Featured Image: Pictured alongside the Pilchuck, Karen is standing on soil held in place by a retaining wall built downstream from the dam.
The wall was not removed as requested by the community.
Karen Guzak’s 12 years of elective service with the City of Snohomish ended on December 4, 2019, with her final Tuesday evening city council meeting. At this meeting, she and her colleagues gave their unanimous approval to remove the city’s diversion dam on the Pilchuck River.
Karen served as the Mayor for seven years and whenever talk turned to “water rates,” discussion of the diversion dam on the Pilchuck was included, as it was during a “Coffee with the Mayor” event held at the Snohomish Library on May 21, 2016 — Karen’s birthday which is why I was there with my camera.
Below is an excerpt from the movie I put together of the meeting in 2016, titled “A Brief History of Our Water System.”
On July 27, this past summer, I joined Steve Schuller, who is now the city’s administrator, on a visit to the Pilchuck dam removal in progress — it was an impressive sight!
As if a scene from a biblical story of parted waters allowing fantastic mechanical creatures access to destroy what remained of the concrete structure: the stairs and platform where I interviewed Steve in 2016!
Steve snapped a picture of me standing, and showing, where the dam once stood. It was a once-in-a-lifetime role! Steve explained with enthusiasm on the way back that while the City of Snohomish partnered with the Tulalip Tribes, it was the Tribes that led and funded the project, securing national grants.
Learn more from the Tulalip Tribes Natural Resources
and the NOAA Fisheries websites.
Karen is picture with the Pilchuck Dam No. 2 Plaque, once the entrance to the stairs leading down to a platform level with the dam; and which is being destroyed in the clip above.
(Tap to Enlarge)
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