The Skagit River is the third largest river on the west coast, consisting of over 150 miles from high up in the Cascade and down to the Puget Sound. Here we will identify the cause in the decreased discharge of Diablo Dam and Skagit River. On the other hand, this paper will cover how water diversion affected the land and aquatic habitat along the Skagit River. In addition, we will analyze the stream flow of the Diablo Dam and the role it has played in allocating the water. Furthermore, we will explore the floodplain that the Skagit River covers and how humans have impacted it. .
Introduction.
The Skagit River is found in the state of Washington, United States. It runs from the southwestern part of British Columbia in Canada through the northwestern part of Washington State. The Skagit River is about 150 miles in length, meandering its way from the high Cascades down to the lowland of western Washington (seattle.gov). It has created multiple ox-bow lake but, they are not completely formed yet (seattle.gov). There are three dams within the Skagit River; all are located in the high Cascade of Washington. The middle dam is the Diablo Dam that was created in the 1930 (seattle.gov). With the creation of the Diablo Dam, the Diablo Reservoir was formed. The Skagit River's lower half runs through highly populated areas, which means it will impact the residents. In addition, the Skagit River carries valuable fish, such as steelhead, trout and five different types of salmon (wdfw.wa.gov). Finally, the river is home to one of the largest population of bald eagles in the United States (wdfw.wa.gov).
In the early 1900s, the city of Seattle started to grow rapidly and needed a new power source to support the growing population as shown in figure 1. The Seattle City Light decided to use the Skagit River as the source of energy, since it ran from high up in the Cascade Mountain and all the way down to the Puget Sound (seattle.