Fields And Streams

In 1863, a homesteader named Samuel Calhoun moved to the Skagit Valley of northwestern Washington with an audacious plan: he would settle in a marshy tidal flat – which was underwater for about half of the year. His plan was that, with some sweat and a strong shovel, he would build a network of earthen dams (called dikes) to hold back the seawater and make the land farmable. This was a common practice in New Brunswick, Canada, where he had learned it in his childhood. When he arrived on the coast, he discovered, to his surprise, that he wasn’t alone. His new neighbor, Michael Sullivan, had already begun clearing and diking his own claim. The two men joined forces, doing backbreaking labor in the mud during low tide. Their brute strength and progress revealed what would eventually become some of the most productive farmland in the world. The Skagit Valley possesses a perfect combination of elements that make for great farming: rich soils, plentiful rainwater water, and a perfectly mild maritime climate.

The Skagit Valley has been primarily a farming community ever since, and in the 150+ years since those first settlers started building dikes, the region has truly blossomed. Today about 90,000 acres in the floodplain are classified as farmland, and Skagit County produces more than $366 million worth of agricultural products, around 3% of Washington state's total agricultural sales annually. There are 882 farms in the county, and the majority of them are small farms with less than 50 acres. These farms produce locally grown potatoes, berries, fruits, milk, and vegetables for Seattle and the region. Some farms, like Boldly Grown near Bow, are small and use organic practices, while others are larger and use traditional methods.

The wild and beautiful Skagit River flows from headwaters in the Canadian Rockies and meanders through all that productive farmland. It is not only a source of plentiful irrigation water for those farmers, but is also the home of one of the largest salmon runs in Washington. The Skagit is the last river system in the Lower 48 to bolster all five Pacific salmon species and steelhead that still return here to spawn. Initiatives to protect the health of those salmon have come to the forefront in recent years, bringing a string of legal and legislative challenges to the region.

Water – and who is responsible for it – has been the defining issue in the Skagit since those very first dikes were constructed.

Some see water issues as a battle between farmers, advocacy groups, tribal authorities, and legislators, but in fact, everyone wants the same thing. Every farmer in Skagit County and every lawmaker in Olympia wants for salmon to flourish in the Skagit and for farmers to continue to feed the world from the valley’s rich soil. But when the conversation turns to the best way to accomplish those goals, not everyone sees eye to eye.

For instance, the term “riparian buffer zone” has been used by state officials for decades and suggests that landowners should plant and maintain a border of trees and shrubs on the banks of a waterway. These vegetated buffers create shade that helps keep water temperatures from getting lethally warm for salmon, along with other benefits for fish habitat. In recent years, tribal authorities and advocacy groups, along with some Washington legislators, have tried to create those buffer zones along the Skagit River. In 2008, state officials set a lofty goal: replanting buffers along 100% of the Skagit and its tributaries by 2020 to rein in high temperatures by 2080. The state, however, never fully funded the effort. As of 2020, about 8% of stream miles had been replanted.

In December, then-Governor Jay Inslee signed a new executive order focused on restoring riparian habitats along the Columbia River. Farmers in the Skagit Valley are worried that a similar statewide executive order, using eminent domain, could rob them of their rights and their land. New recommendations from Washington’s Riparian Buffer Task Force states that riparian zones should be implemented on both fish-bearing and non-fishbearing waterways. If these recommendations are implemented, it could lead to forced buffer zones on many urban and rural waterways, whether they carry fish in them or not. The recommendations also include buffers in excess of 200 feet in many areas. Farmers and some social scientists argue that these recommendations lack the site-specific research and landowner involvement necessary to truly improve the rivers and fish habitat. Washington's landscapes and climate are too diverse for a one-size-fits-all approach. Many stakeholders recognize that the solution must follow a local, collaborative approach that is fully funded.

Another regular area of scrutiny and debate is “fecal coliform,” which is a scientific term for bacteria found in poop and its presence in local water bodies. The Washington Department of Ecology first confirmed the presence of fecal coliform in Padilla Bay in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when four local tributaries were put on a list of impaired water sources. In the years since, fecal coliform has been identified as another issue that affects the salmon population of the Skagit watershed.

A report from the Padilla Bay Tributary Fecal Coliform Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) identified six major sources of fecal coliform bacteria: residential and business septic systems, livestock, stormwater, human sources such as hikers or campers, pet waste, and wildlife. But dairy farmers feel like they’ve been unfairly singled out and forced to implement expensive equipment like anaerobic manure digesters and other expensive practices.

Locating and fixing large sources of fecal pollution has significantly reduced pollution levels, but the team at the Skagit Conservation District (SCD) are constantly monitoring for fecal coliform and experimenting with new mitigation strategies. One such example is a UV filtering system, which theoretically uses UV light to kill any harmful fecal coliform bacteria in the water.

“Our idea is to get a solar panel pump and run it through a UV filter and see if the water that is pumped has less or no fecal coliform,” said SCD conservation specialist Taylor Scott. “If experiments are successful, we can implement them around the state. Our river systems really coincide with our farming, and we want to keep them as clean as we can.”

Conservation districts throughout the state have been working with farmers and landowners to voluntarily implement locally led conservation strategies for decades. Whether the land is urban or rural, local conservation districts serve as a link to local expertise and funding available to landowners who want to keep working lands and waterways thriving. Productive fields and streams can co-exist in Washington by consistently funding locally led, site-specific, and voluntary measures. We can have both.