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Chimacum Creek

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Chimacum Creek (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator(s): Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 08:53, 16 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have written a number of articles on Pacific Northwest streams and rivers recently, and this is the first I've brought to FAC. This is a fairly large creek in western Washington, running through a rural farming region on the Olympic Peninsula. Like many PNW streams, it was dredged and channelized in the early 20th century, threatening the ever-important salmon population. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 08:53, 16 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

PMC

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I am being so good and doing my review right away and not letting the ADHD win

  • "the East Fork Chimacum near the community of Chimacum" I think you need a comma here between Chimacum and near
    • Added.-G
  • "In 2024–2025, a monitoring station near the mouth of the creek reported..." this is nitpicky but right now you're saying that the reporting was done in 2024–2025. I might revise to something like "For the 2024–2025 water year". Dealer's choice idk
    • Done.-G
  • Suggest embiggening the Geology lead image as the text is very tiny and unreadable at current size, even with 10% zoom to account for my ancient eyes
    • Done.-G
  • "such as hummocky terrain and kettles" comma after kettles to close the clause
    • Done.-G
  • Maybe throw in an image of one of the fish for the biology section, just to be fun?
    • I wouldn't want to include a picture of a fish that's not actually from the creek.-G
  • "Forest restoration projects were made" idk if "made" is the word. "carried out"?
    • Done.-G
  • Do any sources discuss why beavers were removed? Also, I might swap "formerly" to "once", it just sounds nicer
    • Clarified.-G
  • I might suggest adding at least one more subsection to History; having just one near the bottom makes it feel oddly balanced
    • Done.-G
  • "before briefly reopening" "before" is unnecessary here
    • Done.-G
  • "entered a period of decline" could probably be trimmed to "declined"
    • Done.-G
  • "Reed canarygrass was introduced" do we know why/how?
    • Clarified.-G
  • "By the 1950s, a USDA report" since the report is dated to 1955 by the source, I'd just say that
    • Done.-G
  • "The previously prevalent livestock farming" since you haven't previously established livestock farming as prevalent, might reword to "Livestock farming, once prevalent, has declined..."
    • Done.-G

That's all I got, a nice tidy little article. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:35, 16 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Eddie891

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I've just written a few creek articles, admittedly on the other side of the country, so might have something to add here. WIll do my best not to duplicate PMC's comments above.

  • In the infobox you list the basin as 37 sqmi, but in the article it's 33-37. Why the discrepancy?
    • Fixed it. Sources disagree on the size.-G
  • Washington Department of Ecology mentions and East Fork and West Fork, while I think you refer to what here we call the West Fork as the Main stem (which, by the way, I think is worth linking). Do other sources call it a/the West Fork? Here we also have the east fork attributed with about 1/3 of the stream's flow, while in our article we say "a little under a fifth"
    • More to the point, I think you can do a bit more with the source. We have 20 years of data for the creek's flow in this source, including mean flow rates for different months. Maybe it's worth including some broader trends, as opposed to just the one year?
      • Sources call it different things: Gatley et al. 2015 calls it the main stem (see p. 6), Bahls and Rubin 1996 say 'West Fork' (see p. 2), Jones et al. 2013 says the basin consists of Chimacum Creek and its tributary East Fork Chimacum Creek (see p. 2), while the 2024 Drainage District Analysis says West Chimacum Creek (CHI) and East Chimacum Creek (ECH) comprising the primary waterways. (see p. 4). I brought discussions of flow to the Flow section and expanded it a little, including the discrepancy between sources. But to your second point, I'm unsure how to present that. I feel like averaging out many years would veer to far into OR, but I don't know how much raw data would be helpful here. Could you give more specifics about what you think we should add? -G
        • I think it would be worth clarifying the different names, maybe in an explanatory footnote. I guess you're right on the mean flow, I suppose I misread the yearly mean as a 20 year mean. Eddie891 Talk Work 15:17, 17 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do we cite in the article that the agricultural land is particularly fertile, as you mention in the lede? (I don't think that land being used for agriculture necessarily establishes that by itself
    • You're right; removed that.-G
  • "Much of the land in this area was purchased by the Fish and Wildlife Service and Washington Recreation and Conservation Office" I would say something like "Federal/US Fish and Wildlife Service" - my impression based on rest of article wa that we are talking about a Washington FWS
    • Clarified.-G
  • Surprised to see no mention of pesticides/fertilizers/pollution- often a concern on water quality in agricultural areas. Anything on this?
    • Milked a bunch of stuff on water quality from the 2024 Jefferson County Conservation District, realized I completely forgot to add that.-G
  • Is the creek still stocked? You mention some historical instances, but nothing today.
    • I can't seem to find mention of it. -G
  • "The mainstem discharges out of the small Delanty Lake" Source doesn't seem to speak to the lake's size, to my eyes
    • Good point, removed the adjective.-G

Just some preliminary comments, will give the article a proper read through over the next couple of days. Eddie891 Talk Work 11:22, 16 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  • I still think it would be worth linking main stem
    • Done.-G
  • You say "The mainstem creek (also known as West Chimacum Creek) originates from a series of springs and ponds in the forested hills" and then say "The mainstem discharges out of Delanty Lake" which, to me, contradict each other somewhat. Does it originate at the lake or from a series of springs and ponds? If the series of springs and ponds mentioned in the first para here are the creeks and lakes mentioned in the second para, why is the first part even necessary?
    • Rephrased this.-G
  • Odd to me that we get the elevation of the East Fork's origins, but not the West
    • Been trying to find that statistic to little luck.-G
  • "draining the broad Chimacum Valley" What is 'broad' supposed to mean in this context?
    • Removed.-G
  • " decreasing annual precipitation" relative to what?
    • Clarified.-G
  • you say "The valleys of both creeks have thick, poorly-drained soils", but this source says "much of the agricultural land is along the relatively flat areas of the Chimacum Creek valley and the Leland Creek valley where soils are typically quite permeable" (3-61), which to me contradicts the idea of poor drainage
    • I'm just repeating what the USGS says: The valleys of Chimacum Creek and East Fork of Chimacum Creek, portions of the Tarboo Valley, and other glacial depressions are characterized by thick sequences of poorly drained soils rich in organic material. Poor drainage doesn't necessarily mean the soil isn't very permeable; it could just be very saturated with water. Nevertheless, the word sequences might be the key here; added that.-G
  • "with less than an inch of rain per month during July and August." is this an average? A record low?
    • Clarified.-G
  • "Concentrations in downstream areas has declined over time, but continues to violate safety standards." This feels like something worth having an "as of" at the end, especially if there hasn't been testing in the past decade, as seems to be the case?
    • Fair, clarified.-G
  • "During this period, many testing stations on the main stem showed temperature levels that violated the state guideline of 60.8 °F (16.0 °C) during the summer,." Stray comma, but I also don't get what this means. What is the guideline for?
    • Water temperature; clarified.-G
  • I think I read something in a source about the flow of the river varying widely, to the point that in the summer no water flows into the west fork from Delaney Lake () that I think would be worth adding.
    • Oh, good catch; added.-G
  • "and an unidentified species of minnow" I am a bit confused why you include this, if "are also known to inhabit the creek" already leaves room open for potential other fish that we don't know about.
    • Fair, removed.-G
  • I get the sense that the decline of chum was in the 1980s, rather than 1990s based on this source?
  • I generally don't think that "expatriated" extends to non-human subjects; particularly when not in the context of countries

Some more Eddie891 Talk Work 16:00, 17 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    • Huh, I've seen it papers, but you're right it seems uncommon. Reworded.-G
  • I still would suggest putting the alternate names of the beginning of the mainstem (west fork etc) in a note (ie: "Also known as X, Y, Z") - Unless you think there's a good reason not to?
    • I feel an EFN is unnecessary and hard to source (as no source specifically discusses the name of the creek) but I just added a parenthetical 'also known as'. - G
  • The report on water quality goes into some more depth about the trend of water temperature than we do ("The temperature trend from 1998 to 2013 showed a decrease of 1oC (1.8 oF) on Chimacum Creek's main stem and a decrease of 2oC (3.6oF) on the east fork" from the abstract. Not sure we need to go into the actual temp numbers, but the trend seems relevant
    • added.-G
  • The sentence beginning "Efforts to restore riparian forest conditions began in the 1980s and 1990s." feels like it should now sequentially come after we talk about the end of the summer chum? That's certainly how the cited source treats the history
    • Fixed.-G
  • I still don't understand the "guideline" for water temperature. The cited source seems to put it in the context of salmonid habitat, but we don't mention anything about that, so I'm not sure what to make of it from our article.
    • I feel it might be unnecessary, esp. as the source expresses doubt whether its actually a good gauge on salmon suitability. Removed that.-G
  • I am generally a bit unhappy with the Biology/Hydrology sections. I think, this is because what we are talking about is largely the *current* Biology/Hydrology of the creek (in part because there just isn't much information about the historic conditions), but we keep doubling back and qualifying the history of parts and it ends up feeling like there's a bunch of history in these other sections (but inconsistent, and imo somewhat duplicative, history). And the history section itself covers a lot of the biological/hydrological history (ie restoration projects)! I'd vote to move what isn't in the history section already there, and cut the rest. For example: In the biology section, "Driven from the area by forest clearing and trapping during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, beavers were reintroduced to the watershed in the 1960s, and became prevalent as trees spread along the creek." -> "Beavers are prevalent along [portions of?] the creek", and in history mention the reintroduction/driving out. So, the question here is whether you have considered doing this. Perhaps you have and decided that it did not make sense, but I'm curious to hear why, if that is the case.

Eddie891 Talk Work 15:43, 18 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Eddie891: Good point: I reorganized some stuff. Where a present situation is relatively new (ie, the spread of beavers or reed canarygrass) I still included dates to provide context. Hope it works better now! Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 16:03, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Suggest scaling up the map
    • Done.-G
  • File:Chimacum_Creek_in_Port_Hadlock,_Washington,_ca_1898-1899_(WASTATE_2549).jpeg: when and where was this first published? Ditto File:Mouth_of_Chimacum_Creek_in_Port_Hadlock,_Washington,_ca_1898-1899_(WASTATE_2548).jpeg, File:Klallam_people_near_canoe.jpg, File:Man_in_horse-drawn_carriage_on_bridge_over_Chimacum_Creek_in_Port_Hadlock,_Washington,_ca_1898-1899_(WASTATE_2550).jpeg
    • Oops, the Washington State Archives ones should have been PD-US-Unpublished; fixed this. The description states that "Klallam people near canoe.jpg" was published by a local postcard company c. 1914.
  • File:Map_missoula_floods.gif: source link is dead. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:59, 16 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

FM

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  • Some preliminary comments. There seem to be some WP:duplinks, which can be highlighted with this script: FunkMonk (talk) 00:03, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fixed.-G
  • "The main stem creek (also known as West Chimacum Creek) originates the forested hills" originates in?
    • Fixed.-G
  • Link unincorporated community. As a non-American, I have no idea what this means.
    • Done.-G
  • "filled in by several acres of added material in the 19th and early 20th centuries, although habitat restoration in 2006 cleared most of this fill material" what is "added material"? And doesn't "added" go without saying since you begin with "filled"?
      • Fixed.-G
  • Link basic.
    • Done.-G
  • Link salmon.
    • Done.-G

@FunkMonk: Thank you; got to all these. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 15:34, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good, I'm not sure if the fill sentence had to be completely removed (seems relevant), I see you later down say "deposited large amounts of fill material", so maybe it could just be reworded and restored? FunkMonk (talk) 18:24, 21 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That was in response to Eddie's request that things be rearranged to be more chronological. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 01:32, 22 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link Fraser Glaciation in the caption.
    • Done.-G
  • Could explain what alluvial means in parenthesis.
    • Done.-G
  • "Western settlement" Earlier you say " Euro-American settlement", which would seem more appropriate? Technically, the settlers came from the east of there, also...
    • Fair, done.-G
  • "derives from the name" Do we know what the name itself means?
    • Sadly, the sources don't seem to say. It may be unknown.-G
  • "a faulty hydrant released" and "a culvert failure" what were these associated with? A faulty hydrant where?
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