the evolution.  There many tales (and History Link is a great resource here) that connect with Seattle history, such as in 1869, when David Denny “…kills what is likely the last elk in Seattle, near Green Lake. The elk weighs 630 pounds.”, or 1893 when a cold spell froze the lake completely over. including  of Hydroplane boat races in the 1930s, as well as a cleanup and redesign in 1936.  Lots of history and evolution I won’t get into here, as it’d take days, but my favorite lost part of the Green Lake history, which I only discovered by accident after visiting the park many times, is the Aqua Theater, built in 1950 on the south edge of the lake as a 5,500 seat performance venue, built in a little more than two months coinciding with the first of what is now an annual Sea Fair.

The venue hosted a range of events included the annual Aqua Follies, which included ” Water ballets, diving exhibitions and clown acts took place in the pool and on the stage behind. Many of the Aqua Follies mermaids were recruited in Minneapolis before June 1, and began practicing before Seattle area college students finished their school term.”  There were some notable music shows including 1969, which featured Led Zepplin and The Grateful Dead, which was one of the final shows at the venue before it was shut down.

The lake as a locus for recreation has stayed consistent over the years, with lots of walkers and joggers circling the 3 mile loop, along with water access via boat rentals, rowing, and use of adjacent open spaces sports fields, and even a Par 3 golf course.  Water quality issues are a perpeutual issue, but it doesn’t stop it from being the busiest park in the state of Washington, with over a million visitors a year.

Postcard circa 1950s – via Seattle Greenlaker – https://www.seattlegreenlaker.com/2017/06/green-lake-seattle/


HEADER: 1987 Aerial view of Green Lake – via Seattle Public Archives

An email from a reader of the site posed a few interesting questions about the two small lakes in the northern sections of Seattle, specifically discussing the current and historical outflows of these lakes.  I’ve discussed the small lakes in brief here, related maps of their bathymetry and tangentially in the context of Licton Springs. However, this was a good instigation to to focus on some more specifics of these urban water bodies.  I will refrain from my tendency to write another way-too-long post (of which this will inevitably turn into) and parcel this out in a few shorter ones, the first focusing on drainage questions (of which these are all connected) and then individual posts on Haller Lake, Bitter Lake, and Green Lake, as they are important parts of the hydrological history of Seattle.

To understand the overall configuration of water in Seattle, I did find this document by Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) titled ‘City of Seattle State of the Waters 2007‘. The first volume covers Seattle Watercourses, (which we will probably return to in the future), and in particular for our purposes here we look to Volume II: Seattle Small Lakes’  (both links above go to the PDFs – as I couldn’t find a page with a direct link) and it sounds like a great resource in need of an update.

For some general contents, a bit on lakes in general and their outfalls, from Vol. II, p.3:  “Lakes receive inflow from their surrounding watersheds through rivers, watercourses, overland and subsurface flow, and — in developed areas — from drainage pipes. Water typically exists a lake through a watercourse or river, although the outflows of most lakes in Seattle have been channeled into constructed drainage systems.”

HISTORIC DRAINAGE

In general, all three lakes are formed from Vashon glaciation, and as I mentioned previously, per geologist Stan Chernicoff, both Bitter and Haller lakes would be considered true kettle lakes, and Green Lake a hybrid, although still formed by glaciation.  The 1850s map locates the three Lakes, all of which are in the north portion of Seattle, but doesn’t offer too much in terms of drainage direction, aside from implying proximity between Thornton Creek drainage for Haller Lake, and Bitter Lake likely draining west due to proximity, neither show a visible outfall creek.

Green Lake it’s more obvious, with multiple inflows, including Licton Springs Creek, and the very distinct outflow that drains through Ravenna Creek southeast into Union Bay.

The 1894 USGS map offers us the aid of topography, along with a bit more more comprehensive creek coverage. Bitter Lake hints at the possibility of outfalls either direction, heading to the northwest down to ravines that skirt The Highlands and the Seattle Golf Club and outlet near Spring Beach, and also draining southeast towards a seasonal drainage. Haller Lake (titled Welsh Lake on the map) also has no visible outfall as well, but adjacent creeks that are part of Thornton Creek drainage nearby, and a wetland area to the south make me infer that these  would be like to be the natural drainage course of the lake.

Green Lake’s hydrology is a lot simpler to discern, with the similar inputs and outputs via the Ravenna outlet to the wetland zones near University Village and outlets into Union Bay.

TWO ALTERNATIVE THEORIES ON HISTORICAL DRAINAGE

One part I’ve always been a bit skeptical about in the USGS map is the location and extent of the drainage from Thornton Creek that looks to curve way west and intercept any south flow from the Bitter and Haller Lakes and direct it to the east to the larger Thornton Creek Basin.  Licton Springs Creek also flows south, and is in reality much further north than shown on maps, and the interface between the two basins if filled with springs and wetlands, so it’s likely there could have been some disconnect between what was there flowing south, and what was mapped flowing east.  However,  Alternative 1 uses the basis of the map as the correct flowline, so shows both Bitter Lake and Haller Lake draining towards a seasonal creek and wetland that exists in the South Branch of Thornton Creek, and a smaller drainage picking up Licton Springs Creek draining into Green Lake.  This mapped, overlaid on the 1894 map, shows an option for the lakes draining east, into Lake Washington. Dashed lines, for reference, are really basic watershed delineations, and the arrows show flow from lakes.

My gut is that both lakes flowed into Green Lake, via Licton Springs Creek, and then continued out to Ravenna.  Alternative 2 looks at a version of this where there is more of a distinct ridgeline separation between the Thornton Creek Basin and the drainage that flows north south, and that the survey misinterpreted the flowline that heads towards the east due to the aforementioned springs and wetlands.  The fact that the Licton Springs Creek is much further north than mapped, makes me posit that the upper lakes drained to this transfer point, and that instead of falling east, the flows kept going south into Green Lake, via the Licton Springs. Overlaid on the modern topography gives a bit of context to this configuration.

Both of these options are plausible, and the current outflows of the lakes (seen below) support this, with Bitter Lake draining to the Southeast and Haller Lake draining West.  This at least gives us the indication that these both flowed to the low north/south valley (where current Highway 99/Aurora Avenue runs), however, where they go after is still a bit of a mystery. My follow-up plan is to look at some Lidar or a DEM to provide a much clearer picture of the flowlines and ridgelines, which we can assume, much like the current topo, is mostly similar to its predevelopment configurations (i.e. places in Seattle where we didn’t move hills).  This will go beyond this back of the napkin approach above and see if that higher degree of detail unlocks any new info.

CURRENT DRAINAGE
While it’s hard to determine the exact nature of pre-development drainage on these lakes, we can infer much from these historic documents and topography.  The current system is more clear, although not visibly inherent due to the modernization and piping of drainage through large intercepter sewers – in this case the Densmore Avenue Drainage System, which runs north/south around the low flowline at Aurora Avenue (Highway 99).

The first hint of the split of drainage is in the State of the Waters, where both Bitter Lake and Haller Lake fall outside of their adjacent drainages going west to Piper’s Creek and east to Thornton Creek.  Figure 1 from the report shows a narrow band that is bisected by this linear north south zone, with both creeks located inside the boundary.

A search for the nature of this basin configuration is somewhat frustrating, mostly as it seems to be specifically not related to a creek so isn’t referenced as a watershed in the same way.  The SPU site on Urban Watersheds breaks down the city into four distinct areas of drainage, including the Puget Sound, Lake Washington, and the Duwamish River, as well as this uniquely land-locked zone we’re focused on, known as the Ship Canal/Lake Union basin

This is subdivided into some smaller sub-basins,including the Ship Canal Basin, the South Lake Union, and our zone, the North Lake Union Basin, which stretches up to the northern lakes, in that same narrow band, encompassing their drainages, then around Green Lake, and south to the interface with Lake Union.

The specific acrobatics that the Densmore Basin does to get down to Lake Union is hinted at but there’s not a lot of great maps, in particular the last section which .  This excerpt from the Seattle Comprehensive Plan Update Draft EIS from May 4, 2015 shows the ‘capacity constrained’ condition. but does highlight the basin and it’s

I dug a bit more and found another mystifyingly badly interfaced GIS portal, this time Drainage Basins layer from City of Seattle, embedded below.  Again, need to download the data and have a bit more freedom to sort it out in order to display it in a better way, but you get the idea from this map (especially if you zoom in on the areas below Green Lake, and can see the basin outline snaking in a thin, gerrymandered strip beside I-5.

 

The lakes themselves fit within the infrastructure systems, as seen below.  The City of Seattle Water and Sewer Map , which I thought would be helpful but really isn’t because you have to zoom way in to show pipes and so lose context, so it  doesn’t clearly articulate the drainage system elements enough to isolate (i included a few screenshots), so probably need to get some GIS files to draw these and separate mains, branches, etc. to isolate systems, but the narratives are pretty clear in explaining the outfall scenarios.

Haller Lake, which is around 15 acres of drainage, and has a maximum depth of 36 feet, get’s inputs from adjacent residential drainage areas (280 acre drainage), now drains via the Densmore system, as mentioned in State of the Waters, Vol II, the lake “…discharges through an outlet control structure on the western side of the lake, eventually draining to Lake Union via the Densmore storm drain system.”

Bitter Lake, measures 18.4 acres with a max depth of 31 feet, draining a smaller area (159 acre drainage). This lake is also being drained into the Densmore system, from the State of the Waters, Vol II, page 25: “At its southeastern end, Bitter Lake drains through a piped outlet that runs through a series of small ditches and culverts before entering the Densmore storm drain system on Aurora Avenue North.  The Densmore system is equipped with a low-flow bypass, which conveys runoff directly to Lake Union. Under high-flow conditions, runoff passes through Green Lake before discharging to Lake Union.”

Green Lake, has a surface area of 259 acres, and a shallow depth, maxing out at around 30 feet, drains a basin of 1875 acres of surrounding area, as well as getting inputs from the Densmore system, as mentioned above.  Alas, it now no longer drains into Ravenna Creek, but is diverted, per the State of the Waters, Vol II, and“now discharges to Lake Union through a single outlet located near Meridian Avenue North.  In the past, Green Lake also discharged to the combined sewer system via a number of outlets around the lake. However, these outlets were recently blocked and now are used by Seattle Parks and Recreation only during rainstorms of long duration when the Meridian Avenue North outlet is not adequate to maintain water levels in Green lake.”

 


HEADER: Haller Lake from above – via Windemere

 

 

As I alluded to in the previous post on smaller lakes, the large Seattle lakes provide the form and contribute to the overall sense of place. River cities are shaped differently than coastal and lake cities, and the relationship with water differs due to this morphology. In either case, any urban waterway will exist in balance with many factors of urbanization, industrialization, influencing the ecological and social connections between hydrological and other systems.

In addition, because these larger water bodies exist in tandem with anthropocentric activities, they accumulate a mix of the odd and off-beat. And while I was excited about the idea of “Searching for the Mystery Sharks of Seattle”, those particular mysteries ended up a bit further outside the realm of our local water bodies. However, in Seattle, there is still evidence of some strange things in both Lake Washington and Lake Union, worth a bit of exploration.

LAKE UNION

Starting with Lake Union, which seems to have a bit less info, this article from Seattle Magazine from 2013, “Unlocking Lake Union’s waterlogged secrets — one sunken treasure at a time” is a good overview of some of the exploration.

One endeavor is the Center for Wooden Boats and their Underwater Archeology Project, starting in 2008. A good overview of this is the form of a post from 2011 by Dick Wagner “Beneath the Waters” recounts some of the finds, including a range of boats from back into the 1880s, as well as cars, motorcycles and even a Vespa scooter.

A video ‘Shipwrecks of Lake Union: Seattle’s Hidden History” the explorations from 2012:  “This short video documents the Lake Union underwater archaeology project that The Center for Wooden Boats Founding Director Dick Wagner has been helping lead for the last several years. CWB is working with the UW’s Burke Museum, The State Department of Ecology, and others to locate and document vessels and other historic artifacts. Using the latest in underwater technology, divers and amateur archaeologists have been scouring the 40-foot-deep lake, looking at more spots where sunken vessels lie.”

The Lake Union Virtual Museum also has a nice map of a few of the wrecks on their site, clickable with some photos of some of the 100s of wrecks in the lakes (go to the link to interact)

The wreck of the J.E. Boyden, which is one of the finds of the Underwater Archaeology Project above, is located in the south part of the lake, “One of the oldest and best documented wrecks in Lake Union, the J.E. Boyden was built in 1888 and has been on the lake bottom since 1935.”

The Global Underwater Explorers Seattle group, which educates divers.  From their site:  “our exploration projects will have the ultimate goal of gathering consistent observational data and documenting the degradation or appreciation of our submerged resources over time.  Through data analysis, we aim to drive policy-changing efforts to conserve, protect and create public awareness for our submerged resources”  They also maintain Project Baseline, which is an interactive online map which displays bathymetry of Lake Union and Washington, with documentation of these wrecks as well as unknown and unexplored underway element.  The Lake Union area in whole, which also shows the lake to be quite shallow, maxing out at about 40 feet at the deepest points.

A zoom in on the south section offers some interesting underwater topography, and the information about the Boyden, with a pop-up of info.  Go to the map and check it out and you can see the distinct shape of the boat on the surface.

There’s definitely some novelty to the concept of shipwrecks, and the information appeals to a certain geeky longing that seems visceral to the water.  As summed in the Seattle Magazine article there’s more to it that that:

“The effort to record these old wrecks is not simply a matter for scuba heads or boat geeks. Lake Union is the heart of Seattle’s maritime origins; filling in the story of its transformation from a pristine natural lake to a center for industry (including sawmills, brick making and boatbuilding) to a recreation hub through photos and film is of tremendous value.”

LAKE WASHINGTON

As for Lake Washington, the significantly larger water body, it doesn’t take much digging to uncover a range of good stories and mysteries.  A 2014 KUOW Story is a good starting point: “What’s On The Botton of Lake Washington? Planes, Trains And…” hints at the diversity of subsurface elements, including planes “ Lake Washington is like a treasure trove for old plane wrecks. There are at least seven at the bottom of the Lake. They’re a frozen piece of our wartime history, a time when mock air battles raged over these waters. Midair collisions would send airplanes crashing into the lake.”

SHIPS

One there’s no shortage of, much like Lake Union, are ships, many of them either lost in accidents, or purposely scuttled.  Per the KUOW story, “…there are about 400 boats beneath the surface: ferries, barges, three Navy minesweepers, mostly in the shallower waters off Kirkland, where the Lake Washington Shipyards used to be. Now, it’s a graveyard for wrecked boats. “These are full-on, full-sized ferries on the bottom, right underneath all the yachts that are parked there now,” said diver Ben Griner, also aboard.  As for the minesweepers, one day they were docked, the next they were gone.”

For as long as there’s been water and something staring into its depths, there’s been the desire to dive in and see what’s underneath.  Overlapping with the Global Underwater Explorers (GUE Seattle), is the Maritime Documentation Society, (link is to Facebook, as their original link is bad) is one of those groups that do this on a regular basis, with a mission.  From their page, it is focused on  “exploration and documentation of existing, undiscovered, and natural historic shipwrecks. Our goal is to create public awareness and expand the wealth of history for present and future generations.”  

Some good videos are also found via DCS Films, which is ‘Dedicated to Advanced Technical Diving and Underwater Cinematography’ is a good resource to see what its like submarine, and they have some info on Lake Washington Relics.  A clip from a story from “KCPQ 13 on the artifacts of Lake Washington A joint effort of the Maritime Documentation Society, DCS Films, and GUE Seattle” offers a bit of the footage.

Similarly the afforementioned GUE-Seattle has some great info about explorations on their blog, along with the maps shown before.  Some of the stories of the dives are a fun read, to understand that equipped with a bit of info such as a general location and some scans, the fun is in exploration.  One such as this exploration of LW250, an unknown object, seen here in the bathymetric view.

And the interesting perspective of the side sonar imagery, seen below.

From the post: “We found a well-preserved wooden sailboat in good condition and it was a pleasure exploring it. As is true with most fish stories and dive stories, this was the most spectacular boat even found. It had a hole in the deck with treasures of very old bottles, ledgers of misplaced bank funds, police ID badges, a revolver, and an attaché case chained to the railing…..actually it had none of that, but it was as exciting as if it did. Just to be there on this boat that no one had ever seen was thrilling. The boat actually had a Washington state registration number and the last year sticker on the side was 1983.”

A snip of the GUE-Seattle Bathymetry shows part of the Lake (it’s a really big lake) showing a range of underwater explorations, and also the relative depths, as you see see beyond the east side tidal zones, the edge of Lake washington falls off sharply from the Seattle shoreline (on the left side of the map).

And while the shipwrecks are cool, I’m really fascinated with the bathymetric info as an interesting exploration of hidden hydrology that goes beyond creeks and rivers – especially as there was so much manipulation of the Lake levels amidst the re-plumbining of the entire region, this information provides some great clues to a history unique to a lake-shaped city.

AN UNDERWATER FOREST

My interest in this topic in general was piqued by the May 2011 KUOW story “The spooky, underwater forests of Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish”, which describes 1000 year old forests off the edges of areas of both lakes. Remnants of an 1100 year old seismic event, areas of these forests were discovered   The caption helps explain this image : ” This image is a close up of the standing timber on the south end of Mercer Island. The image is generated using a side scan sonar towed behind a boat about 20 feet off the bottom. The trees are visible mostly from the shadows they cast.

There was a video I do recall seeing, but all the links now seem to be gone.  It was bit disorienting, so aside from a glimpse of something tree-like, it was alot of darkness and blurriness, which makes one thin.  Ben Griner of Coastal Sensing who explored the Lake via sonar and underwater is, quoted in the story “…describes the drowned trees off the southern coast of Mercer Island as a thrill to swim through (although he gets not everyone would see it that way). “It’s certainly a disorienting dive,” he said. “A lot of people call it really freaky. Other people describe it as exciting and interesting.” The lake is pitch black at that depth — and being underwater can mess with one’s sense of movement. Griner said it’s sometimes difficult to tell if the water is moving or he is, and divers often bump into things.  “Because of how long the forest has been under water and how busy the lake is, most trees are just the trunks now,” he said. “It can be a little creepy, but it’s really fun to swim through the trees.”

 

From the Wikipedia page, the location of the underwater forests are located in yellow, adjacent to Mercer Island to the south, and another segment.  Per the page, the earthquake from around 900 C.E. created “The landslides on heavily wooded land created “bizarre submerged forests” of old-growth timber, preserved by the cool water and low oxygen in the deep lake.[1][5] These sunken forests were known to early European settlers of the Seattle area, for whom the snags could be a hazard to ships on the lake, and as early as 1919, nearly 200 of the sunken trees had been removed from depths of 65–132 feet (20–40 m)”

David Williams, who does his usual engagingly thorough job of discussing this topic back in 2014 on a post “What Lies Beneath – the Secrets of Lake Washington” discusses ships, and these Submerged Forests as well, explaining a chapter in the story (also mentioned in the KUOW story).

“Mostly forgotten, the trees merited public attention in the 1990s. In 1994, John Tortorelli was caught salvaging wood from the submerged forests. Unfortunately for him the state Department of Natural Resources owns the trees, plus he damaged an underwater sewer line. Found guilty of three counts of theft and three of trafficking in stolen property, Tortorelli received a jail term of three and a half years”

The post includes this map, highlighting the locations of the souther sections identified above.

COAL CAR ENDNOTE

As many discussed the other submerged worlds of ships and forests, both the KUOW article and David Williams mention coal cars on the bottom of the Lake as well.  Williams elaborates on the the eastside coal connection, which saw  a constant stream of “… coal was loaded on railroad cars at Newcastle and lowered 900 feet by tram to Lake Washington, where the cars traveled on a barge to Union Bay and then on a tram over the narrow neck of land now crossed by SR-520. A second barge carried the coal cars across Lake Union to a train (Seattle’s first) that carried the coal its final mile to a final tram, which lowered the ore down to a massive coal bunker at the base of Pike Street. It was on one of these trips across Lake Washington that the barge dropped its load of coal cars now sitting at the bottom of the lake.”  

With that frequency, the accident was bound to happen. To verify this concept, a cool shot from Coastal Sensing shows the scattered remains of perhaps these same “Coal Cars in Lake Washington Seattle.  Lost in a storm while transporting coal from Coal Creek to the small city of Seattle.” (read more about this here).


HEADER: Lake Union and Lake Washington Bathymetry – via GUE-Seattle Project Baseline Map

There are some that shape Seattle, including Lake Washington to the east (see above header image), a massive 21,500 acres of lake area and a max depth of 214 feet, draining a watershed of over 550 square miles and defines the entire inland edge of the city.  In the medium size category is centrally located Lake Union, (below) which encompasses 580 acres, a max depth of 50 ft, and a similarly larger watershed.  These, along with the Salish Sea to the west, and the Ship Canal and locks, literally form the hourglass shape of the City of Seattle and make up much of the story of the city in terms of water.

Nautical charts aside, we will have plenty more to come on these in terms of history and form, as well as some new efforts that have unlocked some mysteries hidden in their depths.  For now, In addition to these large lakes, there are a number of small lakes that dot the landscape, remnants of the glacial action, namely in the form of kettle ponds. King County has a site for Lakes Data and Descriptions, which includes both, but of particular interest is the page for Small Lakes Data and Info, which allows access to information on these lake, including some simple yet compelling bathymetric maps.   Green Lake falls into the small lake category (and also has been plagued with water quality issues.  The bathymetry shows the current shoreline, which has a lake surface of 259 acres with a contributing watershed (although no contributing streams anymore) of 1875 acres.

For a slightly different visual,this 1938 W.P.A Sanitary Survey map (via the Seattle Municipal Archives page) shows a color coded look “Showing Depth Contours of Green Lake as of 1936”.

Those familiar with the story will know that the shoreline of the lake was changed a bit around the turn of the 20th century, and the addition of the waterfowl named island by said WPA also was not an original, but more on the historic manipulation of the shoreline of Green Lake at a future date.

For now, another interesting resource on the King County Lake site charting of various lake metrics, including water quality.  As I mentioned, water quality issues, mostly in the form of toxic algae growth, have been problematic in Green Lake, with a peak issue in 2013 and a spike in 2016   Some historical data shows the situation in 2016, which shows a spike in Chlorphyll-a, which is an indicator of algae growth, and subsequent nutrient and temperature charts.

The smaller lakes in North Seattle also appear, including the smallest (yet deepest) Haller Lake, which has a surface are of 15 acres, with a max depth of 36 feet.

Bitter Lake has a surface area of 19 acres with a depth up to 31 feet.

 

 

Both are probably similar in size today as they were in the 1800s, based on the historical maps.  The land uses and while the land use has changed, also probably have similar catchment zones.  Maps on the site outline these watersheds, for instance the 331 acre drainage of the lake.  As mentioned on the site: “This map shows the area of the watershed relative to the area of the lake. Generally speaking, the larger a watershed is relative to a lake, the greater the influence land use practices on lake water quality.”

An interesting tidbit on this was discovering the amazing Lakes of Washington by Ernest E. Walcott published in the early 1960s which was the basis for much of the bathymetric info included on the King County site and other resources.  I’ll expand on at a later date, but in that vein, while outside of the city proper, the range of bathymetric maps, so I snipped a few pages out of this document, which includes lakes in King County that are part of the Lake Stewardship Program – just for a flavor of different lake forms in comparison (at least formally, as they do vary in scale) – all of which are derived from the work of Wolcott.

And if you still need your Lake Washington bathymetry fix, one I did find, for the more artistic (or looking for a gift for that special map nerd) are these fun wood fun maps (found amongst other local and national water bodies) sold on Etsy by ‘Beneath the Sail’

 


HEADER: Nautical Chart of Lake Washington

The final installment of books looking at London hidden hydrology is Walking on Water: London’s Hidden Rivers Revealed, by Stephen Myers.  As part of the parade of books on the topic published in 2011, this takes a very different approach than the tour/photo guides of Talling and Bolton, reflecting Myers’ background as an engineer.  If you’ve checked out the previous post on the Barton book, you’ll recognize some of this similar analysis, as the 2016 3rd Edition of ‘The Lost Rivers of London’ includes Myers as a co-author, and seems a hybrid of this book and Barton’s earlier versions.

On that note, Myers approaches the project from that engineering perspective, and its loaded with info.  A blurb from Amazon“London’s hidden – or lost – rivers are a source of fascination. This book concentrates on seven North London rivers – the Fleet, the Walbrook, the Tyburn, the Westbourne, Counter’s Creek, Stamford Brook and the Black Ditch. The author, a professional water engineer, describes their sources and traces their individual histories, setting out their influence on the development of London and their use and abuse by society, eventually leading to their disappearance. The original watercourses of each of the seven rivers are shown on London street maps to a detail never previously attempted. Research to enable this included extensive on-site analysis of their river catchment topographies and desk-top studies of numerous old maps and literary references. Walking on Water ends on an optimistic note. Drawing on his professional experience, the author proposes a practical, affordable and exciting approach to recreating riverside parks and walks in the London boroughs through which the hidden rivers passed, which uses their source waters to refresh the lakes of the Royal Parks.”

Myers breaks down the history of hidden rivers, discusses a good amount on geology and the form of the rivers, and discusses their ‘uses and abuses’, all info covered in other places, but again with a unique focus here.  The second half of the book includes specific rivers, an overall map shows some of the North Bank Rivers (click to enlarge) covered, including all the usual suspects from other books.

Also of interest is a comparative profile, showing the central London Rivers.  The relationship of the rivers in terms of altitude from headwaters to outfall is a complement to plan relationships, and particularly in the context of London where all the rivers flow into the same source, the Thames, it allow for some good comparison.

The development of the City of London is of great interest, named the chapter ‘A City Grows, Its Rivers Beggared’ and how this rapid urbanization impacted the rivers both in demand for fresh water and degradation due to pollution.  The diagram below (which would have aided with some color and texture) shows the expansion of the city, notably the sprawling growth between 1800 and 1900 (marked by the gray inner zone and outer black line).

And while the chapter on ‘Mapping London’s Hidden Rivers’ is helpful in outlining the methodology, the results that come from this work are less than stellar.  All the diagrams and maps here are black and white, using a base map derived from the Geographers A-Z Map Co (similar to Barton & Myers) which again offers legibility and usability issues that leave a lot to be desired.  While the maps in the 2016 book were in color, they seemed overly detailed and took away from the routes of the rivers. In this case, black and white flattens it all out and their small size makes the cramped and difficult to use.  A good hybrid would be a black and white base with the paths drawn in color, perhaps?

As Myers makes a point multiple times, “it was a considerable surprise to learn that there were no large-scale maps, readily accessible to the general public, which showed their routes through the metropolis.” (14)  Perhaps Barton’s original 1962 book insert doesn’t totally qualify as ‘accessible’, but it does, and much more successfully, provide a large scale map of the routes that Myers was missing. He does mention obviously using Barton, and also references a book I had not heard about previously, London Under London by a very appropriately named duo for the task, Trench & Hillman.  Another reference was to a future volume, “Walking on Water – the Hidden Water Walks” to follow this one, but I’ve not found any mention that that project came to fruition.  So perhaps that was going to be the vehicle for better, user friendly maps, that never materialized.

For each river chapter, he does include the sections of the routes, again in very small size, which I think are very helpful for visualizing the routes of streams.

The final chapter does offer a strategy for a project entitled the Hamstead Water Conduit, where he speculates on a proposal that could “recreate short, clean stretches of the Central London rivers – more particularly the Fleet, the Tyburn, the Westbourne, and possibly, the Walbrook, the City of London’s own river.” (200).  He goes on to mention that “the source waters for the Fleet, the Tyburn and the Westbourne rivers are the springs and surface water which drain naturally from Hampstead Health.  These are the only source water of the hidden rivers that have been protected from pollution and which remain eminently accessible today.” (201)

A diagram shows a proposed route, which connects existing daylit portions with new or reconfigured surface channels in places, fed by the springs mentioned above.  While not a continuous river, the result is a linear water course that works with the boundaries of the existing city fabric while taking advantage of opportunities to create surface waters.  A “…‘feel-good’ project” but one with environmental benefits, flood mitigation, recreation, tourism, and infrastructure reduction. As noted by Myers, the social benefits as well, allowing us to “lift spirits in depressing times, but also contribute a small stimulus towards better economic times.” (208)

A more technical diagram shows some of the interconnections between the old and new systems, as well as the make-up water using existing groundwater stores (a metaphorical routing) and creating a water balance that kept water uses constant while using excess flows to ‘restore’ river segments.

 

The strength of this book, as indicated in the above analysis, is a solid, technical background in both the formation of rivers, the geological and hydrological framework in which these waterways emerged, the development implications that drove them underground, and some realistic considerations on why it would be difficult to daylight them, as they have been so fully consumed into the existing sewer systems. But also, some defensible and plausible daylighting strategies that take these multitude of factors into play.

The glossary ‘Watery Definitions’ on page 20 is a good touch, and discussion of what is a creek, stream, river, etc. is one that few tend to delve into in any detail.  As he mentions, due to size and typology, “it might seem more approrpriate to make reference to London’s ‘Hidden Streams’ rather than to London’s hidden rivers, as the flows in them could not really be described as ‘copious’ and their water surface widths generally lay in the narrow band of between 2 and 6 metres.  However, these watercourses have been referred to historically and collectively as ‘rivers’, and so this book will perpetuate that possibly inaccurate usage.” (22)

The Disclaimer at the beginning was interesting as well, as it seemed appropriate for anyone with a background in design and engineering to include the cover-your-ass language about accuracy, liability and not using the information for specific purposes.  This shows up also in the later Barton & Myers version of Lost Rivers, but does bring up a point about representation and what it could mean.  The accuracy of old maps .  He also warns about sewer exploration, I guess as well a necessary caveat for disseminating this type of information.

Each book I’ve covered offers something unique to the conversation, and this provides a great resource for those interested in London, but also a wider context of the emergence of urban creeks and rivers which seem applicable to all places.  A level of technical rigor also makes this a valuable companion to other resources that focus on places, history, landmarks and culture.

 

 

Jumping forward a bit,  the most recent of the books on London from June 2017 is another slim, exploratory volume, London’s Hidden Rivers by David Fathers.  Dubbed as “A walkers guide to the subterranean waterways of London’, this small book is extensive in scope and graphics.  From Amazon: “David Fathers traces the course of twelve hidden rivers in a series of detailed guided walks, illustrating the traces they have left and showing the ways they have shaped the city. Each walk starts at the tube or rail station nearest to the source of the river, and then follows it down to the Thames through parkland, suburbia, historic neighbourhoods and the vestiges of our industrial past. Along the way there are encounters with such extraordinary Londoners as William Blake, Judy Garland, Paul Robeson, Terence Donovan, Bradley Wiggins, Nelson, Lenin, Freud, and the great Victorian engineer Joseph Bazalgette.  Hidden Rivers of London contains over 120 km of walks, both north and south of the Thames. Winding through the hills, valleys and marshes that underlie the city, every page is a revelation.”

Fathers is an illustrator and map-maker, with a strong focus on walkiing guides, so this is in line with the other tour-specific guides, however, he visual and exploratory nature is inventive and really works with large, illustrated spreads (even in a small book), that highlight key points, while remaining focused on the route and the relation to the former waterway.  Text fills these empty spaces, in Fathers’ distinctive style.

There’s also a story beyond the story, not trying to get too much technical knowledge, but looking more at storytelling, for instance the Serpentine in Hyde Park, part of the route of the River Westbourne.  Some snippets of history, along with significant modern features, make for an interest mix.

I had seen snippets of his other books on the The London Thames Path and The Regents Canal, and really enjoyed encountering his work for the first time from this Londonist post, “The Lost London River With A Musical History“, which recounted one of the stories that eventually made it to the book, that of the River Westbourne, which “…like so many London streams over the past few hundred years, has been press-ganged by the demands of hygiene into becoming a sewer, and buried for the needs of ever more living space. And yet despite all this, the stream alone seems to have a mysterious, magnetic quality of attracting musicians to its banks.”  He recounts the experiences of a number of musical talents over history that were related to the hidden river, including below, where Judy Garland lived in 1969 (Site E) and Site G, which was the “site of the former Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens where a young Mozart gave a musical performance in 1764”  

A review from the Londonist mentions: “Each river is mapped in some detail, allowing the walker to follow closely, looking for clues: here a sloping side-road, there a gushing drain. The real joys are the little puddles of trivia that accompany each walk. Who knew that Lenin often frequented a fish and chip shop in the River Fleet valley? Or that Van Gogh fell in love on the banks of the Effra?”  Fathers had written often for the Londonist on the subject, with some great weekend walks along the routes of the Wandle, Lea, and Ravensbourne, with the expected maps and sketches, such as this from Ravensbourne.

You can follow him on Twitter @TheTilbury, and he’s also got some great info on all the books on his website, as well as this poster of the Thames, which “This full colour, illustrated poster, is packed with information about the architecture, bridges and monuments that line the banks of the River Thames as it flows through the capital city from Putney to Tower Bridge.”