Ode to the Eddy Muffin

Foam and duckweed in one of Julie’s research sites above the JC Boyle dam cover the surface of the water. Foam swirls and builds into pillows as it follows the many currents in the eddy. As a whitewater kayaker, we called the foam “eddy muffins.” I hadn’t known what the eddy muffins were or why they were found in some rivers but not others. The Klamath River is full of them, but the nearby Smith and Trinity Rivers do not have eddy muffins. It was a mystery.

Eddy muffins are a result of eutrophication which occurs in water with high nutrient levels. Scientists refer to the Klamath River as a productive river – a river that produces a large number of plants and algae. Eutrophication is naturally occurring, especially in productive rivers and warm shallow lakes like the Upper Klamath Lake, but it is also exacerbated by industrial wastewater and fertilizers and waste from farming and ranching practices. Eutrophication can severely decrease water oxygen levels, creating conditions that can kill fish and other aquatic animals.

This eddy full of foam and duckweed swirls upstream from where the JC Boyle dam once was on the Klamath River. There is a car submerged in it too. It is one of Dr. Alexander’s research sites. It’s my favorite one, not because it is the most beautiful, but because it is the most repulsive. Julie dives in it but I never wanted to touch the water. Over the years my revulsion transformed into fascination. I thought the foam was caused by pollution and poor water quality because of the dams and farms. Maybe some of it is. But it is also part of the river’s ecosystem. I’m curious about how it is now that the four dams below it are no longer there. Julie studies worms that are part of the lifecycle of a parasite that decimates salmon. I want to know if this eddy has lost some of its foam and its worms now that the dams are removed. If so, are the foam and worms connected?

One of the things that fascinated me is that I can start with something that repulses me, but the more deeply I look at it, the more interesting and beautiful it becomes. The foam is like a slowly moving low relief sculpture on the surface of the water. It reveals the patterns of movement and flow of the currents moving in opposing directions. The reflection of light and its accompanying shadows are sublime.

Ode to the Eddy Muffin: Eddy at the Gun Club V, oil on linen, 14 x 16 in., 2025, Leah Wilson

Ode to the Eddy Muffin: Eddy at the Gun Club IV, oil on linen, 14 x 16 in., 2025, Leah Wilson

Ghost of JC Boyle

JC Boyle is not a ghost yet, but it will be soon. It’s a large, complicated concrete and metal monument of human engineering and hubris. It divides, holds back, and diverts flow, and passage. This relic of 1958 will finally be coming down.

Dams like these are disorienting. They disrupt the river so it no longer acts as a river does. This one is almost obsolete.

Its removal will cause disruption for some individuals and communities. Places they know will no longer exist. Markers of memories will change shape. Rhythms and patterns will change. This is another form of disorientation. It can be traumatic when a place, naturally formed or engineered – it matters not, quickly shape shifts.

I am impatient to see the change.

Yet, I still feel some twinges of resistance because I too have memories here, held by this dam.

Writing

Thank you for your support!

Support for the ongoing research of this project is from Dr. Jerri Bartholomew, director of Oregon State University’s John L. Freyer Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory, and Assistant Professor) Senior Research) Julie Alexander.

Shifting Resonance: Klamath River is being created with the generous funding from the Oregon Arts Commission, the Ford Family Foundation, and Oregon Sea Grant.