Duwamish River
The Duwamish River is the name of the lower 12 miles of
Washington state's Green River. Its industrialized estuary is known as the Duwamish Waterway. At one time, the Black River and the White and Green Rivers, which combined at
Auburn, joined at Tukwila to form the Duwamish; however, in 1912 the Cedar River was diverted to empty into
Lake Washington instead of the Black River, though the lake itself still emptied into the Black. Then, with the opening of the
Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1916, the lake's level dropped nearly nine feet and the Black River dried up.
Encyclopedia
The
Duwamish River is the name of the lower 12 miles of
Washington state's Green River. Its industrialized estuary is known as the
Duwamish Waterway. At one time, the Black River and the White and Green Rivers, which combined at
Auburn, joined at Tukwila to form the Duwamish; however, in 1912 the Cedar River was diverted to empty into
Lake Washington instead of the Black River, though the lake itself still emptied into the Black. Then, with the opening of the
Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1916, the lake's level dropped nearly nine feet and the Black River dried up. Hence the point of the name change is no longer the confluence of the Green and Black rivers, though it has not changed location.
The Duwamish River is named after the Duwamish tribe.
The Duwamish Waterway empties into
Elliott Bay in
Seattle, divided by the man-made
Harbor Island into two channels, the East and West Waterways.
Due to
20th century industrial
contamination, the lower five miles of the Duwamish was declared a
Superfund site by the
Environmental Protection Agency. The contaminants include
PCBs, PAHs, mercury, and
phthalates. The cleanup of the river has been controversial: the original plan was to dredge the river and dump the resulting sludge in
Tacoma's Commencement Bay, 26 miles to the southwest. Local opposition to this plan forced the sludge to be shipped to Klickitat County in south central
Washington.
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