The river mouth speaks: water quality as storyteller in decolonization of the Port of Tacoma

Abstract

In this paper, I describe historical geographies of settler colonization and decolonization in the Port of Tacoma, Washington tideflats using the lens of biological, habitat, flow, and physico-chemical indicators of water quality. The Puyallup River empties into what is now known as the Port of Tacoma. Before the Port’s industrialization, the tideflats and bay were rich with shellfish and anadromous fish, important traditional sources of food for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. Colonization and allotment led to severe environmental degradation and removal of the tribe from their land. Because of waste dumped by settler colonial industry, the nearshore tideflats at the Puyallup River’s mouth are now an EPA Superfund site, containing phthalates, heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs, and more. Over the years of its industrialization, the river has been channelized and the shoreline armored. In addition, for many years the City of Tacoma dumped sewage directly into the Port waterways. In the 1950 and 1960s, the Puyallup Tribe participated in the Puget Sound “Fish Wars,” forcing attention to treaty rights through off-reservation fish-ins, and leading to the 1974 Boldt Decision upholding tribal treaty rights. With the legal recourse enabled by the Boldt Decision, the Puyallup Tribe successfully sued the Port, interstate, railroad companies, polluting industry, and several cities for occupied land denoted as theirs by the Treaty of Medicine Creek. In addition, the tribe has participated in several lawsuits forcing aquatic habitat restoration and remediation efforts along the river and tideflats. I describe colonial and decolonizing processes of shaping and re-shaping the river mouth, beginning in the late 1800s, and assess changes in water quality from the mid-1800s through present day using recent data on contaminants, as well as proxies of indicator species for unavailable data from earlier eras. I use these data to understand the ways the tribe’s legal challenges to colonization have impacted the area’s environmental health. I conclude that legal affirmations of tribal sovereignty are positively associated with estuarine ecosystem health.