“These pocket estuaries are disproportionately important for juvenile salmon and they are, unfortunately, the types of places that have been pretty heavily impacted by development,” says Jamie Glasgow, director of science and research at Wild Fish Conservancy, a nonprofit conservation organization headquartered in Duvall.

Camp Colman moved from its original Gig Harbor site to the site of the fish farm in the late 1960s, in part because it wanted to make use of the lagoon’s still waters for teaching water sports.